Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (220 page)
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Authors: IVAN TURGENEV
We found ourselves on a flat riverside plain. To the left, newly - mown meadows, with rows of huge hayricks, stretched endlessly till they were lost in the distance; to the right extended the smooth surface of a vast mighty river, till it too was lost in the distance. Not far from the bank, big dark barges slowly rocked at anchor, slightly tilting their slender masts, like pointing fingers. From one of these barges came floating up to me the sounds of a liquid voice, and a fire was burning in it, throwing a long red light that danced and quivered on the water. Here and there, both on the river and in the fields, other lights were glimmering, whether close at hand or far away, the eye could not distinguish; they shrank together, then suddenly lengthened out into great blurs of light; grasshoppers innumerable kept up an unceasing churr, persistent as the frogs of the Pontine marshes; and across the cloudless, but dark lowering sky floated from time to time the cries of unseen birds.
‘Are we in Russia?’ I asked of Alice.
‘It is the Volga,’ she answered.
We flew along the river - bank. ‘Why did you tear me away from there, from that lovely country?’ I began. ‘Were you envious, or was it jealousy in you?’
The lips of Alice faintly stirred, and again there was a menacing light in her eyes…. But her whole face grew stony again at once.
‘I want to go home,’ I said.
‘Wait a little, wait a little,’ answered Alice. ‘To - night is a great night.
It will not soon return. You may be a spectator…. Wait a little.’
And we suddenly flew across the Volga in a slanting direction, keeping close to the water’s surface, with the low impetuous flight of swallows before a storm. The broad waves murmured heavily below us, the sharp river breeze beat upon us with its strong cold wing … the high right bank began soon to rise up before us in the half - darkness. Steep mountains appeared with great ravines between. We came near to them.
‘Shout: “Lads, to the barges!”‘ Alice whispered to me. I remembered the terror I had suffered at the apparition of the Roman phantoms. I felt weary and strangely heavy, as though my heart were ebbing away within me. I wished not to utter the fatal words; I knew beforehand that in response to them there would appear, as in the wolves’ valley of the Freischütz, some monstrous thing; but my lips parted against my will, and in a weak forced voice I shouted, also against my will: ‘Lads, to the barges!’
At first all was silence, even as it was at the Roman ruins, but suddenly I heard close to my very ear a coarse bargeman’s laugh, and with a moan something dropped into the water and a gurgling sound followed…. I looked round: no one was anywhere to be seen, but from the bank the echo came bounding back, and at once from all sides rose a deafening din. There was a medley of everything in this chaos of sound: shouting and whining, furious abuse and laughter, laughter above everything; the plash of oars and the cleaving of hatchets, a crash as of the smashing of doors and chests, the grating of rigging and wheels, and the neighing of horses, and the clang of the alarm bell and the clink of chains, the roar and crackle of fire, drunken songs and quick, gnashing chatter, weeping inconsolable, plaintive despairing prayers, and shouts of command, the dying gasp and the reckless whistle, the guffaw and the thud of the dance…. ‘Kill them! Hang them! Drown them! rip them up! bravo! bravo! don’t spare them!’ could be heard distinctly; I could even hear the hurried breathing of men panting. And meanwhile all around, as far as the eye could reach, nothing could be seen, nothing was changed; the river rolled by mysteriously, almost sullenly, the very bank seemed more deserted and desolate — and that was all.
I turned to Alice, but she put her finger to her lips….
‘Stepan Timofeitch! Stepan Timofeitch is coming!’ was shouted noisily all round; ‘he is coming, our father, our ataman, our bread - giver!’ As before I saw nothing but it seemed to me as though a huge body were moving straight at me…. ‘Frolka! where art thou, dog?’ thundered an awful voice. ‘Set fire to every corner at once — and to the hatchet with them, the white - handed scoundrels!’
I felt the hot breath of the flame close by, and tasted the bitter savour of the smoke; and at the same instant something warm like blood spurted over my face and hands…. A savage roar of laughter broke out all round….
I lost consciousness, and when I came to myself, Alice and I were gliding along beside the familiar bushes that bordered my wood, straight towards the old oak….
‘Do you see the little path?’ Alice said to me, ‘where the moon shines dimly and where are two birch - trees overhanging? Will you go there?’
But I felt so shattered and exhausted that I could only say in reply:
‘Home! home!’
‘You are at home,’ replied Alice.
I was in fact standing at the very door of my house — alone. Alice had vanished. The yard - dog was about to approach, he scanned me suspiciously — and with a bark ran away.
With difficulty I dragged myself up to my bed and fell asleep without undressing.
All the following morning my head ached, and I could scarcely move my legs; but I cared little for my bodily discomfort; I was devoured by regret, overwhelmed with vexation.
I was excessively annoyed with myself. ‘Coward!’ I repeated incessantly; ‘yes — Alice was right. What was I frightened of? how could I miss such an opportunity?… I might have seen Cæsar himself — and I was senseless with terror, I whimpered and turned away, like a child at the sight of the rod. Razin, now — that’s another matter. As a nobleman and landowner … though, indeed, even then what had I really to fear? Coward! coward!’…
‘But wasn’t it all a dream?’ I asked myself at last. I called my housekeeper.
‘Marfa, what o’clock did I go to bed yesterday — do you remember?’
‘Why, who can tell, master?… Late enough, surely. Before it was quite dark you went out of the house; and you were tramping about in your bedroom when the night was more than half over. Just on morning — yes. And this is the third day it’s been the same. You’ve something on your mind, it’s easy to see.’
‘Aha - ha!’ I thought. ‘Then there’s no doubt about the flying. Well, and how do I look to - day?’ I added aloud.
‘How do you look? Let me have a look at you. You’ve got thinner a bit. Yes, and you’re pale, master; to be sure, there’s not a drop of blood in your face.’
I felt a slight twinge of uneasiness…. I dismissed Marfa.
‘Why, going on like this, you’ll die, or go out of your mind, perhaps,’ I reasoned with myself, as I sat deep in thought at the window. ‘I must give it all up. It’s dangerous. And now my heart beats so strangely. And when I fly, I keep feeling as though some one were sucking at it, or as it were drawing something out of it — as the spring sap is drawn out of the birch - tree, if you stick an axe into it. I’m sorry, though. And Alice too…. She is playing cat and mouse with me … still she can hardly wish me harm. I will give myself up to her for the last time — and then…. But if she is drinking my blood? That’s awful. Besides, such rapid locomotion cannot fail to be injurious; even in England, I’m told, on the railways, it’s against the law to go more than one hundred miles an hour….’
So I reasoned with myself — but at ten o’clock in the evening, I was already at my post before the old oak - tree.
The night was cold, dull, grey; there was a feeling of rain in the air. To my amazement, I found no one under the oak; I walked several times round it, went up to the edge of the wood, turned back again, peered anxiously into the darkness…. All was emptiness. I waited a little, then several times I uttered the name, Alice, each time a little louder,… but she did not appear. I felt sad, almost sick at heart; my previous apprehensions vanished; I could not resign myself to the idea that my companion would not come back to me again.
‘Alice! Alice! come! Can it be you will not come?’ I shouted, for the last time.
A crow, who had been waked by my voice, suddenly darted upwards into a tree - top close by, and catching in the twigs, fluttered his wings…. But Alice did not appear.
With downcast head, I turned homewards. Already I could discern the black outlines of the willows on the pond’s edge, and the light in my window peeped out at me through the apple - trees in the orchard — peeped at me, and hid again, like the eye of some man keeping watch on me — when suddenly I heard behind me the faint swish of the rapidly parted air, and something at once embraced and snatched me upward, as a buzzard pounces on and snatches up a quail…. It was Alice sweeping down upon me. I felt her cheek against my cheek, her enfolding arm about my body, and like a cutting cold her whisper pierced to my ear, ‘Here I am.’ I was frightened and delighted both at once…. We flew at no great height above the ground.
‘You did not mean to come to - day?’ I said.
‘And you were dull without me? You love me? Oh, you are mine!’
The last words of Alice confused me…. I did not know what to say.
‘I was kept,’ she went on; ‘I was watched.’
‘Who could keep you?’
‘Where would you like to go?’ inquired Alice, as usual not answering my question.
‘Take me to Italy — to that lake, you remember.’
Alice turned a little away, and shook her head in refusal. At that point I noticed for the first time that she had ceased to be transparent. And her face seemed tinged with colour; there was a faint glow of red over its misty whiteness. I glanced at her eyes … and felt a pang of dread; in those eyes something was astir — with the slow, continuous, malignant movement of the benumbed snake, twisting and turning as the sun begins to thaw it.
‘Alice,’ I cried, ‘who are you? Tell me who you are.’
Alice simply shrugged her shoulders.
I felt angry … I longed to punish her; and suddenly the idea occurred to me to tell her to fly with me to Paris. ‘That’s the place for you to be jealous,’ I thought. ‘Alice,’ I said aloud, ‘you are not afraid of big towns — Paris, for instance?’
‘No.’
‘Not even those parts where it is as light as in the boulevards?’
‘It is not the light of day.’
‘Good; then take me at once to the Boulevard des Italiens.’
Alice wrapped the end of her long hanging sleeve about my head. I was at once enfolded in a sort of white vapour full of the drowsy fragrance of the poppy. Everything disappeared at once; every light, every sound, and almost consciousness itself. Only the sense of being alive remained, and that was not unpleasant.
Suddenly the vapour vanished; Alice took her sleeve from my head, and I saw at my feet a huge mass of closely — packed buildings, brilliant light, movement, noisy traffic…. I saw Paris.
I had been in Paris before, and so I recognised at once the place to which Alice had directed her course. It was the Garden of the Tuileries with its old chestnut - trees, its iron railings, its fortress moat, and its brutal - looking Zouave sentinels. Passing the palace, passing the Church of St. Roche, on the steps of which the first Napoleon for the first time shed French blood, we came to a halt high over the Boulevard des Italiens, where the third Napoleon did the same thing and with the same success. Crowds of people, dandies young and old, workmen in blouses, women in gaudy dresses, were thronging on the pavements; the gilded restaurants and cafés were flaring with lights; omnibuses, carriages of all sorts and shapes, moved to and fro along the boulevard; everything was bustle, everything was brightness, wherever one chanced to look…. But, strange to say, I had no inclination to forsake my pure dark airy height. I had no inclination to get nearer to this human ant - hill. It seemed as though a hot, heavy, reddish vapour rose from it, half - fragrance, half - stench; so many lives were flung struggling in one heap together there. I was hesitating…. But suddenly, sharp as the clang of iron bars, the voice of a harlot of the streets floated up to me; like an insolent tongue, it was thrust out, this voice; it stung me like the sting of a viper. At once I saw in imagination the strong, heavy - jawed, greedy, flat Parisian face, the mercenary eyes, the paint and powder, the frizzed hair, and the nosegay of gaudy artificial flowers under the high - pointed hat, the polished nails like talons, the hideous crinoline…. I could fancy too one of our sons of the steppes running with pitiful eagerness after the doll put up for sale…. I could fancy him with clumsy coarseness and violent stammering, trying to imitate the manners of the waiters at Véfour’s, mincing, flattering, wheedling … and a feeling of loathing gained possession of me…. ‘No,’ I thought, ‘here Alice has no need to be jealous….’
Meanwhile I perceived that we had gradually begun to descend…. Paris was rising to meet us with all its din and odour….
‘Stop,’ I said to Alice. ‘Are you not stifled and oppressed here?’
‘You asked me to bring you here yourself.’
‘I am to blame, I take back my word. Take me away, Alice, I beseech you. To be sure, here is Prince Kulmametov hobbling along the boulevard; and his friend, Serge Varaksin, waves his hand to him, shouting: “Ivan Stepanitch,
allons souper
, make haste, zhay angazha Rigol - bouche itself!” Take me away from these furnished apartments and
maisons dorées
, from the Jockey Club and the Figaro, from close - shaven military heads and varnished barracks, from sergents - de - ville with Napoleonic beards, and from glasses of muddy absinthe, from gamblers playing dominoes at the cafés, and gamblers on the Bourse, from red ribbons in button - holes, from M. de Four, inventor of ‘matrimonial specialities,’ and the gratuitous consultations of Dr. Charles Albert, from liberal lectures and government pamphlets, from Parisian comedies and Parisian operas, from Parisian wit and Parisian ignorance…. Away! away! away!’
‘Look down,’ Alice answered; ‘you are not now in Paris.’
I lowered my eyes…. It was true. A dark plain, intersected here and there by the whitish lines of roads, was rushing rapidly by below us, and only behind us on the horizon, like the reflection of an immense conflagration, rose the great glow of the innumerable lights of the capital of the world.
