Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (23 page)

Chapter VI

Panshin, who was playing bass, struck the first chords of the sonata loudly and decisively, but Lisa did not begin her part. He stopped and looked at her. Lisa’s eyes were fixed directly on him, and expressed displeasure. There was no smile on her lips, her whole face looked stern and even mournful.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Why did you not keep your word?” she said. “I showed you Christopher Fedoritch’s cantata on the express condition that you said nothing about it to him?”

“I beg your pardon, Lisaveta Mihalovna, the words slipped out unawares.”

“You have hurt his feelings and mine too. Now he will not trust even me.”

“How could I help it, Lisaveta Mihalovna? Ever since I was a little boy I could never see a German without wanting to teaze him.”

“How can you say that, Vladimir Nikolaitch? This German is poor, lonely, and broken - down — have you no pity for him? Can you wish to teaze him?”

Panshin was a little taken aback.

“You are right, Lisaveta Mihalovna,” he declared. “It’s my everlasting thoughtlessness that’s to blame. No, don’t contradict me; I know myself. So much harm has come to me from my want of thought. It’s owing to that failing that I am thought to be an egoist.”

Panshin paused. With whatever subject he began a conversation, he generally ended by talking of himself, and the subject was changed by him so easily, so smoothly and genially, that it seemed unconscious.

“In your own household, for instance,” he went on, “your mother certainly wishes me well, she is so kind; you — well, I don’t know your opinion of me; but on the other hand your aunt simply can’t bear me. I must have offended her too by some thoughtless, stupid speech. You know I’m not a favourite of hers, am I?”

“No,” Lisa admitted with some reluctance, “she doesn’t like you.”

Panshin ran his fingers quickly over the keys, and a scarcely perceptible smile glided over his lips.

“Well, and you?” he said, “do you too think me an egoist?”

“I know you very little,” replied Lisa, “but I don’t consider you an egoist; on the contrary, I can’t help feeling grateful to you.”

“I know, I know what you mean to say,” Panshin interrupted, and again he ran his fingers over the keys: “for the music and the books I bring you, for the wretched sketches with which I adorn your album, and so forth. I might do all that — and be an egoist all the same. I venture to think that you don’t find me a bore, and don’t think me a bad fellow, but still you suppose that I — what’s the saying? — would sacrifice friend or father for the sake of a witticism.”

“You are careless and forgetful, like all men of the world,” observed Lisa, “that is all.”

Panshin frowned a little.

“Come,” he said, “don’t let us discuss me any more; let us play our sonata. There’s only one thing I must beg of you,” he added, smoothing out the leaves of the book on the music stand, “think what you like of me, call me an egoist even — so be it! but don’t call me a man of the world; that name’s insufferable to me.... Anch ‘io sono pittore. I too am an artist, though a poor one — and that — I mean that I’m a poor artist, I shall show directly. Let us begin.”

“Very well, let us begin,” said Lisa.

The first adagio went fairly successfully though Panshin made more than one false note. His own compositions and what he had practised thoroughly he played very nicely, but he played at sight badly. So the second part of the sonata — a rather quick allegro — broke down completely; at the twentieth bar, Panshin, who was two bars behind, gave in, and pushed his chair back with a laugh.

“No!” he cried, “I can’t play to - day; it’s a good thing Lemm did not hear us; he would have had a fit.”

Lisa got up, shut the piano, and turned round to Panshin.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“That’s just like you, that question! You can never sit with your hands idle. Well, if you like let us sketch, since it’s not quite dark. Perhaps the other muse, the muse of painting — what was her name? I have forgotten... will be more propitious to me. Where’s your album? I remember, my landscape there is not finished.”

Lisa went into the other room to fetch the album, and Panshin, left alone, drew a cambric handkerchief out of his pocket, and rubbed his nails and looked as it were critically at his hands. He had beautiful white hands; on the second finger of his left hand he wore a spiral gold ring. Lisa came back; Panshin sat down at the window, and opened the album.

“Ah!” he exclaimed: “I see that you have begun to copy my landscape — and capitally too. Excellent! only just here — give me a pencil — the shadows are not put in strongly enough. Look.”

And Panshin with a flourish added a few long strokes. He was for ever drawing the same landscape: in the foreground large disheveled trees, a stretch of meadow in the background, and jagged mountains on the horizon. Lisa looked over his shoulders at his work.

“In drawing, just as in life generally,” observed Panshin, holding his head to right and to left, “lightness and boldness — are the great things.”

At that instant Lemm came into the room, and with a stiff bow was about to leave it; but Panshin, throwing aside album and pencils, placed himself in his way.

“Where are you doing, dear Christopher Fedoritch? Aren’t you going to stay and have tea with us?”

“I go home,” answered Lemm in a surly voice; “my head aches.”

“Oh, what nonsense! — do stop. We’ll have an argument about Shakespeare.”

“My head aches,” repeated the old man.

“We set to work on the sonata of Beethoven without you,” continued Panshin, taking hold of him affectionately and smiling brightly, “but we couldn’t get on at all. Fancy, I couldn’t play two notes together correctly.”

“You’d better have sung your song again,” replied Lemm, removing Panshin’s hands, and he walked away.

Lisa ran after him. She overtook him on the stairs.

“Christopher Fedoritch, I want to tell you,” she said to him in German, accompanying him over the short green grass of the yard to the gate, “I did wrong — forgive me.”

Lemm made no answer.

“I showed Vladimir Nikolaitch your cantata; I felt sure he would appreciate it, — and he did like it very much really.”

Lemm stopped.

“It’s no matter,” he said in Russian, and then added in his own language, “but he cannot understand anything; how is it you don’t see that? He’s a dilettante — and that’s all!”

“You are unjust to him,” replied Lisa, “he understands everything, and he can do almost everything himself.”

“Yes, everything second - rate, cheap, scamped work. That pleases, and he pleases, and he is glad it is so — and so much the better. I’m not angry; the cantata and I — we are a pair of old fools; I’m a little ashamed, but it’s no matter.”

“Forgive me, Christopher Fedoritch,” Lisa said again.

“It’s no matter,” he repeated in Russian, “you’re a good girl... but here is some one coming to see you. Goodbye. You are a very good girl.”

And Lemm moved with hastened steps towards the gate, through which had entered some gentleman unknown to him in a grey coat and a wide straw hat. Bowing politely to him (he always saluted all new faces in the town of O —
 
— - ; from acquaintances he always turned aside in the street — that was the rule he had laid down for himself), Lemm passed by and disappeared behind the fence. The stranger looked after him in amazement, and after gazing attentively at Lisa, went straight up to her.

Chapter VII

“You don’t recognise me,” he said, taking off his hat, “but I recognise you in spite of its being seven years since I saw you last. You were a child then. I am Lavretsky. Is your mother at home? Can I see her?”

“Mamma will be glad to see you,” replied Lisa; “she had heard of your arrival.”

“Let me see, I think your name is Elisaveta?” said Lavretsky, as he went up the stairs.

“Yes.”

“I remember you very well; you had even then a face one doesn’t forget. I used to bring you sweets in those days.”

Lisa blushed and thought what a queer man. Lavretsky stopped for an instant in the hall. Lisa went into the drawing - room, where Panshin’s voice and laugh could be heard; he had been communicating some gossip of the town to Marya Dmitrievna, and Gedeonovksy, who by this time had come in from the garden, and he was himself laughing aloud at the story he was telling. At the name of Lavretsky, Marya Dmitrievna was all in a flutter. She turned pale and went up to meet him.

“How do you do, how do you do, my dear cousin?” she cried in a plaintive and almost tearful voice, “how glad I am to see you!”

“How are you, cousin?” replied Lavretsky, with a friendly pressure of her out - stretched hand; “how has Providence been treating you?”

“Sit down, sit down, my dear Fedor Ivanitch. Ah, how glad I am! But let me present my daughter Lisa to you.”

“I have already introduced myself to Lisaveta Mihalovna,” interposed Lavretsky.

“Monsier Panshin... Sergei Petrovitch Gedeonovsky... Please sit down. When I look at you, I can hardly believe my eyes. How are you?”

“As you see, I’m flourishing. And you, too, cousin — no ill - luck to you! — have grown no thinner in eight years.”

“To think how long it is since we met!” observed Marya Dmitrievna dreamily. “Where have you come from now? Where did you leave... that is, I meant to say,” she put in hastily, “I meant to say, are you going to be with us for long?”

“I have come now from Berlin,” replied Lavretsky, “and to - morrow I shall go into the country — probably for a long time.”

“You will live at Lavriky, I suppose?”

“No, not at Lavriky; I have a little place twenty miles from here: I am going there.”

“Is that the little estate that came to you from Glafira Petrovna?”

“Yes.”

“Really, Fedor Ivanitch! You have such a magnificent house at Lavriky.”

Lavretsky knitted his brows a little.

“Yes... but there’s a small lodge in this little property, and I need nothing more for a time. That place is the most convenient for me now.”

Marya Dmitrievna was again thrown into such a state of agitation that she became quite stiff, and her hands hung lifeless by her sides. Panshin came to her support by entering into conversation with Lavretsky. Marya Dmitrievna regained her composure, she leaned back in her arm - chair and now and then put in a word. But she looked all the while with such sympathy at her guest, sighed so significantly, and shook her head so dejectedly, that the latter at last lost patience and asked her rather sharply if she was unwell.

“Thank God, no,” replied Marya Dmitrievna; “why do you ask?”

“Oh, I fancied you didn’t seem to be quite yourself.”

Marya Dmitrievna assumed a dignified and somewhat offended air. “If that’s how the land lies,” she thought, “it’s absolutely no matter to me; I see, my good fellow, it’s all like water on a duck’s back for you; any other man would have wasted away with grief, but you’ve grown fat on it.” Marya Dmitrievna did not mince matters in her own mind; she expressed herself with more elegance aloud.

Lavretsky certainly did not look like the victim of fate. His rosy - cheeked typical Russian face, with its large white brow, rather thick nose, and wide straight lips seemed breathing with the wild health of the steppes, with vigorous primaeval energy. He was splendidly well - built, and his fair curly hair stood up on his head like a boy’s. It was only in his blue eyes, with their overhanging brows and somewhat fixed look, that one could trace an expression, not exactly of melancholy, nor exactly of weariness, and his voice had almost too measured a cadence.

Panshin meanwhile continued to keep up the conversation. He turned it upon the profits of sugar - boiling, on which he had lately read two French pamphlets, and with modest composure undertook to expound their contents, without mentioning, however, a single word about the source of his information.

“Good God, it is Fedya!” came through the half - opened door the voice of Marfa Timofyevna in the next room. “Fedya himself!” and the old woman ran hurriedly into the room. Lavretsky had not time to get up from his seat before she had him in her arms. “Let me have a look at you,” she said, holding his face off at arm’s length. “Ah! what a splendid fellow you are! You’ve grown older a little, but not a bit changed for the worse, upon my word! But why are you kissing my hands — kiss my face if you’re not afraid of my wrinkled cheeks. You never asked after me — whether your aunt was alive — I warrant: and you were in my arms as soon as you were born, you great rascal! Well, that is nothing to you, I suppose; why should you remember me? But it was a good idea of yours to come back. And pray,” she added, turning to Marya Dmitrievna, “have you offered him something to eat?”

“I don’t want anything,” Lavretsky hastened to declare.

“Come, you must at least have some tea, my dear. Lord have mercy on us! He has come from I don’t know where, and they don’t even give him a cup of tea! Lisa, run and stir them up, and make haste. I remember he was dreadfully greedy when he was a little fellow, and he likes good things now, I daresay.”

“My respects, Marfa Timofyevna,” said Panshin, approaching the delighted old lady from one side with a low bow.

“Pardon me, sir,” replied Marfa Timofyevna, “for not observing you in my delight. You have grown like your mother, the poor darling,” she went on turning again to Lavretsky, “but your nose was always your father’s, and your father’s it has remained. Well, and are you going to be with us for long?”

“I am going to - morrow, aunt.”

“Where?”

“Home to Vassilyevskoe.”

“To - morrow?”

“Yes, to - morrow.”

“Well, if to - morrow it must be. God bless you — you know best. Only mind you come and say good - bye to me.” The old woman patted his cheek. “I did not think I should be here to see you; not that I have made up my mind to die yet a while — I shall last another ten years, I daresay: all we Pestovs live long; your late grandfather used to say we had two lives; but you see there was no telling how much longer you were going to dangle about abroad. Well, you’re a fine lad, a fine lad; can you lift twenty stone with one hand as you used to do, eh? Your late pap was fantastical in some things, if I may say so; but he did well in having that Swiss to bring you up; do you remember you used to fight with your fists with him? — gymnastics, wasn’t it they called it? But there, why I am gabbling away like this; I have only been hindering Mr. PanSHIN (she never pronounced his name PANshin as was correct) from holding forth. Besides, we’d better go and have tea; yes, let’s go on to the terrace, my boy, and drink it there; we have some real cream, not like what you get in your Londons and Parises. Come along, come along, and you, Fedusha, give me your arm. Oh! but what an arm it is! Upon my word, no fear of my stumbling with you!”

Every one got up and went out on to the terrace, except Gedeonovsky, who quietly took his departure. During the whole of Lavretsky’s conversation with Marya Dmitrievna, Panshin, and Marfa Timofyevna, he sat in a corner, blinking attentively, with an open mouth of childish curiosity; now he was in haste to spread the news of the new arrival through the town.

At eleven o’clock on the evening of the same day, this is what was happening in Madame Kalitin’s house. Downstairs, Vladimir Nikolaitch, seizing a favourable moment, was taking leave of Lisa at the drawing - room door, and saying to her, as he held her hand, “You know who it is draws me here; you know why I am constantly coming to your house; what need of words when all is clear as it is?” Lisa did not speak, and looked on the ground, without smiling, with her brows slightly contracted, and a flush on her cheek, but she did not draw away her hands. While up - stairs, in Marfa Timofyevna’s room, by the light of a little lamp hanging before the tarnished old holy images, Lavretsky was sitting in a low chair, his elbows on his knees and his face buried in his hands; the old woamn, standing before him, now and then silently stroked his hair. He spent more than an hour with her, after taking leave of his hostess; he had scarcely said anything to his kind old friend, and she did not question him.... Indeed, what need to speak, what was there to ask? Without that she understood all, and felt for everything of which his heart was full.