II
The affairs of the Lopukhófs prospered. Viéra Pavlovna was always happy. But one time (this was some five months after the wedding) Dmitri Sergéitch, returning from one of his lessons, found his wife in a peculiar state of mind. Her eyes were shining with pride and happiness. This caused Dmitri Sergéitch to remember that for several days past he had seen in her some signs of mental exaltation, joyful thoughts, and tender pride.
“My dear, you seem to be so happy; why don’t you give us the benefit of it?”
“I think I am, my dear; but you just wait a little while. I will tell you when I am sure that I am right. You must wait for several days. And it is going to be a great joy to me, and you too will be glad, I am sure; and Kirsánof and Mertsálof will be pleased with it.”
“But what in the world is it?”
“Ah, you have forgotten our agreement, haven’t you, not to ask questions? I will tell you when I am sure of it.”
Another week passed by.
“My mílenki, I am going to tell you my joy; only you must give me your advice, because you know all about it. You know that I have been wanting for a long, long time to do something great; and I have made up my mind that we must start a sewing union. Isn’t that a good idea?”
“Now, my dear, we made an agreement that I should not kiss your hand, but that was a general rule; it did not include such an occasion as this. Give me your hand, Viéra Pavlovna!”
“By and by, my mílenki, when I have succeeded in doing it.”
“When you have succeeded, then I shall not be the only one to kiss it: Kirsánof and Alekséi Petróvitch, all will want to kiss it. But now I am alone; and the intention is worthy of it.”
“Violence! I shall scream!”
“Scream then!”
“Mílenki moï! I shall be ashamed, and tell you nothing. As though it were anything of such great importance!”
“Here is where its importance lies: we all make plans, but we don’t accomplish anything. But you began to think long after the rest of us, and sooner than all of us have resolved to put your ideas to the test.”
Viérotchka bent her head on her husband’s breast, and hid her face. “My dear, you have praised me to death.”
Her husband kissed her head. “What a clever little head!”
“Mílenki moï, stop! It is impossible to tell you anything! Do you know what kind of a man you are?”
“I will stop. Tell me, my tenderhearted girl.”
“Don’t you dare to address me so!”
“Well, you hard-hearted one.”
“Akh! what kind of a man are you, all the time interrupting me? Just listen. Sit down quietly. Here, it seems to me, is the main thing: that at the very beginning, when you select a few, to make the selection very carefully. You must have really honorable, good people, not narrow-minded, not fickle, but steady, and at the same time gentle, so that there should not be any idle quarrels among them, and that they should be able to select others of the same kind. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Now, I have three such girls. Akh! how long I had to hunt! Now here, my dearest, for the last three months I have been going round among the shops trying to make acquaintances, and I have succeeded. Such nice girls! I have got thoroughly acquainted with them.”
“And then, moreover, they must be thoroughly up in their art. The business must stand on its own merits. Everything must have a solid foundation of mercantile calculations.”
“Akh! of course it must.”
“What more is left? Why do you need my advice, then?”
“In regard to the details, moï mílenki.”
“Tell me the details. Of course you must have thought yourself about everything, and you will be able to accommodate yourself to circumstances. You know that the most important thing here is principle, character, and knowledge. Details come of themselves from the conditions peculiar to every circumstance.”
“I know; but after all, when you give your approval, I shall be more assured.”
They talked for a long time. Lopukhóf found nothing to correct in his wife’s plan; but as far as she was concerned, the plan developed and became more and more clear as she talked it over with him.
On the next day Lopukhóf took to the office of the “Police News” an advertisement: “Viéra Pavlovna Lopukhóva would take orders for sewing ladies’ garments, linen, etc., at moderate prices, etc.”
On that very morning Viéra Pavlovna went to see Julie.
“She does not know my married name. Tell her Mademoiselle Rozalskaïa.”
“My child, you are without a veil. You come to me openly, and tell your name to the servant. Now this is sheer folly. You are ruining yourself, my child!”
“Yes, but I am married now, and I can go wherever I please, and do what I want to.”
“But your husband; he may find it out.”
“He will be here in an hour.”
Then the questions began as to how she got married. Julie was delighted. She hugged her, she kissed her, she wept. When she became calmer, Viéra Pavlovna told her the purpose of her visit.
“You know that old friends are not thought of, except when their help is needed. I have a great favor to ask of you. I am going to establish a sewing shop. Give me your orders and recommend me to your acquaintances. I myself sew nicely and I have good apprentices. You know one of them.” And, in fact, Julie knew one of them to be a good seamstress. “Here are specimens of my work. This garment I made myself; you see how nicely it fits.”
Julie examined very carefully the fit of the garment; she looked at the embroidery of the shawl, at the little cuffs, and she was satisfied.
“My child, you might be very successful; you have both skill and taste. But to succeed you must have a great shop on the Nevsky.”
“Yes, I shall establish one there in good time. Now I take orders at home.”
Having finished talking about business, they began to talk again about Viérotchka’s marriage.
“And that Storeshnik drank terribly for a couple of weeks, and then he made up with Adèle. And I am very glad for Adèle’s sake. He is a kind fellow. I am only sorry that Adèle has not a better reputation.”
As it came up naturally, Julie began to talk about the adventures of Adèle and others. Now Mademoiselle Rozalskaïa is a married lady, and Julie does not think it necessary to hold her tongue. At first she spoke reasonably; then she was drawn away, drawn away, and began with delight to depict their dissipated existence, and she went on and on. Viéra Pavlovna was embarrassed, but Julie did not heed it. Viéra Pavlovna recovered her self-possession, and listened with that cruel interest with which you examine the features of a lovely face disfigured by disease. But Lopukhóf came in. Julie in an instant was changed into a stately woman of the world, full of the sternest dignity. However, she did not keep up that role very long. After she had congratulated Lopukhóf on his wife, “such a beauty,” she again got excited. “Now, we must celebrate your wedding.” She ordered a breakfast offhand; she offered champagne. Viérotchka had to drink half a glass in honor of her wedding, half a glass in honor of her “union,” and half a glass in honor of Julie herself. Her head began to turn. She and Julie shout, laugh, and get excited. Julie pinches Viérotchka; she jumps; she runs away, Viérotchka after her; they run all over the apartment, jumping over the chairs; Lopukhóf sits and laughs. It ended with Julie making up her mind to exhibit her strength.
“I am going to lift you up with one hand!”
“You can’t do it!”
They began to wrestle; they both fell on the sofa and neither felt like getting up, and so they lay there laughing until they fell asleep.
For the first time in many years Lopukhóf did not know what to do. “Should he waken them? It is a pity; you may spoil a pleasant meeting by making a bad ending!” He carefully got up, went across the room to see if he could find a book. He found a book, Chronique de l’Œil de Bœuf, in comparison with which Faublas is virtue itself. He sat down on a sofa, at the other end of the room, began to read, and in a quarter of an hour, he himself fell asleep through tediousness.
In two hours, Pauline wakened Julie: it was dinner time. They sat down alone without Serge, who had gone to some great dinner. Julie and Viérotchka again got hilarious, and then again they grew serious; when they bade each other farewell they became entirely serious, and Julie thought of asking—she had never had a chance to do so before—why Viérotchka meant to establish a sewing shop. If she wanted to make money, then it would be much easier if she would become an actress, or a singer: she has such a strong voice. This matter caused them to sit down again. Viérotchka began to describe her plan, and Julie again became enthusiastic, and she poured out blessings, and, among other things, she declared that she, Julie Le Tellier, was an abandoned woman, and she wept, but she knew what virtue was, and again she wept, and again she kissed her, and again she broke out into blessings.
Four days later Julie came to Viéra Pavlovna and gave her a good many orders for herself; she gave her the addresses of a number of her friends, from whom she might also receive orders. She brought Serge along with her, telling him that it could not be avoided: “Lopukhóf called on me, and now you must return it.” Julie behaved with exemplary seriousness, and kept it up without the least failure, although she stayed at the Lopukhófs’ a long time. She saw that there were no thick walls, but thin partitions, and that her remarks might be overheard. She did not get excited, but she fell rather into a bucolic frame of mind, looking with delight at all the particulars of the poor estate of the Lopukhófs’, and finding that that was the way to live; that men ought not to live otherwise; that only in moderate circumstances is true happiness possible, and she even announced to Serge that she would go with him to live in Switzerland, where they would have a little house amid the fields and mountains, on the shore of a lake, loving each other, fishing, taking care of their garden. Serge declared that he was perfectly ready, but he wanted to wait and see what she would say at the end of three or four hours.
The thunder of the elegant carriage, and the prancing of Julie’s wonderful horses, made a startling impression on the inhabitants of the fifth block, between the Middle and the Little Prospekts, where nothing of the sort had been seen, at least since the time of Peter the Great, if not longer. Many eyes were looking as the wonderful phenomenon stopped at the locked gates of a one-storied, frame building, with its seven windows, and when from the wonderful carriage stepped the still more wonderful phenomenon of an elegant lady, with a brilliant officer, whose important position could not be doubted. The grief was general, when in a moment the gates were opened, and the carriage rolled into the dvor; curiosity was deprived of the hope of seeing the graceful officer, and still more graceful lady, a second time, when they took their departure. When Daniluitch returned home from his peddling, Petrovna had a talk with him:—
“Daniluitch, well our tenants must be from among very important folks. A general and a generálsha came to see them. The generálsha was dressed so elegant that I can’t begin to tell you; and the general had two stars!”
How Petrovna came to see the stars on Serge, who had never had any decorations, and would not have worn them if he had had them, while out on service with Julie, is a wonderful circumstance; but that she actually saw them; that she was not mistaken, and did not exaggerate, for this I will not take her word; but I will myself be responsible for her: she did actually see them. It is we who know that he did not have them; but he had such an appearance, that from Petrovna’s standpoint, it was impossible not to see two stars on him—and so she saw them; I am not joking when I tell you that she really saw them.
“And what livery the lackey wore, Daniluitch! Real English stuff, five rubles an arshín; such a solemn man he was, and so important, but just as perlite as could be; he give me a civil answer; he allowed me to feel of his sleeve; elegant cloth. They seem to have so much money that they feed it out to their chickens. And they sat in our tenants’ rooms, Daniluitch, and talked with them cosily, for more’n two hours, just as I talk with you, and them tenants did not even bow to them, and they were joking with them, and the tenant was sitting with the general, both of them sitting comfortably on the chair, and they were smoking! and our tenant smoked right in the general’s face, and he sat comfortably before him! what else? His cigarette went out, and then he lighted it at the general’s! And with what grace the general kissed our lady’s little hand! why, I can’t begin to tell you! What can we make out of this, Daniluitch?”
“Everything is from God, is the way I reason it; I reckon that whether it’s acquaintance or relation, it’s all from God.”
“So it is, Daniluitch; there’s no doubt about it; but this is what I think: that either our tenant or his wife are either a brother or a sister of either the general or the generálsha. And, to tell you the truth, I think that she must be the general’s sister.”
“What makes you think so, Petrovna? It don’t seem natural. If it was so, then they’d have money.”
“That’s a fact, Daniluitch. It must be this way: either the mother or the father had a natural child; because they don’t favor each other. Really, there ain’t no resemblance ’t all.”
“That may be, Petrovna; perhaps there was a natural child. Such things do happen.”
Petrovna, for four whole days, enjoyed great importance in her little store. This little store for three whole days drew a part of the public from the store on the other side of the street. Petrovna, for the sake of enlightening the public during these days, even neglected her work to a certain extent, and slaked the thirst of those who were thirsting for knowledge.
The result of all this was that within a week Pavel Konstantinuitch came to see his daughter and son-in-law.
Marya Alekséyevna had been anxious to gather some information about the lives led by her daughter and the “villain.” It was not done systematically or constantly, and, for the most part, it arose from a scientific instinct of curiosity. One of her little gossiping acquaintances, who lived on the Vasilyevsky Island, was entrusted with the task of finding out about Viéra Pavlovna, whenever she happened to pass by where she lived; and the gossip brought her reports, as often as once a month, or even oftener, according to circumstances. “The Lopukhófs live in harmony; they have no quarrels; there’s only one thing: there are a good many young folks call on them, and all the young men are good friends and modest. They do not live luxuriously; but apparently they have money. They not only do not sell; but they buy. She has made herself two silk dresses. They have bought two sofas, an oblong table, a half a dozen chairs—they got them at a bargain, for forty rubles; but the furniture is good, and it would ordinarily cost a hundred rubles. They have notified the landlord to look for new tenants. ‘We are going to leave in about a month for our new quarters; and to you,’—that is, the landlord—‘we are very grateful for your kindness to us.’ ‘Nu!’ say the landlord; ‘of course,’ says he; ‘and we for yours.’ ”
Marya Alekséyevna was consoled by these reports. Though she was a very rough and a very wicked woman, though she had tormented her daughter and was ready to kill her, to ruin her for her own interests, and though she cursed her, because, through her, she had failed in her plan of getting rich—all this is true; but does it follow from this that she felt no love for her daughter? It does not follow at all. When the matter was ended, when her daughter tore herself away from her power forever, what could she do? Whatever falls from the wagon is lost. For all that, she is her daughter; and now, when there was no chance whatsoever for Viéra Pavlovna to serve Marya Alekséyevna’s interests, the mother sincerely wished her daughter good. And then, again, it does not follow that she would wish things to be God-knows-how, that it made no difference with her; she certainly had not subjected her to any system of espionage. The steps taken for watching her daughter were only adopted because she, you must confess, was morally obliged to watch her; well, and in exactly the same way, as regards the wishes for her good, she had to do it, because she was her daughter. Why shouldn’t she be reconciled? All the more when the villainous son-in-law is, according to all appearances, a man of solid character. Maybe he will be of service in time. Thus Marya Alekséyevna, little by little, approached the thought of renewing her relations with her daughter. It might have to wait half a year, or even a year, to accomplish it; but there was no need of being in a hurry; time is patient. But the news about the general and the generálsha at once pushed the story forward, fully all the remainder of the last halfway. The villain has really proved to be a rogue. An ex-student (studentishka), without rank, with only a few rubles, he has made friends with a young, and therefore a very important, and rich general, and the two wives have become acquainted. Such a man will get ahead! Or even, may be, Viéra made friends with the generálsha, and introduced her husband to the general; it is all the same. At all events, Viéra will get on.
And so, soon after getting the news of the famous visit, the father was sent to announce to the daughter that her mother had forgiven her, and would be glad to see her. Viéra Pavlovna went with Pavel Konstantinuitch and her husband, and they spent the early part of the evening there. The meeting was cold and constrained. They spoke much about Feódor, because it was not a dangerous subject. He had gone to the gymnasium; they persuaded Marya Alekséyevna to put him into the gymnasium boarding-school. Dmitri Sergéitch would visit him there, and during his holidays Viéra Pavlovna would take him home with her. Somehow or other they managed to spend the time until tea was ready, and then they made haste to leave. The Lopukhófs said that they expected callers.
For half a year Viéra Pavlovna had breathed pure air; her lungs had entirely forgotten the bad atmosphere of wily words, vile thoughts, low schemes, all for the sake of lucre, and her cellar made a horrible impression upon her. Filth, misery, vulgarity of every sort—everything came up before her eyes with the keenness of a novelty.
“How did I ever have the strength to live in such miserable bonds? How could I ever breathe in that cellar? And I not only lived and breathed there, but even grew strong and well! It is wonderful! it is incomprehensible! How could I grow up there into a love for goodness? It is incomprehensible! It is beyond belief!” thought Viéra Pavlovna, as she returned home; and she felt herself rescued from suffocation.
In a little while after they got home, the guests whom they expected came, their regular cronies—Alekséi Petróvitch, and Natalia Andréyevna, and Kirsánof; and the evening passed as it usually did. How doubly happy seemed her new life to Viéra Pavlovna, with its pure thoughts, in the society of wholesome people! As was customary, they had a jolly conversation, with many anecdotes, and at the same time they talked seriously about everything in the world: on the historical events of the time (the civil war in Kansas, the forerunner of the great war between the North and the South, which is now going on, the forerunner of still greater events, not in America alone, occupied the minds of this circle. Now everybody talks about politics, but then, only a few felt any interest in this subject, and in this small number, were Lopukhóf, Kirsánof and their friends); and they talked about the arguments of that day, as to the chemical foundations of agriculture according to the theory of Liebig, and about the laws of historical progress, without which never a conversation in society like this could go on; and about the great importance of distinguishing between real desires, which search, and seek, and find satisfaction for themselves; and fantastic wishes, which cannot be realized, and which cannot find any satisfaction, like the fantastic thirst in time of fever, for which, for the one, as well as for the other, there is one satisfaction—to cure the organism, by whose diseased state they are engendered through the disfiguring of actual wishes and finally, about the importance of this radical differentiation which was brought out at that time by the anthropological philosophy, and about everything of this sort, and not of this sort, but allied. The ladies at times listened to these scientific discussions, which were spoken as though there were no scientific terms, and took a share asking questions sometimes, but more often not waiting for the answers; and they have even thrown cold water on Lopukhóf and Alekséi Petróvitch, when they get too much interested in the great importance of recent mineral improvements: but Alekséi Petróvitch and Lopukhóf discussed their scientific questions, and were not disturbed. Kirsánof was a bad helpmeet; he was more; even entirely, on the side of the ladies, and they all three played, sang, laughed, till late into the night, and then, becoming tired, they finally separated, even the immovable enthusiasts for serious conversation.