XVI
Diary of Lopatin.—Helfreich ran for the doctor who lived on the same landing as ourselves. I brought water, and she quickly got over her hysterics. Nadejda Nicolaievna sat in a corner of the sofa to which I and Helfreich had carried her, and only now and then quietly sobbing. I was afraid of upsetting her, and went into the next room.
Unable to find the doctor, Simon Ivanovich came back, and found her already quiet.
She decided to go home, and he declared his intention of escorting her. She pressed my hand, looking straight into my eyes with her own full of tears, and I noted a kind of timid expression of gratitude on her face.
A week, another, a month passed. Our sittings continued. To tell the truth, I tried to draw them out. I do not know if she understood that I was doing it intentionally. I only know that she constantly hurried me on. She became much calmer, and occasionally, but rarely, was quite bright.
She told me her whole history. For a long time I wondered whether I would write it here or not. And I have decided to say nothing of it. Who knows into what hands this diary may fall? If I could know for certain that only Sonia and Helfreich would read it, I should not talk of Nadejda Nicolaievna’s past. They both know it well. I, as of old, have hid nothing from my cousin, and in my letters have written her the whole of Nadejda Nicolaievna’s long and bitter story. Helfreich heard it all from her herself. Consequently her history in my diary is not necessary for him. As for others … I do not want others to judge her. She told me her whole life. I was her judge, and forgave her all which, in the opinion of men, required forgiveness. I listened to her painful confession and narrative of her misfortunes, the most dreadful misfortunes, such as only a woman can experience, and it was not accusation which stirred in my soul, but the shame and humiliating feeling of a man who feels himself guilty of the evil about which they are speaking to him. The last episode in her history filled me with horror and pity. Her words the evening that Helfreich found her were no empty ones. She really had killed a man unintentionally. He had wished to save her, but could not. His weak hands were not strong enough to restrain her from the brink of the abyss, and, unable to restrain her, he had hurled himself instead into the pit. He shot himself. Dry-eyed and with a kind of set determination, she related to me the whole of this awful history, and I long thought over it. Can her crushed heart come once more to life? Can such terrible wounds heal? They did apparently heal. She became gradually calmer and calmer, and a smile was no longer a rarity. She used to come to me every day, and stayed to dinner. After dinner we three used to sit together for hours, and whatever the subject of conversation between Helfreich and myself, Nadejda Nicolaievna only occasionally put in a word.
I well remember one of these talks. Helfreich, without giving up his cats, had begun seriously to paint studies. Once he confessed that he was working so hard only because he had thought out a picture which he intended to paint, “perhaps in five, perhaps in ten years’ time.”
“Why so far ahead, Senichka?” I asked, with an involuntary smile at the important way in which he had announced his intention.
“Because it is a serious subject—a matter of life, Andrei. Do you think that only tall people with straight backs and chests can think out serious subjects? Oh, you conceited hop-poles! Believe me,” continued he, with an air of assumed importance, “that between these humps of mine great ideas can reside, and in this long box (he struck himself on the head) great ideas are born.”
“This great idea—is it a secret?” inquired Nadejda Nicolaievna.
He looked at us both, and after a moment’s pause said:
“No, it is not a secret. I will tell you. I have had this idea for a long time. Listen. Once upon a time Vladimir (Krasnoe Solnishko) became angry at the bold words of Ilia Murometz. He ordered him to be seized, taken away, and locked up in a deep vault, which was to be covered up with earth. They led the old Cossack away to death. But, as always happens, the Princess Evprakseiushka at that moment became ‘wise.’ She found out a way to Ilia, and used to send him bread each day, and water, and wax candles by the light of which to read the Gospel. And she sent him the Gospels.”
Senichka stopped and thought, and was silent for so long that at length I said:
“Well, Simon Ivanovich?”
“Well, that’s all. Of course, the Prince soon wanted the old Cossack. The Tatars came, and there was no one to save Kieff. Then Vladimir was sorry, bitterly regretted. Then Evprakseiushka sent people straightway to the deep vaults, and led out Ilia by the hand. Ilia did not bear malice, sat on a steed, and so on, routed the Tatars—and that’s all.”
“But where’s the picture, Simon Ivanovich?”
Simon looked at me with an expression of exaggerated astonishment, and threw up his arms.
“Artist! Oh, artist! Oh, Lopatin, Andrei Lopatin! There are thirty, three hundred, three thousand pictures, if you want them, but I shall choose one only, and shall paint it. I shall die, but I shall paint it first! Cannot you see him sitting in the vault? Can you not see it as if real? Listen! the cave, vault, generally a burrow of some kind like the Kieff caves. The narrow approaches and the small niche in the wall. The dust and mildew, frightening and fantastic in the light of the wax candle. And Ilia sits on the steps, before him a desk, and on the desk there lies an old sacred book with thick, warped, yellowing leaves of parchment, inscribed with letters of black and red. The old Cossack is sitting in a shirt only, and is reading attentively, turning over the rebellious leaves of the book with his big, uncouth peasant’s hands, accustomed to the campaign and lance, to the sword and to the cudgel. These hands have laboured much, and, from the hard work which they have performed all his life, they are tremulous, and with difficulty turn over the leaves of the sacred book. … Eh, my friend,” suddenly said Helfreich in the middle of all this, “only one calamity: there were no such things as spectacles at that time. If there had been, Evprakseiushka would undoubtedly have sent him spectacles—huge round ones with silver rims. Perhaps he was long-sighted from life on the steppe? What do you think?”
We both laughed. Helfreich looked at us, surprised, and then, as if understanding why we laughed, himself smiled. But the solemn spirit of his narrative again took hold of him, and he continued.
“I will not begin to tell you what his eyes were like; that will be hardest of all to paint. But I can see it all—his eyes and lips. And so he sits and reads. He has opened the book at the description of the Sermon on the Mount, and he reads how, having received a blow, it is necessary to turn the other cheek. He reads this, and does not understand. Ilia has worked without ceasing all his life. He has destroyed a mighty number of Pechenegs and Tatars and brigands. He has conquered many knights of old. He has passed a century in valorous deeds and in artifices, so that evil should not befall Christianized Russ, and he believed in Christ, and prayed to Him, and believed that he was fulfilling Christ’s teaching. He did not know what was written in the book. And now he sits and ponders. ‘ “Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” How can this be? O Lord! is it good if they shall strike me, insult a woman, or touch a child, or if the pagans shall come and commence to rob and kill Thy servants, O Lord? Not to touch them! To let them kill and plunder? No, Lord, I cannot obey Thee. I will get astride a steed, lance in hand, and will go out to fight in Thy name, because I do not understand Thy wisdom. Thou hast put a voice into my soul, and I listen to it, and not to Thee! …’ And his hand trembles, and the yellow page with its red and black lettering trembles in it. The candle burns dimly; above it a thin black streak rising from the wick vanishes into the darkness, and only Ilia and his book—only these two are lighted by this light. …”
Simon Ivanovich stopped and pondered, having thrown himself back into his chair with his eyes raised to the ceiling.
“Yes,” I said, after a long silence, “it is a good picture, Senichka. Only it is easier to narrate than to paint in oils on a canvas. How will you express all this?”
“I will, without a doubt; I will do this—all this,” Senichka cried with warmth. “Yes, I will paint it. I will put this note of interrogation. Ilia and the Gospel! What is there common between them? For this book there is no greater sin than murder, and Ilia has killed all his life, and journeys on his war-steed all hung around with weapons of slaughter—not murder, but execution, because he executes. And when this arsenal is insufficient, or he has not got it with him, he puts sand in his cap, and uses that as a weapon. And he is a saint. I saw him in Kieff. … He lies amongst them all, and justly so.”
“That is all right, Senichka, but I cannot help saying the paints will not express all this.”
“Why not? Bosh! And even if they do not, what harm? They will ask the question. … But wait, wait a minute,” broke in Senichka excitedly, seeing I wanted to say something. “You will say that the question is already put? Quite true! But that is little. It is necessary to put it every day, every hour, every second. People must not be allowed peace. And if I think that I shall succeed in making even ten people think of this question, I must paint this picture. I have long thought of it, but all these have prevented me.”
And he leant forward, and, bending down, picked up the ginger cat, which was sitting on the carpet near him, and had seemingly listened attentively to his speech, and placed it on his knee.
“Would you not surely do the same?” continued Senichka. “Your picture, surely, is it not the same question? Do you really know if this woman did right? You will make people think—that’s the whole point. And, apart from the aesthetic feeling which every picture arouses, and which of itself is not worth much—is not this the idea which animates our work?”
“Simon Ivanovich, my dear fellow,” said Nadejda Nicolaievna suddenly, “I never saw you like this before. I always knew that you had a most kind heart, but …”
“But you thought that I was a fool of a hunchback? Do you remember you called me that once?”
He looked at her, and, perhaps seeing the shadow on her face, added:
“Forgive me for recalling that. Those years must be wiped out of memory. All will go well. It is true, Andrei, is it not? All will go well?”
I nodded my head. I was very happy then: I saw that Nadejda Nicolaievna was little by little becoming calmer, and—who knows?—perhaps her life for the last three years will become for her nothing more than a distant recollection, not of years lived through, but only a vague and distressing dream, after which, having opened her eyes and seeing that the night is quiet and that all is as usual in the room, she rejoices that it was only a dream.