XVII
The winter passed. The sun rose higher and higher in the heavens, and with ever-increasing strength warmed the streets and roofs of St. Petersburg. Everywhere water was pouring down all the spouts; bits of ice with the noise of thunder came jumping out of them on to the pavements, or into the buckets put to catch them; droshkies appeared rattling along the roads, now bare of snow in places, with a familiar but strangely new sound to the ear.
I have finished my picture. A few more sittings, and it will be possible to take it to the Academy before the Court of Exhibition experts. Helfreich has congratulated me already on my success. Nadejda Nicolaievna is delighted. Looking at the picture and at her face, I often see an up to this time unfamiliar expression on it of quiet satisfaction. Sometimes she has been even gay, and has joked—for the most part with Senichka, who is engrossed in the reading of numerous books which he says he must read for his picture, in looking at albums, at all sorts of antiquities, and in studying the Gospels. His cats have gone. Only the faithful ginger cat has stayed on, and even he lives in peace, almost undisturbed by his master, and uncalled upon to act as a model. Since our conversation about Ilia Murometz, Simon Ivanovich has only painted one cat picture, and, having sold it for a hundred and fifty roubles, considers himself assured of money for a long time—the more so that he, to my great astonishment, is not the least embarrassed with his long stay in my flat, where living costs him nothing.
We three spent almost all our spare time together. Helfreich managed to get Nadejda Nicolaievna an enormous manuscript containing a scheme by some important person—a scheme by which Russia must be loaded with benefits in a very short time—and she has copied it out in a dainty large hand. As this benefiting of Russia demanded a large amount of thinking, the scheme has been amended and supplemented without end, and, it seems, has not even now been completed. Somebody is probably copying it now after Nadejda Nicolaievna!
At any rate, she had a little money. What she earned by copying, and the money she received from me for her sittings, sufficed her. She lived in the same little room to which she had changed when she hid from us. It was a narrow, low room, with one window looking out on to a blank wall. A bedstead, chest of drawers, two chairs, and a card-table, which did duty as a writing and dining table, made up its furniture. When we used to go and see her, Senichka would go to the kitchen and beg a stool for himself from the landlady. But we seldom visited her. The room, which nothing could induce Nadejda Nicolaievna to leave, was uninviting and gloomy, and we seldom went there. For the most part, we forgathered in my rooms, which were spacious and light.
I never once spoke to her of what was passing in my mind. I was calm and happy in the present. I understood that any incautious reference to her, perhaps still open, spiritual wounds would reflect painfully on her. I might lose her forever if I insisted now in carrying out my secret idea, wish, and hope. Perhaps I could not have behaved so quietly and restrained myself so long had not this hope been so strong. I firmly believed that after another six months, a year, or even two (I was not afraid of time), when she had become calm and restored to health, she would see around her a firm support on which she could lean and would become mine for life. I even did not hope, I actually knew she would be my wife.
I do not know if she used to see Bezsonow. … He came occasionally to me, upsetting our tranquillity and introducing an awkwardness into our conversation. Apparently he was calm, and looked upon Nadejda Nicolaievna with indifference. She did not talk to him, although she answered his questions and listened to his long dissertations on the most varied subjects. He was very well read and spoke well. Somehow it seemed to me that he was so talkative and instructive in order to hide from us something concealed behind the flow of speech which would not give him peace. Subsequently I knew that this was so, and that under his outward calm he was hiding the mortal ulcer which was killing him, just as that French priest of reputed invulnerability used to wear a red cloak in battles, so that the blood which used to pour from his wounds should not be seen. But when I found this out it was already too late.
For some reason he again went to live with the Captain. I went there once. His new room, like his old one, was all littered with books, newspapers, and papers, but it seemed to me that they all lay in great disorder and covered with dust, as if it was long since anyone had put a finger to work. I felt an intruder, and decided not to go any more to him. I asked him, by the way, whether he knew anything of the Captain, and was it true that he was a “hero of Miekoff and Opatoff.”
“He is inventing,” said Bezsonow. “He is really half a Pole. He became Orthodox long ago. I think he simply wishes to impress young fellows when he discloses this sham secret.”
I came away from Bezsonow. Soon afterwards two incidents opened my eyes to his behaviour.
First, Sonia wrote me a letter describing the plot between Bezsonow and his mother. The old lady used sometimes to go to the Institute on visiting days, remembering the interest which Sonia’s mother had taken in her and her son. According to my cousin, on this occasion she arrived in an agitated and mysterious state, and, after a few preliminary remarks, disclosed the reason of her visit. Serge Vassilivich had written to her all details of what was happening. He could not find words with which to paint the position of affairs as black as he wished. He had not asked his mother to inform Sonia of the contents of the letter, but the old woman herself, out of a feeling of gratitude, had decided to come and tell her everything in order to warn her so that she might act whilst it was yet possible to save me. The old lady was very surprised when she found out my cousin knew all. She was much upset. She, as an old woman, was ashamed to talk of such things to a young girl still at an Institute, but what was to be done? The unhappy Andrusha must be saved at all costs. If she were Sonia, she would leave the Institute at once and go to St. Petersburg in order to open my eyes.
“Serge Vassilivich,” wrote Sonia, “is playing some strange part in all this story. I do not believe he wrote all this to his mother without knowing that she would infallibly tell me all; and, I will go further, he hoped she would tell me.
“I will come to St. Petersburg, but only after the examinations. If you are agreeable, we will pass the summer somewhere together in a dacha, and I will do a little work, so that it will not be too hard for me when I begin my studies.”
This letter upset me, but when I received a second long anonymous epistle, it was more than I could stand.
In high-flown, florid sentences, the anonymous author warned me against the doleful fate of all young people who give themselves up blindly to their passions, not discriminating between the qualities and deficiencies of the being with whom they are intending to enter into alliance—“the fetters of which are light and unnoticeable at the commencement, but which subsequently become converted into a heavy chain resembling that which unfortunate galley-slaves drag.” This was the style in which the unknown author of the latter expressed himself. “Believe the kindly meant word of an older and more experienced man, Mr. Lopatin.” Then followed a whole indictment against “Nadejda,” whose soul was characterized as “booty for the stove” (an expression from which I conclusively recognized the hand of the Captain). She was accused of a long life of vice which she could have left had she chosen, “because she has relatives, albeit very distant ones, who—I am convinced of this—would have rescued her from her fallen social position; but her natural bent is vicious; she preferred to wallow in the mire from which you, in vain hope to save her, and into which, without doubt, you will yourself fall, and lose your life and wonderful talent.” She was accused of the murder of a man, “also very correct, not distinguished by talents such as you possess, but a first-rate man, receiving fifty roubles a month salary, and having a prospective increase of salary which would have been sufficient for both to live on, because what could such a creature as this contemptible being rely on? However, her nature was such that she preferred to reject the marriage offers of this young man, Mr. Nikitin, so as to be free to continue her vile life.”
The letter was a very long one, and before I came to its end I had thrown it into the stove. That Bezsonow had had a share in this appeared to me undoubted. Why otherwise should the Captain bother about my soul’s salvation? All the blood rushed to my head, and my first impulse was to rush to Bezsonow. I do not know what I should have done to him. I did not bother about the Captain. This renegade hiding his treason had been talked over, bought over with drink perhaps, or frightened into it by some means. I seized my hat, and was already at the door, when I recovered myself. It would be better to calm down, and then decide upon what to do. I decided in this sense, and, whilst waiting for Nadejda Nicolaievna, tried to paint in some of the accessories of the picture, thinking by this means to calm myself down for work, but my brush jumped about the canvas, and my eyes did not see the paints. I dressed so as to go out and get a breath of fresh air. As I opened the door, I found Nadejda Nicolaievna standing in front of me, pale, breathless, with a terrified expression in her wide-opened eyes.