XXIV
Now began the darkest days of my life. I was growing afraid of myself; afraid of yielding to that dissecting, analyzing impulse which I had hitherto blindly obeyed. I tried to restrain it by violent exercise and physical stupefaction, an expedient, however, that only answered so long as I was actually at work. I tramped about for days together and wandered over all the suburbs of Moscow, never getting home till late at night. My feet ached with weariness; there were times when I felt utterly worn out; nevertheless my eyes were burning and the fatigue soon passed away.
One day, as I crossed the bridge, I heard hurried footsteps behind me, and looking back saw Madame Sokolov. She was running quickly, with her hair in disorder, and her shawl awry. Observing that there was no one but myself on the bridge, I stopped, in some perplexity.
“Wait,” she said, panting for breath; “here is a letter for you.”
I took the little note out of her hand. It was from Tonia, and consisted of a few words written in pencil:—
“Come tomorrow to the villa on the high road. I ask you as a favor. It is very important for me.
“All right!” I said.
Madame Sokolov, who by this time had regained her breath and straightened her shawl, made me a curtsey which at any other time would have set me off into a fit of laughing.
“All right,” she repeated, imitating me; “have you no further commands?”
I looked at her with hatred.
“I have nothing more to say.”
“Good gracious!” said Madame Sokolov, “how important! … I daresay you imagine that I came tearing along here like a wild thing for your sake. Please don’t get that into your head. I didn’t.”
“I have never dared to hope …”
“The reason I did it was because otherwise Tonia would have come to you herself; and I wanted to spare her that unpleasantness … because …”
“Thank you, Katerina Filippovna,” I replied simply and with sudden sincerity.
This unexpected answer and the tone of it seemed to surprise Madame Sokolov. She looked at me for a few seconds with her small and ugly yet honest eyes, and turned sharply away.
“Bah! there is no making you out. But it strikes me, young man, that you are giving yourself airs …”
“I do not take upon myself to contradict you,” said I, resuming the tones of delicate irony which vexed Madame Sokolov more than actual impertinence would have done.
“There! why the deuce should I stand arguing with you! If it was not that I am sorry for Tonia, I’d … Bah! what fools we women are!”
I remained for a few minutes watching her ungainly figure as she went away, and repeating to myself her last words.
For some time past I had attended our students’ meetings so seldom that I was hardly aware of the great change which had taken place in their tone. The purely student interest seemed to have receded into the background; the discussions were less noisy and more logical; the tone more serious. The juvenile excitement, vivacity, and enthusiasm of former days appeared to be taking a broader and better defined course.
All this reached me as a muffled sound from afar, falling on my ear despite the other matters which occupied my mind. I had, however, been in some measure prepared for the new departure by the incoherent accounts of my friend Titus; but the free discussion which I had heard affected me only as his own talk had affected me. I listened to them with a languid feeling of contemptuous indifference.
The villa to which Tonia invited me was some way off, on a road where there was little traffic. It was entirely covered with snow, and the footpaths were buried under the drifts. Most of the villas were boarded up, and only here and there a frozen window looked out into the desolation. Once in a way a side-path turned to some garden gate and a light gleamed across the heaps of snow.
When I came to the villa formerly occupied by the General I stopped. On the balcony, between the pillars, where the old gentleman used to play at chess with Urmánov, the snow lay thick. There was not a single track to the house, which looked terribly bleak and cold, and only a single pine-tree hard by the wall beat one of its boughs against the window. I leaned on the fence, and for a long while stood looking at this desolate, inhospitable dwelling.
Quite near, there shone through the trees, the lighted windows of a large villa, through which I could see a throng of dark shapes standing close together. I had but to turn my head, and, instead of the General’s empty villa, I saw the lighted house where she was. The contrast awoke within me a strange feeling. From one side gazed on me memories filled with the cold of death; on the other was a crowd of young life, and talk of life. And there, too, was she whom I both loved and feared. … I broke into a laugh. The fantastic idea occurred to me that the people in the large house were praying … perhaps to man, perhaps to idols, but still praying. … And yet the little villa was telling me that there is nothing in this world to pray to. …
I stood a long time, as it were, under some strange spell. At last, I tore myself away, and went slowly to the large house, stopping occasionally to look back.
The hall was hung round with overcoats; and traces of snowy boots were visible on the floor. Some of the men had made seats of their coats and were talking in low voices. But most of them were gathered in the large room. The air was full of smoke, the room faintly lighted with a single lamp; and at first I could see only a mass of heads, all turned in the same direction—towards somebody who was reading aloud in a clear yet somewhat harsh and pedantic voice.
Before I had time to look round a young girl came forward from near one of the windows. She took me by the hand and whispered in my ear:—
“Why are you so late?”
I made no answer.
“Come here … as we used to.”
She led me through a side passage into the host’s bedroom. Here sat only the Sokolovs and Chernov. Sokolov sat with folded hands, his rough, serious face turned towards the open door. As I entered, Madame Sokolov exchanged glances with Chernov, who moved nearer the door.
“Sit down here,” said Tonia. “Now, hush! listen.”
We sat on a chest, as in the old days. Tonia seemed pleased at this; but for a whole quarter of an hour she did not once turn towards me. A ray of light from the next room fell on her face, which wore a look expressive of intense and earnest attention. As I watched her eager eyes and parted lips, I realized that this matter was for her not one of curiosity merely, but the turning-point of an important question. So I began to listen carefully to what was being read. But though I heard I found it amazingly difficult to understand. In addition to the thoughts which for some time past had occupied my mind there was room in it for Tonia. I could still think of her without much effort. I realized that I was sitting beside her; everything else, however, was far away, and it gave me great trouble to piece together the separate ideas contained in the pamphlet which was being read.
It concerned the irredeemable debt of the educated classes to the people; told how this debt must needs go on growing; and insisted on the pressing necessity of a solution of the question. … The reading ceased. There was a slight rustle and some coughing in the room; then silence. The whole company waited for one of the habitual orators to speak; but the silence continued longer than usual.
Suddenly, to my great surprise, the voice of Titus broke the stillness:—
“Allow me, friends … I should like to read to you. … Zaitzev writes …”
He spoke so easily that I was amazed.
“No, no! we don’t want it,” interrupted several voices; “we know …”
“No; but why? Allow me.”
“You must let him have his say.”
“Well, but look here, friends, he is wandering from the point …”
“Let the man have his say, then,” broke in the harsh voice of the reader; “but of course no sense will come of it; all the same, let him ring his chime out, and come down from the steeple!”
Titus found a marked place in the book, and read aloud a short quotation, then passed to the subject of the former reading. No one interrupted him. Besides our own set, there were in the room a number of Moscow students; and they took his part. I observed several attentive faces. It was, however, evident that no one could make out what the quotation from Zaitzev had to do with the matter under discussion; and many looked forward with interest to his explanation. But Titus’s speech was incoherent and incomprehensible. Why he quoted Zaitzev passed my comprehension; nevertheless, I did not find his observations utterly devoid of meaning. When he spoke of the people, I remembered our old Markelych, the corridor philosopher and veteran of the days of Nicholas, who was bound to Titus by ties of mutual sympathy. But at the meeting there reigned quite a different ideal of the people; it was the historical people, the people of folk-songs, the creators of the village commune. In addition to this, Titus got entangled in his talk; and, fearing to be interrupted, hurried on, and became still worse confused.
“There! Shut up!” said somebody.
“No, no; let me finish!” cried Titus, in an injured tone.
The comparative ease with which he had spoken, and the attention of his audience, had slightly turned his head.
“No, no! We won’t have it! Shut up; we have had enough.”
On this, the proceedings became uproarious. Titus shouted, but his voice was drowned in the increasing din. We could hear laughter, and, from the further corner, peculiar exclamations of the schoolboy sort.
“Every time the same thing,” said someone; “anybody would think he was doing it for fun; he comes on purpose, just to obstruct, confound him!”
“Why, good people, he doesn’t do it of his own accord,” remarked the seminarist Rouchin, shrugging his shoulders as he stood on the windowsill. “Somebody else puts him up to it.”
Rouchin was a naive and excitable lad, who fell into a state of fanatical adoration of every new idea that was presented to his boyish gaze, and imagined that all the powers of darkness were at that moment collecting in arms to attack the villa among the snowdrifts and strangle the new world in its birth.
“What’s that? Who puts him to this? What nonsense!” resounded from all sides.
“No, it is true. And I know who it is—Gavrilov.”
My name rang out with startling suddenness. Several faces near the door turned to me. Tonia shuddered.
This startling charge produced at first deep silence, followed the next moment by a flood of talk. Some of the men expressed doubt; others defended me; the din became terrific.
“It is true,” broke in the harsh voice of Chernov, from our room, above the uproar, and he jumped up in his usual angular way, “he even sneaks into gardens, and peeps under win …”
Tonia, with a terrified and miserable face, started up hurriedly, and caught him by the arm.
“Hush! Hold your tongue; do you hear?” she said imperatively.
Chernov turned round and would have said something; but Madame Sokolov seized him, and forced him back into his seat.
“Sit still when you are told. What a nuisance you are!”
Chernov submitted.
Tonia turned to me with a white face; and I could read in her eyes an entreaty not to be angry.
“Come along,” she said softly.
“Why?” said I, looking straight into her eyes.
“I … I ask you, please.”
I rose. In an anteroom, I found her gray cloak, and held it for her. She put in one arm; then, in an embarrassed way, pulled the cloak away from me, and put it on herself. I would have helped Madame Sokolov too; but she simply snatched her cloak from my hands.
Tonia tied her shawl, and drew her hair from under her collar, then, when we were on the road, she hurried along nervously, slipping in the snowdrifts.
As we passed the General’s villa, I again fixed my eyes on its dark windows, and glanced back at the big house.
“How stupid!” I involuntarily exclaimed.
Tonia walked on more rapidly; but Madame Sokolov, who wore a summer hat, turned her head, towards me, and said sharply:—
“Well, what is there so very particular? … He cannot even hold his tongue, but must begin to whine. … Cannot you see that Tonia is not happy?” she added softly; “you are a precious lot!”