The World's Greatest Books - Volume 8 Part 39

"Get up!" he heard her voice. "Get up, Fedor Ivanitch. What are we doing?"

He got up and sat beside her on the seat.

"It frightens me; what we are doing?" she repeated.

"I love you," he said again. "I am ready to devote my whole life to you."

She shuddered again as though something had stung her, and lifted her eyes towards heaven.

"All that is in G.o.d's hands," she said.

"But you love me, Lisa? We shall be happy."

She dropped her eyes. He softly drew her to him, and her head sank on to his shoulder--he bent his head a little and touched her pale lips....

On the following day Lavretsky drove over to Va.s.silyevskoe. The first thing that struck him on entering was the scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him. There were some travelling trunks in the hall. He crossed the threshold of the drawing-room--a lady arose from the sofa, made a step forward, and fell at his feet. He caught his breath... he leaned against the wall for support.... It was Barbara Paulovna!

A torrent of words told him that, stricken by remorse, she had determined to break every tie with her sins. A serious illness had given rise to the rumour of her death. She had taken advantage of this to give up everything. Would he not spare her for their little daughter's sake?

Lavretsky listened to the flood of eloquence in silence. He did not believe one word of her protestations. His wrath choked him: this blow had fallen so suddenly upon him.

Lisa bent forward in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

"This is how we were to meet again," he brought out at last. It was in Marfa Timofyevna's room that they met once more. Lisa took her hands from her face. "Yes!" she said faintly. "We were quickly punished."

"Punished!" said Lavretsky. "What had you done to be punished?" His heart ached with pity and love. "Yes, all is over before it had begun."

"We must forget all that," she brought out at last. "It is left for us to do our duty. You, Fedor Ivanitch, must be reconciled with your wife."

"Lisa!"

"I beg you to do so: by that alone can you expiate..."

"Lisa, for G.o.d's sake!--to be reconciled to her now!"

"I do not ask of you--do not live with her if you cannot. Remember your little girl; do it for my sake."

"Very well," Lavretsky muttered between his clenched teeth; "I will do that; in that I shall fulfil my duty. But you--what does your duty consist in?"

"That I know myself."

Lavretsky started: "You cannot be making up your mind to marry Pans.h.i.+n?"

Lisa gave an almost imperceptible smile--"Oh, no!" she said.

"Now you see for yourself, Fedor Ivanitch, as I told you before, that happiness does not depend on us, but on G.o.d."

Smoke

Considered simply as stories, "Fathers and Sons" and "Smoke"

are to all intents and purposes independent of each other, yet in important particulars the latter is a sequel to the first.

Once on his arrival at St. Petersburg, Turgenev was met with the words, "Just see what your Nihilists are doing! They have almost gone so far as to burn the city." Thus again he took up the question of social reform, and in "Smoke" ("Dim") he views with apprehension the actions of the so-called "intellectuals," who would make themselves responsible for the shaping of future Russia. Charlatans among the leaders of the new thought, and society dilettantism, both came under his merciless lash. In his opinion the men and ideas in the two camps are no more than smoke--dirty, evil-smelling smoke. The entire atmosphere is gloomy, and throughout is only relieved by the character of Irina, the most exquisite piece of feminine psychology in the whole range of Turgenev's novels.

_I.--A Broken Idyll_

Early in the fifties there was living in Moscow, in very straitened circ.u.mstances, almost in poverty, the numerous family of the Princes Osinin. These were real princes--not Tartar-Georgians, but pure-blooded descendants of Rurik. Time, however, had dealt hardly with them. They had fallen under the ban of the Empire, and retained nothing but their name and the pride of their n.o.bility.

The family of Osinins consisted of a husband and wife and five children.

It was living near the dog's place, in a one-storied little wooden house with a striped portico looking on to the street, green lions on the gates, and all the other pretensions of n.o.bility, though it could hardly make both ends meet, was constantly in debt at the green-grocer's, and often sitting without firewood or candles in the winter. Though their pride kept them aloof from the society of their neighbours, their straitened circ.u.mstances compelled them to receive certain people to whom they were under obligations. Among the number of these was Grigory Mihalovitch Litvinov, a young student of Moscow, the son of a retired official of plebeian extraction, who had once lent the Osinins three hundred roubles. Litvinov called frequently at the house, and fell desperately in love with the eldest daughter, Irina.

Irina was only seventeen, and as beautiful as the dawn. Her thick fair hair was mingled with darker tresses; the languid curves of her lovely neck, and her smile--half indifferent, half weary--betrayed the nervous temperament of a delicate girl; but in the lines of those fine, faintly smiling lips there was something wilful and pa.s.sionate, something dangerous to herself and others. Her dark grey eyes, with s.h.i.+ning lashes and bold sweep of eyebrow, had a strange look in them; they seemed looking out intently and thoughtfully--looking out from some unknown depth and distance. Litvinov fell in love with Irina from the moment he saw her (he was only three years older than she was), but for a long while he failed to obtain not only a response, but even a hearing. She treated him with hostility, and the more he showed his love, the greater was her coldness, the more malignant her indifference. She tortured him in this way for two months. Then everything was transformed in one day.

Worn out by this cold torture, Litvinov was one night about to depart in despair. Without saying good-bye, he began to look for his hat. "Stay,"

sounded suddenly in a soft whisper. With throbbing heart he looked round, hardly believing his ears. Before him he saw Irina, transformed.

"Stay," she repeated; "don't go. I want to be with you."

From that moment of the discovery of her love, Irina was changed. She, who before had been proud and cruel, became at once as docile as a lamb, as soft as silk, and boundlessly kind.

"Ah, love me, love me, my sweet, my saviour," she would whisper to him, with her arms about his neck.

In this new dream of happiness the days flew, the weeks pa.s.sed; the future came ever nearer with the glorious hope of their happiness, and then, suddenly, an event occurred which scattered all their dreams and plans like light roadside dust. The Court came to Moscow, and the Osinins, despite their poverty, determined to attend the customary great ball in the Hall of n.o.bility. At first Irina resolutely refused to go, and Litvinov was called in by the prince to use his persuasion.

"Very well, then, I will go," she said, when she had listened to his arguments; "only remember, it is you yourself who desired it."

She spoke so strangely that he feared he had offended her.

"Irina, darling, you seem to be angry."

Irina laughed.

"Oh, no! I am not angry. Only, Grisha..." (She fastened her eyes on him, and he thought he had never before seen such an expression in them.) "Perhaps it must be," she added, in an undertone.

"But, Irina, you love me, dear?"

"I love you," she answered, with almost solemn gravity, and she clasped his hand firmly like a man.

She went to the ball in a simple white dress, wearing a bunch of heliotrope, the gift of her lover. When he called the following day, Litvinov heard from the prince of the impression Irina had created; how all the great n.o.blemen from St. Petersburg, and even the Czar himself, had commented upon her beauty. But Irina herself he did not see. She had a bad headache, the prince explained. The following day he was again denied a sight of her, and as he turned once more from the house he saw a great personage drive up in a magnificent carriage. A dread foreboding seized him. Dull stupefaction, and thoughts scurrying like mice, vague terror, and the numbness of expectation and the weight of crushed tears in his heavy-laden breast, on his lips the forced, empty smile, and a meaningless prayer--addressed to no one....