'I know,' said I ... (Exactly what was my motive in speaking so, I have no clear idea myself—envy, most likely; it was not devotion to morality, anyway!) 'I know,' said I, 'that it's no easy matter, no joking matter; I am sure you love Musa, and that Musa loves you—that it is not a passing fancy on your part.... But, see, let us suppose! (Here I folded my arms on my breast.) ... Let us suppose you gratify your passion—what is to follow? You won't marry her, you know. And at the same time you are wrecking the happiness of an excellent, honest man, her benefactor—and—who knows? (here my face expressed at the same time penetration and sorrow)—possibly her own happiness too....'

And so on, and so on!

For about a quarter of an hour my discourse flowed on. Tarhov was still silent. I began to be disconcerted by this silence. I glanced at him from time to time, not so much to satisfy myself as to the impression my words were making on him, as to find out why he neither objected nor agreed, but sat like a deaf mute. At last I fancied that there was ... yes, there certainly was a change in his face. It began to show signs of uneasiness, agitation, painful agitation.... Yet, strange to say, the eager, bright, laughing something, which had struck me at my first glance at Tarhov, still did not leave that agitated, that troubled face! I could not make up my mind whether or no to congratulate myself on the success of my sermon, when Tarhov suddenly got up, and pressing both my hands, said, speaking very quickly, 'Thank you, thank you. You're right, of course, ... though, on the other side, one might observe ... What is your Baburin you make so much of, after all? An honest fool—and nothing more! You call him a republican—and he's simply a fool! Oo! That's what he is! All his republicanism simply means that he can never get on anywhere!'

'Ah! so that's your idea! A fool! can never get on!—but let me tell you,' I pursued, with sudden heat, 'let me tell you, my dear Vladimir Nikolaitch, that in these days to get on nowhere is a sign of a fine, a noble nature! None but worthless people—bad people—get on anywhere and accommodate themselves to everything. You say Baburin is an honest fool! Why, is it better, then, to your mind, to be dishonest and clever?'

'You distort my words!' cried Tarhov. 'I only wanted to explain how I understand that person. Do you think he's such a rare specimen? Not a bit of it! I've met other people like him in my time. A man sits with an air of importance, silent, obstinate, angular.... O-ho-ho! say you. It shows that there's a great deal in him! But there's nothing in him, not one idea in his head—nothing but a sense of his own dignity.'

'Even if there is nothing else, that's an honourable thing,' I broke in. 'But let me ask where you have managed to study him like this? You don't know him, do you? Or are you describing him ... from what Musa tells you?'

Tarhov shrugged his shoulders. 'Musa and I ... have other things to talk of. I tell you what,' he added, his whole body quivering with impatience,—'I tell you what: if Baburin has such a noble and honest nature, how is it he doesn't see that Musa is not a fit match for him? It's one of two things: either he knows that what he's doing to her is something of the nature of an outrage, all in the name of gratitude ... and if so, what about his honesty?—or he doesn't realise it ... and in that case, what can one call him but a fool?'

I was about to reply, but Tarhov again clutched my hands, and again began talking in a hurried voice. 'Though ... of course ... I confess you are right, a thousand times right.... You are a true friend ... but now leave me alone, please.'

I was puzzled. 'Leave you alone?'

'Yes. I must, don't you see, think over all you've just said, thoroughly.... I have no doubt you are right ... but now leave me alone!'

'You 're in such a state of excitement ...' I was beginning.

'Excitement? I?' Tarhov laughed, but instantly pulled himself up. 'Yes, of course I am. How could I help being? You say yourself it's no joking matter. Yes; I must think about it ... alone.' He was still squeezing my hands. 'Good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye!'

'Good-bye,' I repeated. 'Good-bye, old boy!' As I was going away I flung a last glance at Tarhov. He seemed pleased. At what? At the fact that I, like a true friend and comrade, had pointed out the danger of the way upon which he had set his foot—or that I was going? Ideas of the most diverse kind were floating in my head the whole day till evening—till the very instant when I entered the house occupied by Punin and Baburin, for I went to see them the same day. I am bound to confess that some of Tarhov's phrases had sunk deep into my soul ... and were ringing in my ears.... In truth, was it possible Baburin ... was it possible he did not see she was not a fit match for him?

But could this possibly be: Baburin, the self-sacrificing Baburin—an honest fool!

* * * * *

Punin had said, when he came to see me, that I had been expected there the day before. That may have been so, but on this day, it is certain, no one expected me.... I found every one at home, and every one was surprised at my visit. Baburin and Punin were both unwell: Punin had a headache, and he was lying curled up on the sofa, with his head tied up in a spotted handkerchief, and strips of cucumber applied to his temples. Baburin was suffering from a bilious attack; all yellow, almost dusky, with dark rings round his eyes, with scowling brow and unshaven chin—he did not look much like a bridegroom! I tried to go away.... But they would not let me go, and even made tea. I spent anything but a cheerful evening. Musa, it is true, had no ailment, and was less shy than usual too, but she was obviously vexed, angry.... At last she could not restrain herself, and, as she handed me a cup of tea, she whispered hurriedly: 'You can say what you like, you may try your utmost, you won't make any difference.... So there!' I looked at her in astonishment, and, seizing a favourable moment, asked her, also in a whisper, 'What's the meaning of your words?' 'I'll tell you,' she answered, and her black eyes, gleaming angrily under her frowning brows, were fastened for an instant on my face, and turned away at once: 'the meaning is that I heard all you said there to-day, and thank you for nothing, and things won't be as you 'd have them, anyway.' 'You were there,' broke from me unconsciously.... But at this point Baburin's attention was caught, and he glanced in our direction. Musa walked away from me.

Ten minutes later she managed to come near me again. She seemed to enjoy saying bold and dangerous things to me, and saying them in the presence of her protector, under his vigilant eye, only exercising barely enough caution not to arouse his suspicions. It is well known that walking on the brink, on the very edge, of the precipice is woman's favourite pastime. 'Yes, I was there,' whispered Musa, without any change of countenance, except that her nostrils were faintly quivering and her lips twitching. 'Yes, and if Paramon Semyonitch asks me what I am whispering about with you, I'd tell him this minute. What do I care?'

'Be more careful,' I besought her. 'I really believe they are noticing.'

'I tell you, I'm quite ready to tell them everything. And who's noticing? One's stretching his neck off the pillow, like a sick duck, and hears nothing; and the other's deep in philosophy. Don't you be afraid!' Musa's voice rose a little, and her cheeks gradually flushed a sort of malignant, dusky red; and this suited her marvellously, and never had she been so pretty. As she cleared the table, and set the cups and saucers in their places, she moved swiftly about the room; there was something challenging about her light, free and easy movement. 'You may criticise me as you like,' she seemed to say; 'but I'm going my own way, and I'm not afraid of you.'

I cannot disguise the fact that I found Musa bewitching just that evening. 'Yes,' I mused; 'she's a little spitfire—she's a new type.... She's—exquisite. Those hands know how to deal a blow, I dare say.... What of it! No matter!'

'Paramon Semyonitch,' she cried suddenly, 'isn't a republic an empire in which every one does as he chooses?'

'A republic is not an empire,' answered Baburin, raising his head, and contracting his brows; 'it is a ... form of society in which everything rests on law and justice.'

'Then,' Musa pursued, 'in a republic no one can oppress any one else?'

'No.'

'And every one is free to dispose of himself?'

'Quite free.'

'Ah! that's all I wanted to know.'

'Why do you want to know?'

'Oh, I wanted to—I wanted you to tell me that.'

'Our young lady is anxious to learn,' Punin observed from the sofa.

When I went out into the passage Musa accompanied me, not, of course, from politeness, but with the same malicious intent. I asked her, as I took leave, 'Can you really love him so much?'

'Whether I love him, or whether I don't, that's my affair,' she answered. 'What is to be, will be.'

'Mind what you're about; don't play with fire ... you'll get burnt.'

'Better be burnt than frozen. You ... with your good advice! And how can you tell he won't marry me? How do you know I so particularly want to get married? If I am ruined ... what business is it of yours?'

She slammed the door after me.

I remember that on the way home I reflected with some pleasure that my friend Vladimir Tarhov might find things rather hot for him with his new type.... He ought to have to pay something for his happiness!

That he would be happy, I was—regretfully—unable to doubt.

Three days passed by. I was sitting in my room at my writing-table, and not so much working as getting myself ready for lunch.... I heard a rustle, lifted my head, and I was stupefied. Before me—rigid, terrible, white as chalk, stood an apparition ... Punin. His half-closed eyes were looking at me, blinking slowly; they expressed a senseless terror, the terror of a frightened hare, and his arms hung at his sides like sticks.

'Nikander Vavilitch! what is the matter with you? How did you come here? Did no one see you? What has happened? Do speak!'

'She has run away,' Punin articulated in a hoarse, hardly audible voice.

'What do you say?'

'She has run away,' he repeated.

'Who?'

'Musa. She went away in the night, and left a note.'

'A note?'

'Yes. "I thank you," she said, "but I am not coming back again. Don't look for me." We ran up and down; we questioned the cook; she knew nothing. I can't speak loud; you must excuse me. I've lost my voice.'

'Musa Pavlovna has left you!' I exclaimed. 'Nonsense! Mr. Baburin must be in despair. What does he intend to do now?'

'He has no intention of doing anything. I wanted to run to the Governor-general: he forbade it. I wanted to give information to the police; he forbade that too, and got very angry. He says, "She's free." He says, "I don't want to constrain her." He has even gone to work, to his office. But he looks more dead than alive. He loved her terribly....Oh, oh, we both loved her!'

Here Punin for the first time showed that he was not a wooden image, but a live man; he lifted both his fists in the air, and brought them down on his pate, which shone like ivory.

'Ungrateful girl!' he groaned; 'who was it gave you food and drink, clothed you, and brought you up? who cared for you, would have given all his life, all his soul ... And you have forgotten it all? To cast me off, truly, were no great matter, but Paramon Semyonitch, Paramon ...'

I begged him to sit down, to rest.

Punin shook his head. 'No, I won't. I have come to you ... I don't know what for. I'm like one distraught; to stay at home alone is fearful; what am I to do with myself? I stand in the middle of the room, shut my eyes, and call, "Musa! Musotchka!" That's the way to go out of one's mind. But no, why am I talking nonsense? I know why I have come to you. You know, the other day you read me that thrice-accursed poem ... you remember, where there is talk of an old husband. What did you do that for? Did you know something then ... or guessed something?' Punin glanced at me. 'Piotr Petrovitch,' he cried suddenly, and he began trembling all over, 'you know, perhaps, where she is. Kind friend, tell me whom she has gone to!'

I was disconcerted, and could not help dropping my eyes....

'Perhaps she said something in her letter,' I began....

'She said she was leaving us because she loved some one else! Dear, good friend, you know, surely, where she is? Save her, let us go to her; we will persuade her. Only think what a man she's bringing to ruin.'

Punin all at once flushed crimson, the blood seemed to rush to his head, he plumped heavily down on his knees. 'Save us, friend, let us go to her.'

My servant appeared in the doorway, and stood still in amazement.

I had no little trouble to get Punin on to his feet again, to convince him that, even if I did suspect something, still it would not do to act like that, on the spur of the moment, especially both together—that would only spoil all our efforts—that I was ready to do my best, but would not answer for anything. Punin did not oppose me, nor did he indeed hear me; he only repeated from time to time in his broken voice, 'Save her, save her and Paramon Semyonitch.' At last he began to cry. 'Tell me at least one thing,' he asked ... 'is he handsome, young?'

'Yes, he is young,' I answered.

'He is young,' repeated Punin, smearing the tears over his cheeks; 'and she is young.... It's from that that all the trouble's sprung!'

This rhyme came by chance; poor Punin was in no mood for versifying. I would have given a good deal to hear his rhapsodical eloquence again, or even his almost noiseless laugh.... Alas! his eloquence was quenched for ever, and I never heard his laugh again.

I promised to let him know, as soon as I should find out anything positive.... Tarhov's name I did not, however, mention. Punin suddenly collapsed completely. 'Very good, very good, sir, thank you,' he said with a pitiful face, using the word 'sir,' which he had never done before; 'only mind, sir, do not say anything to Paramon Semyonitch ... or he'll be angry. In one word, he has forbidden it. Good-bye, sir.'

As he got up and turned his back to me, Punin struck me as such a poor feeble creature, that I positively marvelled; he limped with both legs, and doubled up at each step....

'It's a bad look-out. It's the end of him, that's what it means,' I thought.

* * * * *

Though I had promised Punin to trace Musa, yet as I set off the same day to Tarhov's, I had not the slightest expectation of learning anything, as I considered it certain that either I should not find him at home, or that he would refuse to see me. My supposition turned out to be a mistaken one. I found Tarhov at home; he received me, and I found out indeed all I wanted to know; but there was nothing gained by that. Directly I crossed the threshold of his door, Tarhov came resolutely, rapidly, to meet me, and his eyes sparkling and glowing, his face grown handsomer and radiant, he said firmly and briskly: 'Listen, Petya, my boy; I guess what you've come for, and what you want to talk about; but I give you warning, if you say a single word about her, or about her action, or about what, according to you, is the course dictated to me by common sense, we're friends no longer, we're not even acquainted, and I shall beg you to treat me as a stranger.'

I looked at Tarhov; he was quivering all over inwardly, like a tightly drawn harpstring; he was tingling all over, hardly could he hold back the tide of brimming youth and passion; violent, ecstatic happiness had burst into his soul, and had taken full possession of him—and he of it.

* * * * *

'Is that your final decision?' I pronounced mournfully.

'Yes, Petya, my boy, it's final.'

'In that case, there's nothing for me but to say good-bye.'

Tarhov faintly dropped his eyelids.... He was too happy at that moment.

'Good-bye, Petya, old boy,' he said, a little through his nose, with a candid smile and a gay flash of all his white teeth.

What was I to do? I left him to his 'happiness.' As I slammed the door after me, the other door of the room slammed also—I heard it.

* * * * *

It was with a heavy heart that I trudged off next day to see my luckless acquaintances. I secretly hoped—such is human weakness—that I should not find them at home, and again I was mistaken. Both were at home. The change that had taken place in them during the last three days must have struck any one. Punin looked ghastly white and flabby. His talkativeness had completely vanished. He spoke listlessly, feebly, still in the same husky voice, and looked somehow lost and bewildered. Baburin, on the contrary, seemed shrunk into himself, and blacker than ever; taciturn at the best of times, he uttered nothing now but a few abrupt sounds; an expression of stony severity seemed to have frozen on his countenance.

I felt it impossible to be silent; but what was there to say? I confined myself to whispering to Punin, 'I have discovered nothing, and my advice to you is to give up all hope.' Punin glanced at me with his swollen, red little eyes—the only red left in his face—muttered something inaudible, and hobbled away. Baburin most likely guessed what I had been speaking about to Punin, and opening his lips, which were tightly compressed, as though glued together, he pronounced, in a deliberate voice, 'My dear sir, since your last visit to us, something disagreeable has happened to us; our young friend, Musa Pavlovna Vinogradov, finding it no longer convenient to live with us, has decided to leave us, and has given us a written communication to that effect. Not considering that we have any right to hinder her doing so, we have left her to act according to her own views of what is best. We trust that she may be happy,' he added, with some effort; 'and I humbly beg you not to allude to the subject, as any such references are useless, and even painful.'

'So he too, like Tarhov, forbids my speaking of Musa,' was the thought that struck me, and I could not help wondering inwardly. He might well prize Zeno so highly. I wished to impart to him some facts about that sage, but my tongue would not form the words, and it did well.

I soon went about my business. At parting neither Punin nor Baburin said, 'Till we meet!' both with one voice pronounced, 'Good-bye.'

Punin even returned me a volume of the Telegraph I had brought him, as much as to say, 'he had no need of anything of that kind now.'

A week later I had a curious encounter. An early spring had set in abruptly; at midday the heat rose to eighteen degrees Reaumur. Everything was turning green, and shooting up out of the spongy, damp earth. I hired a horse at the riding-school, and went out for a ride into the outskirts of the town, towards the Vorobyov hills. On the road I was met by a little cart, drawn by a pair of spirited ponies, splashed with mud up to their ears, with plaited tails, and red ribbons in their manes and forelocks. Their harness was such as sportsmen affect, with copper discs and tassels; they were being driven by a smart young driver, in a blue tunic without sleeves, a yellow striped silk shirt, and a low felt hat with peacock's feathers round the crown. Beside him sat a girl of the artisan or merchant class, in a flowered silk jacket, with a big blue handkerchief on her head—and she was simply bubbling over with mirth. The driver was laughing too. I drew my horse on one side, but did not, however, take particular notice of the swiftly passing, merry couple, when, all at once, the young man shouted to his ponies.... Why, that was Tarhov's voice! I looked round.... Yes, it was he; unmistakably he, dressed up as a peasant, and beside him—wasn't it Musa?

But at that instant their ponies quickened their pace, and they were out of my sight in a minute. I tried to put my horse into a gallop in pursuit of them, but it was an old riding school hack, that shambled from side to side as it moved; it went more slowly galloping than trotting.

'Enjoy yourselves, my dear friends!' I muttered through my teeth.

I ought to observe that I had not seen Tarhov during the whole week, though I had been three times to his rooms. He was never at home. Baburin and Punin I had not seen either.... I had not been to see them.

I caught cold on my ride; though it was very warm, there was a piercing wind. I was dangerously ill, and when I recovered I went with my grandmother into the country 'to feed up,' by the doctor's advice. I did not get to Moscow again; in the autumn I was transferred to the Petersburg university.



III

1849

Not seven, but fully twelve years had passed by, and I was in my thirty-second year. My grandmother had long been dead; I was living in Petersburg, with a post in the Department of Home Affairs. Tarhov I had lost sight of; he had gone into the army, and lived almost always in the provinces. We had met twice, as old friends, glad to see each other; but we had not touched on the past in our talk. At the time of our last meeting he was, if I remember right, already a married man.

One sultry summer day I was sauntering along Gorohov Street, cursing my official duties for keeping me in Petersburg, and the heat and stench and dust of the city. A funeral barred my way. It consisted of a solitary car, that is, to be accurate, of a decrepit hearse, on which a poor-looking wooden coffin, half-covered with a threadbare black cloth, was shaking up and down as it was jolted violently over the uneven pavement. An old man with a white head was walking alone after the hearse.

I looked at him.... His face seemed familiar.... He too turned his eyes upon me.... Merciful heavens! it was Baburin! I took off my hat, went up to him, mentioned my name, and walked along beside him.

'Whom are you burying?' I asked.

'Nikander Vavilitch Punin,' he answered.

I felt, I knew beforehand, that he would utter that name, and yet it set my heart aching. I felt melancholy, and yet I was glad that chance had enabled me to pay my last respects to my old friend....

'May I go with you, Paramon Semyonitch?'

'You may.... I was following him alone; now there'll be two of us.'

Our walk lasted more than an hour. My companion moved forward, without lifting his eyes or opening his lips. He had become quite an old man since I had seen him last; his deeply furrowed, copper-coloured face stood out sharply against his white hair. Signs of a life of toil and suffering, of continual struggle, could be seen in Baburin's whole figure; want and poverty had worked cruel havoc with him. When everything was over, when what was Punin had disappeared for ever in the damp ... yes, undoubtedly damp earth of the Smolensky cemetery, Baburin, after standing a couple of minutes with bowed, uncovered head before the newly risen mound of sandy clay, turned to me his emaciated, as it were embittered, face, his dry, sunken eyes, thanked me grimly, and was about to move away; but I detained him.

'Where do you live, Paramon Semyonitch? Let me come and see you. I had no idea you were living in Petersburg. We could recall old days, and talk of our dead friend.'

Baburin did not answer me at once.

'It's two years since I found my way to Petersburg,' he observed at last; 'I live at the very end of the town. However, if you really care to visit me, come.' He gave me his address. 'Come in the evening; in the evening we are always at home ... both of us.'

'Both of you?'

'I am married. My wife is not very well to-day, and that's why she did not come too. Though, indeed, it's quite enough for one person to go through this empty formality, this ceremony. As if anybody believed in it all!'

I was a little surprised at Baburin's last words, but I said nothing, called a cab, and proposed to Baburin to take him home; but he refused.

* * * * *

The same day I went in the evening to see him. All the way there I was thinking of Punin. I recalled how I had met him the first time, and how ecstatic and amusing he was in those days; and afterwards in Moscow how subdued he had grown—especially the last time I saw him; and now he had made his last reckoning with life;—life is in grim earnest, it seems! Baburin was living in the Viborgsky quarter, in a little house which reminded me of the Moscow 'nest': the Petersburg abode was almost shabbier in appearance. When I went into his room he was sitting on a chair in a corner with his hands on his knees; a tallow candle, burning low, dimly lighted up his bowed, white head. He heard the sound of my footsteps, started up, and welcomed me more warmly than I had expected. A few moments later his wife came in; I recognised her at once as Musa—and only then understood why Baburin had invited me to come; he wanted to show me that he had after all come by his own.

Musa was greatly changed—in face, in voice, and in manners; but her eyes were changed most of all. In old times they had darted about like live creatures, those malicious, beautiful eyes; they had gleamed stealthily, but brilliantly; their glance had pierced, like a pin-prick.... Now they looked at one directly, calmly, steadily; their black centres had lost their lustre. 'I am broken in, I am tame, I am good,' her soft and dull gaze seemed to say. Her continued, submissive smile told the same story. And her dress, too, was subdued; brown, with little spots on it. She came up to me, asked me whether I knew her. She obviously felt no embarrassment, and not because she had lost a sense of shame or memory of the past, but simply because all petty self-consciousness had left her.

Musa talked a great deal about Punin, talked in an even voice, which too had lost its fire. I learned that of late years he had become very feeble, had almost sunk into childishness, so much so that he was miserable if he had not toys to play with; they persuaded him, it is true, that he made them out of waste stuff for sale ... but he really played with them himself. His passion for poetry, however, never died out, and he kept his memory for nothing but verses; a few days before his death he recited a passage from the Rossiad; but Pushkin he feared, as children fear bogies. His devotion to Baburin had also remained undiminished; he worshipped him as much as ever, and even at the last, wrapped about by the chill and dark of the end, he had faltered with halting tongue, 'benefactor!' I learned also from Musa that soon after the Moscow episode, it had been Baburin's fate once more to wander all over Russia, continually tossed from one private situation to another; that in Petersburg, too, he had been again in a situation, in a private business, which situation he had, however, been obliged to leave a few days before, owing to some unpleasantness with his employer: Baburin had ventured to stand up for the workpeople.... The invariable smile, with which Musa accompanied her words, set me musing mournfully; it put the finishing touch to the impression made on me by her husband's appearance. They had hard work, the two of them, to make a bare living—there was no doubt of it. He took very little part in our conversation; he seemed more preoccupied than grieved.... Something was worrying him.

'Paramon Semyonitch, come here,' said the cook, suddenly appearing in the doorway.

'What is it? what's wanted?' he asked in alarm.

'Come here,' the cook repeated insistently and meaningly. Baburin buttoned up his coat and went out.

When I was left alone with Musa, she looked at me with a somewhat changed glance, and observed in a voice which was also changed, and with no smile: 'I don't know, Piotr Petrovitch, what you think of me now, but I dare say you remember what I used to be.... I was self-confident, light-hearted ... and not good; I wanted to live for my own pleasure. But I want to tell you this: when I was abandoned, and was like one lost, and was only waiting for God to take me, or to pluck up spirit to make an end of myself,—once more, just as in Voronezh, I met with Paramon Semyonitch—and he saved me once again.... Not a word that could wound me did I hear from him, not a word of reproach; he asked nothing of me—I was not worthy of that; but he loved me ... and I became his wife. What was I to do? I had failed of dying; and I could not live either after my own choice....What was I to do with myself? Even so—it was a mercy to be thankful for. That is all.'

She ceased, turned away for an instant ... the same submissive smile came back to her lips. 'Whether life's easy for me, you needn't ask,' was the meaning I fancied now in that smile.

The conversation passed to ordinary subjects. Musa told me that Punin had left a cat that he had been very fond of, and that ever since his death she had gone up to the attic and stayed there, mewing incessantly, as though she were calling some one ... the neighbours were very much scared, and fancied that it was Punin's soul that had passed into the cat.

'Paramon Semyonitch is worried about something,' I said at last.

'Oh, you noticed it?'—Musa sighed. 'He cannot help being worried. I need hardly tell you that Paramon Semyonitch has remained faithful to his principles.... The present condition of affairs can but strengthen them.' (Musa expressed herself quite differently now from in the old days in Moscow; there was a literary, bookish flavour in her phrases.) 'I don't know, though, whether I can rely upon you, and how you will receive ...'

'Why should you imagine you cannot rely upon me?'

'Well, you are in the government service—you are an official.'

'Well, what of that?'

'You are, consequently, loyal to the government.'

I marvelled inwardly ... at Musa's innocence. 'As to my attitude to the government, which is not even aware of my existence, I won't enlarge upon that,' I observed; 'but you may set your mind at rest. I will make no bad use of your confidence. I sympathise with your husband's ideas ... more than you suppose.'

Musa shook her head.

'Yes; that's all so,' she began, not without hesitation; 'but you see it's like this. Paramon Semyonitch's ideas will shortly, it may be, find expression in action. They can no longer be hidden under a bushel. There are comrades whom we cannot now abandon ...'

Musa suddenly ceased speaking, as though she had bitten her tongue. Her last words had amazed and a little alarmed me. Most likely my face showed what I was feeling—and Musa noticed it.

As I have said already, our interview took place in the year 1849. Many people still remember what a disturbed and difficult time that was, and by what incidents it was signalised in St. Petersburg. I had been struck myself by certain peculiarities in Baburin's behaviour, in his whole demeanour. Twice he had referred to governmental action, to personages in high authority, with such intense bitterness and hatred, with such loathing, that I had been dumbfoundered....

'Well?' he asked me suddenly: 'did you set your peasants free?'

I was obliged to confess I had not.

'Why, I suppose your granny's dead, isn't she?'

I was obliged to admit that she was.

'To be sure, you noble gentlemen,' Baburin muttered between his teeth, '... use other men's hands ... to poke up your fire ... that's what you like.'

In the most conspicuous place in his room hung the well-known lithograph portrait of Belinsky; on the table lay a volume of the old Polar Star, edited by Bestuzhev.

A long time passed, and Baburin did not come back after the cook had called him away. Musa looked several times uneasily towards the door by which he had gone out. At last she could bear it no longer; she got up, and with an apology she too went out by the same door. A quarter of an hour later she came back with her husband; the faces of both, so at least I thought, looked troubled. But all of a sudden Baburin's face assumed a different, an intensely bitter, almost frenzied expression.

'What will be the end of it?' he began all at once in a jerky, sobbing voice, utterly unlike him, while his wild eyes shifted restlessly about him. 'One goes on living and living, and hoping that maybe it'll be better, that one will breathe more freely; but it's quite the other way—everything gets worse and worse! They have squeezed us right up to the wall! In my youth I bore all with patience; they ... maybe ... beat me ... even ... yes!' he added, turning sharply round on his heels and swooping down as it were, upon me: 'I, a man of full age, was subjected to corporal punishment ... yes;—of other wrongs I will not speak.... But is there really nothing before us but to go back to those old times again? The way they are treating the young people now! ... Yes, it breaks down all endurance at last.... It breaks it down! Yes! Wait a bit!'

I had never seen Baburin in such a condition. Musa turned positively white.... Baburin suddenly cleared his throat, and sank down into a seat. Not wishing to constrain either him or Musa by my presence, I decided to go, and was just saying good-bye to them, when the door into the next room suddenly opened, and a head appeared.... It was not the cook's head, but the dishevelled and terrified-looking head of a young man.

'Something's wrong, Baburin, something's wrong!' he faltered hurriedly, then vanished at once on perceiving my unfamiliar figure.

Baburin rushed after the young man. I pressed Musa's hand warmly, and withdrew, with presentiments of evil in my heart.

'Come to-morrow,' she whispered anxiously.

'I certainly will come,' I answered.

* * * * *

I was still in bed next morning, when my man handed me a letter from Musa.

'Dear Piotr Petrovitch!' she wrote: 'Paramon Semyonitch has been this night arrested by the police and carried off to the fortress, or I don't know where; they did not tell me. They ransacked all our papers, sealed up a great many, and took them away with them. It has been the same with our books and letters. They say a mass of people have been arrested in the town. You can fancy how I feel. It is well Nikander Vavilitch did not live to see it! He was taken just in time. Advise me what I am to do. For myself I am not afraid—I shall not die of starvation—but the thought of Paramon Semyonitch gives me no rest. Come, please, if only you are not afraid to visit people in our position.—Yours faithfully,

MUSA BABURIN.'

* * * * *

Half an hour later I was with Musa. On seeing me she held out her hand, and, though she did not utter a word, a look of gratitude flitted over her face. She was wearing the same clothes as on the previous day; there was every sign that she had not been to bed or slept all night. Her eyes were red, but from sleeplessness, not from tears. She had not been crying. She was in no mood for weeping. She wanted to act, wanted to struggle with the calamity that had fallen upon them: the old, energetic, self-willed Musa had risen up in her again. She had no time even to be indignant, though she was choking with indignation. How to assist Baburin, to whom to appeal so as to soften his lot—she could think of nothing else. She wanted to go instantly, ... to petition, ... demand.... But where to go, whom to petition, what to demand—this was what she wanted to hear from me, this was what she wanted to consult me about.

I began by counselling her ... to have patience. For the first moment there was nothing left to be done but to wait, and, as far as might be, to make inquiries; and to take any decisive step now when the affair had scarcely begun, and hardly yet taken shape, would be simply senseless, irrational. To hope for any success was irrational, even if I had been a person of much more importance and influence, ... but what could I, a petty official, do? As for her, she was absolutely without any powerful friends....

It was no easy matter to make all this plain to her ... but at last she understood my arguments; she understood, too, that I was not prompted by egoistic feeling, when I showed her the uselessness of all efforts. 'But tell me, Musa Pavlovna,' I began, when she sank at last into a chair (till then she had been standing up, as though on the point of setting off at once to the aid of Baburin),'how Paramon Semyonitch, at his age, comes to be mixed up in such an affair? I feel sure that there are none but young people implicated in it, like the one who came in yesterday to warn you....'

'Those young people are our friends!' cried Musa, and her eyes flashed and darted as of old. Something strong, irrepressible, seemed, as it were, to rise up from the bottom of her soul, ... and I suddenly recalled the expression 'a new type,' which Tarhov had once used of her. 'Years are of no consequence when it is a matter of political principles!' Musa laid a special stress on these last two words. One might fancy that in all her sorrow it was not unpleasing to her to show herself before me in this new, unlooked-for character—in the character of a cultivated and mature woman, fit wife of a republican! ... 'Some old men are younger than some young ones,' she pursued, 'more capable of sacrifice.... But that's not the point.'

'I think, Musa Pavlovna,' I observed, 'that you are exaggerating a little. Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his calling ...'

'Oh, of course,' Musa interrupted, with bitterness in her voice, 'he is a working man; and in Russia it is only permissible for noblemen to take part in conspiracies, ... as, for instance, in that of the fourteenth of December, ... that's what you meant to say.'

'In that case, what do you complain of now?' almost broke from my lips, ... but I restrained myself. 'Do you consider that the result of the fourteenth of December was such as to encourage other such attempts?' I said aloud.

Musa frowned. 'It is no good talking to you about it,' was what I read in her downcast face.

'Is Paramon Semyonitch very seriously compromised?' I ventured to ask her. Musa made no reply.... A hungry, savage mewing was heard from the attic.

Musa started. 'Ah, it is a good thing Nikander Vavilitch did not see all this!' she moaned almost despairingly. 'He did not see how violently in the night they seized his benefactor, our benefactor—maybe, the best and truest man in the whole world,—he did not see how they treated that noble man at his age, how rudely they addressed him, ... how they threatened him, and the threats they used to him!—only because he was a working man! That young officer, too, was no doubt just such an unprincipled, heartless wretch as I have known in my life....'

Musa's voice broke. She was quivering all over like a leaf.

Her long-suppressed indignation broke out at last; old memories stirred up, brought to the surface by the general tumult of her soul, showed themselves alive within her.... But the conviction I carried off at that moment was that the 'new type' was still the same, still the same passionate, impulsive nature.... Only the impulses by which Musa was carried away were not the same as in the days of her youth. What on my first visit I had taken for resignation, for meekness, and what really was so—the subdued, lustreless glance, the cold voice, the quietness and simplicity—all that had significance only in relation to the past, to what would never return....

Now it was the present asserted itself.

I tried to soothe Musa, tried to put our conversation on a more practical level. Some steps must be taken that could not be postponed; we must find out exactly where Baburin was; and then secure both for him and for Musa the means of subsistence. All this presented no inconsiderable difficulty; what was needed was not to find money, but work, which is, as we all know, a far more complicated problem....

I left Musa with a perfect swarm of reflections in my head.

I soon learned that Baburin was in the fortress.

The proceedings began, ... dragged on. I saw Musa several times every week. She had several interviews with her husband. But just at the moment of the decision of the whole melancholy affair, I was not in Petersburg. Unforeseen business had obliged me to set off to the south of Russia. During my absence I heard that Baburin had been acquitted at the trial; it appeared that all that could be proved against him was, that young people regarding him as a person unlikely to awaken suspicion, had sometimes held meetings at his house, and he had been present at their meetings; he was, however, by administrative order sent into exile in one of the western provinces of Siberia. Musa went with him.

'Paramon Semyonitch did not wish it,' she wrote to me; 'as, according to his ideas, no one ought to sacrifice self for another person, and not for a cause; but I told him there was no question of sacrifice at all. When I said to him in Moscow that I would be his wife, I thought to myself—for ever, indissolubly! So indissoluble it must be till the end of our days....'



IV

1861

Twelve more years passed by.... Every one in Russia knows, and will ever remember, what passed between the years 1849 and 1861. In my personal life, too, many changes took place, on which, however, there is no need to enlarge. New interests came into it, new cares.... The Baburin couple first fell into the background, then passed out of my mind altogether. Yet I kept up a correspondence with Musa—at very long intervals, however. Sometimes more than a year passed without any tidings of her or of her husband. I heard that soon after 1855 he received permission to return to Russia; but that he preferred to remain in the little Siberian town, where he had been flung by destiny, and where he had apparently made himself a home, and found a haven and a sphere of activity....

And, lo and behold! towards the end of March in 1861, I received the following letter from Musa:—

'It is so long since I have written to you, most honoured Piotr Petrovitch, that I do not even know whether you are still living; and if you are living, have you not forgotten our existence? But no matter; I cannot resist writing to you to-day. Everything till now has gone on with us in the same old way: Paramon Semyonitch and I have been always busy with our schools, which are gradually making good progress; besides that, Paramon Semyonitch was taken up with reading and correspondence and his usual discussions with the Old-believers, members of the clergy, and Polish exiles; his health has been fairly good.... So has mine. But yesterday! the manifesto of the 19th of February reached us! We had long been on the look-out for it. Rumours had reached us long before of what was being done among you in Petersburg, ... but yet I can't describe what it was! You know my husband well; he was not in the least changed by his misfortune; on the contrary, he has grown even stronger and more energetic, and has a will as strong as iron, but at this he could not restrain himself! His hands shook as he read it; then he embraced me three times, and three times he kissed me, tried to say something—but no! he could not! and ended by bursting into tears, which was very astounding to see, and suddenly he shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah! God save the Tsar!" Yes, Piotr Petrovitch, those were his very words! Then he went on: "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart" ... and again: "This is the first step, others are bound to follow it"; and, just as he was, bareheaded, ran to tell the great news to our friends. There was a bitter frost, and even a snowstorm coming on. I tried to prevent him, but he would not listen to me. And when he came home, he was all covered with snow, his hair, his face, and his beard—he has a beard right down to his chest now—and the tears were positively frozen on his cheeks! But he was very lively and cheerful, and told me to uncork a bottle of home-made champagne, and he drank with our friends that he had brought back with him, to the health of the Tsar and of Russia, and all free Russians; and taking the glass, and fixing his eyes on the ground, he said: "Nikander, Nikander, do you hear? There are no slaves in Russia any more! Rejoice in the grave, old comrade!" And much more he said; to the effect that his "expectations were fulfilled!" He said, too, that now there could be no turning back; that this was in its way a pledge or promise.... I don't remember everything, but it is long since I have seen him so happy. And so I made up my mind to write to you, so that you might know how we have been rejoicing and exulting in the remote Siberian wilds, so that you might rejoice with us....'

This letter I received at the end of March. At the beginning of May another very brief letter arrived from Musa. She informed me that her husband, Paramon Semyonitch Baburin, had taken cold on the very day of the arrival of the manifesto, and died on the 12th of April of inflammation of the lungs, in the 67th year of his age. She added that she intended to remain where his body lay at rest, and to go on with the work he had bequeathed her, since such was the last wish of Paramon Semyonitch, and that was her only law.

Since then I have heard no more of Musa.

PARIS, 1874.



OLD PORTRAITS

About thirty miles from our village there lived, many years ago, a distant cousin of my mother's, a retired officer of the Guards, and rather wealthy landowner, Alexey Sergeitch Teliegin. He lived on his estate and birth-place, Suhodol, did not go out anywhere, and so did not visit us; but I used to be sent, twice a year, to pay him my respects—at first with my tutor, but later on alone. Alexey Sergeitch always gave me a very cordial reception, and I used to stay three or four days at a time with him. He was an old man even when I first made his acquaintance; I was twelve, I remember, on my first visit, and he was then over seventy. He was born in the days of the Empress Elisabeth—in the last year of her reign. He lived alone with his wife, Malania Pavlovna; she was ten years younger than he. They had two daughters; but their daughters had been long married, and rarely visited Suhodol; they were not on the best of terms with their parents, and Alexey Sergeitch hardly ever mentioned their names.

I see, even now, the old-fashioned house, a typical manor-house of the steppes. One story in height, with immense attics, it was built at the beginning of this century, of amazingly thick beams of pine,—such beams came in plenty in those days from the Zhizdrinsky pine-forests; they have passed out of memory now! It was very spacious, and contained a great number of rooms, rather low-pitched and dark, it is true; the windows in the walls had been made small for the sake of greater warmth. In the usual fashion (I ought rather to say, in what was then the usual fashion), the offices and house-serfs' huts surrounded the manorial house on all sides, and the garden was close to it—a small garden, but containing fine fruit-trees, juicy apples, and pipless pears. The flat steppe of rich, black earth stretched for ten miles round. No lofty object for the eye; not a tree, nor even a belfry; somewhere, maybe, jutting up, a windmill, with rents in its sails; truly, well-named Suhodol, or Dry-flat! Inside the house the rooms were filled with ordinary, simple furniture; somewhat unusual was the milestone-post that stood in the window of the drawing-room, with the following inscription:—'If you walk sixty-eight times round this drawing-room you will have gone a mile; if you walk eighty-seven times from the furthest corner of the parlour to the right-hand corner of the billiard-room, you will have gone a mile,' and so on. But what most of all impressed a guest at the house for the first time was the immense collection of pictures hanging on the walls, for the most part works of the so-called Italian masters: all old-fashioned landscapes of a sort, or mythological and religious subjects. But all these pictures were very dark, and even cracked with age;—in one, all that met the eye was some patches of flesh-colour; in another, undulating red draperies on an unseen body; or an arch which seemed to be suspended in the air; or a dishevelled tree with blue foliage; or the bosom of a nymph with an immense breast, like the lid of a soup-tureen; a cut water-melon, with black seeds; a turban, with a feather in it, above a horse's head; or the gigantic brown leg of an apostle, suddenly thrust out, with a muscular calf, and toes turned upwards. In the drawing-room in the place of honour hung a portrait of the Empress Catherine II., full length; a copy of the famous portrait by Lampi—an object of the special reverence, one might say the adoration, of the master of the house. From the ceiling hung glass lustres in bronze settings, very small and very dusty.

Alexey Sergeitch himself was a stumpy, paunchy little old man, with a chubby face of one uniform tint, yet pleasant, with drawn-in lips, and very lively little eyes under high eyebrows. He wore his scanty locks combed to the back of his head; it was only since 1812 that he had given up wearing powder. Alexey Sergeitch invariably wore a grey 'redingote,' with three capes falling over his shoulders, a striped waistcoat, chamois-leather breeches, and high boots of dark red morocco, with heart-shaped scallops and tassels at the tops; he wore a white muslin cravat, a jabot, lace cuffs, and two gold English 'turnip watches,' one in each pocket of his waistcoat. In his right hand he usually carried an enamelled snuff-box full of 'Spanish' snuff, and his left hand leaned on a cane with a silver-chased knob, worn smooth by long use. Alexey Sergeitch had a little nasal, piping voice, and an invariable smile—kindly, but, as it were, condescending, and not without a certain self-complacent dignity. His laugh, too, was kindly—a shrill little laugh that tinkled like glass beads. Courteous and affable he was to the last degree—in the old-fashioned manner of the days of Catherine—and he moved his hands with slow, rounded gestures, also in the old style. His legs were so weak that he could not walk, but ran with hurried little steps from one armchair to another, in which he would suddenly sit down, or rather fall softly, like a cushion.

As I have said already, Alexey Sergeitch went out nowhere, and saw very little of his neighbours, though he liked society, for he was very fond of talking! It is true that he had society in plenty in his own house; various Nikanor Nikanoritchs, Sevastiey Sevastietchs, Fedulitchs, Miheitchs, all poor gentlemen in shabby cossack coats and camisoles, often from the master's wardrobe, lived under his roof, to say nothing of the poor gentlewomen in chintz gowns, black kerchiefs thrown over their shoulders, and worsted reticules in their tightly clenched fingers—all sorts of Avdotia Savishnas, Pelagea Mironovnas, and plain Feklushkas and Arinkas, who found a home in the women's quarters. Never less than fifteen persons sat down to Alexey Sergeitch's table.... He was such a hospitable man! Among all those dependants two were particularly conspicuous: a dwarf, nicknamed Janus, or the Double-faced, of Danish—or, as some maintained, Jewish—extraction, and the mad Prince L. Contrary to what was customary in those days, the dwarf did nothing to amuse the master or mistress, and was not a jester—quite the opposite; he was always silent, had an ill-tempered and sullen appearance, and scowled and gnashed his teeth directly a question was addressed to him. Alexey Sergeitch called him a philosopher, and positively respected him; at table the dishes were handed to him first, after the guests and master and mistress. 'God has afflicted him,' Alexey Sergeitch used to say; 'such is His Divine will; but it's not for me to afflict him further.' 'How is he a philosopher?' I asked him once. (Janus didn't take to me; if I went near him he would fly into a rage, and mutter thickly, 'Stranger! keep off!') 'Eh, God bless me! isn't he a philosopher?' answered Alexey Sergeitch. 'Look ye, little sir, how wisely he holds his tongue!' 'But why is he double-faced?' 'Because, little sir, he has one face on the outside—and so you, surface-gazers, judge him.... But the other, the real face he hides. And that face I know, and no one else—and I love him for it ... because that face is good. You, for instance, look and see nothing ... but I see without a word: he is blaming me for something; for he's a severe critic! And it's always with good reason. That, little sir, you can't understand; but you may believe an old man like me!' The real history of the two-faced Janus—where he came from, and how he came into Alexey Sergeitch's hands—no one knew; but the story of Prince L. was well known to every one. He went, a lad of twenty, of a wealthy and distinguished family, to Petersburg, to serve in a regiment of the Guards. At the first levee the Empress Catherine noticed him, stood still before him, and, pointing at him with her fan, she said aloud, addressing one of her courtiers, who happened to be near, 'Look, Adam Vassilievitch, what a pretty fellow! a perfect doll!' The poor boy's head was completely turned; when he got home he ordered his coach out, and, putting on a ribbon of St. Anne, proceeded to drive all over the town, as though he had reached the pinnacle of fortune. 'Drive over every one,' he shouted to his coachman, 'who does not move out of the way!' All this was promptly reported to the empress: the decree went forth that he should be declared insane, and put under the guardianship of two of his brothers; and they, without a moment's delay, carried him off to the country, and flung him into a stone cell in chains. As they wanted to get the benefit of his property, they did not let the poor wretch out, even when he had completely recovered his balance, and positively kept him locked up till he really did go out of his mind. But their evil doings did not prosper; Prince L. outlived his brothers, and, after long years of adversity, he came into the charge of Alexey Sergeitch, whose kinsman he was. He was a stout, completely bald man, with a long, thin nose and prominent blue eyes. He had quite forgotten how to talk—he simply uttered a sort of inarticulate grumbling; but he sang old-fashioned Russian ballads beautifully, preserving the silvery freshness of his voice to extreme old age; and, while he was singing, he pronounced each word clearly and distinctly. He had attacks at times of a sort of fury, and then he became terrible: he would stand in the corner, with his face to the wall, and all perspiring and red—red all down his bald head and down his neck—he used to go off into vicious chuckles, and, stamping with his feet, order some one—his brothers probably—to be punished. 'Beat 'em!' he growled hoarsely, coughing and choking with laughter; 'flog 'em, don't spare 'em! beat, beat, beat the monsters, my oppressors! That's it! That's it!' On the day before his death he greatly alarmed and astonished Alexey Sergeitch. He came, pale and subdued, into his room, and, making him a low obeisance, first thanked him for his care and kindness, and then asked him to send for a priest, for death had come to him—he had seen death, and he must forgive every one and purify his soul. 'How did you see death?' muttered Alexey Sergeitch in bewilderment at hearing connected speech from him for the first time. 'In what shape? with a scythe?' 'No,' answered Prince L.; 'a simple old woman in a jacket, but with only one eye in her forehead, and that eye without an eyelid.' And the next day Prince L. actually did die, duly performing everything, and taking leave of every one in a rational and affecting manner. 'That's just how I shall die,' Alexey Sergeitch would sometimes observe. And, as a fact, something of the same sort did happen with him—but of that later.

But now let us go back to our story. Of the neighbours, as I have stated already, Alexey Sergeitch saw little; and they did not care much for him, called him a queer fish, stuck up, and a scoffer, and even a 'martiniste' who recognised no authorities, though they had no clear idea of the meaning of this term. To a certain extent the neighbours were right: Alexey Sergeitch had lived in his Suhodol for almost seventy years on end, and had had hardly anything whatever to do with the existing authorities, with the police or the law-courts. 'Police-courts are for the robber, and discipline for the soldier,' he used to say; 'but I, thank God, am neither robber nor soldier!' Rather queer Alexey Sergeitch certainly was, but the soul within him was by no means a petty one. I will tell you something about him.

To tell the truth, I never knew what were his political opinions, if an expression so modern can be used in reference to him; but, in his own way, he was an aristocrat—more an aristocrat than a typical Russian country gentleman. More than once he expressed his regret that God had not given him a son and heir, 'for the honour of our name, to keep up the family.' In his own room there hung on the wall the family-tree of the Teliegins, with many branches, and a multitude of little circles like apples in a golden frame. 'We Teliegins,' he used to say, 'are an ancient line, from long, long ago: however many there've been of us Teliegins, we have never hung about great men's ante-rooms; we've never bent our backs, or stood about in waiting, nor picked up a living in the courts, nor run after decorations; we've never gone trailing off to Moscow, nor intriguing in Petersburg; we've sat at home, each in his hole, his own man on his own land ... home-keeping birds, sir!—I myself, though I did serve in the Guards—but not for long, thank you.' Alexey Sergeitch preferred the old days. 'There was more freedom in those days, more decorum; on my honour, I assure you! but since the year eighteen hundred' (why from that year, precisely, he did not explain), 'militarism, the soldiery, have got the upper hand. Our soldier gentlemen stuck some sort of turbans of cocks' feathers on their heads then, and turned like cocks themselves; began binding their necks up as stiff as could be ... they croak, and roll their eyes—how could they help it, indeed? The other day a police corporal came to me; "I've come to you," says he, "honourable sir," ... (fancy his thinking to surprise me with that! ... I know I'm honourable without his telling me!) "I have business with you." And I said to him, "My good sir, you'd better first unfasten the hooks on your collar. Or else, God have mercy on us—you'll sneeze. Ah, what would happen to you! what would happen to you! You'd break off, like a mushroom ... and I should have to answer for it!" And they do drink, these military gentlemen—oh, oh, oh! I generally order home-made champagne to be given them, because to them, good wine or poor, it's all the same; it runs so smoothly, so quickly, down their throats—how can they distinguish it? And, another thing, they've started sucking at a pap-bottle, smoking a tobacco-pipe. Your military gentleman thrusts his pap-bottle under his moustaches, between his lips, and puffs the smoke out of his nose, his mouth, and even his ears—and fancies himself a hero! There are my sons-in-law—though one of them's a senator, and the other some sort of an administrator over there—they suck the pap-bottle, and they reckon themselves clever fellows too!'

Alexey Sergeitch could not endure smoking; and moreover, he could not endure dogs, especially little dogs. 'If you're a Frenchman, to be sure, you may well keep a lapdog: you run and you skip about here and there, and it runs after you with its tail up ... but what's the use of it to people like us?' He was exceedingly neat and particular. Of the Empress Catherine he never spoke but with enthusiasm, and in exalted, rather bookish phraseology: 'Half divine she was, not human! Only look, little sir, at that smile,' he would add, pointing reverentially to Lampi's portrait, 'and you will agree: half divine! I was so fortunate in my life as to be deemed worthy to behold that smile close, and never will it be effaced from my heart!' And thereupon he would relate anecdotes of the life of Catherine, such as I have never happened to read or hear elsewhere. Here is one of them. Alexey Sergeitch did not permit the slightest allusion to the weaknesses of the great Tsaritsa. 'And, besides,' he exclaimed, 'can one judge of her as of other people?'

One day while she was sitting in her peignoir during her morning toilette, she commanded her hair to be combed.... And what do you think? The lady-in-waiting passed the comb through, and sparks of electricity simply showered out! Then she summoned to her presence the court physician Rogerson, who happened to be in waiting at the court, and said to him: 'I am, I know, censured for certain actions; but do you see this electricity? Consequently, as such is my nature and constitution, you can judge for yourself, as you are a doctor, that it is unjust for them to censure me, and they ought to comprehend me!' The following incident remained indelible in Alexey Sergeitch's memory. He was standing one day on guard indoors, in the palace—he was only sixteen at the time—and behold the empress comes walking past him; he salutes ... 'and she,' Alexey Sergeitch would exclaim at this point with much feeling, 'smiling at my youth and my zeal, deigned to give me her hand to kiss and patted my cheek, and asked me "who I was? where I came from? of what family?" and then' ... here the old man's voice usually broke ... 'then she bade me greet my mother in her name and thank her for having brought up her children so well. And whether I was on earth or in heaven, and how and where she deigned to vanish, whether she floated away into the heights or went her way into the other apartments ... to this day I do not know!'

More than once I tried to question Alexey Sergeitch about those far-away times, about the people who made up the empress's circle.... But for the most part he edged off the subject. 'What's the use of talking about old times?' he used to say ... 'it's only making one's self miserable, remembering that then one was a fine young fellow, and now one hasn't a tooth left in one's head. And what is there to say? They were good old times ... but there, enough of them! And as for those folks—you were asking, you troublesome boy, about the lucky ones!—haven't you seen how a bubble comes up on the water? As long as it lasts and is whole, what colours play upon it! Red, and blue, and yellow—a perfect rainbow or diamond you'd say it was! Only it soon bursts, and there's no trace of it left. And so it was with those folks.'

'But how about Potiomkin?' I once inquired.

Alexey Sergeitch looked grave. 'Potiomkin, Grigory Alexandrovitch, was a statesman, a theologian, a pupil of Catherine's, her cherished creation, one must say.... But enough of that, little sir!'

Alexey Sergeitch was a very devout man, and, though it was a great effort, he attended church regularly. Superstition was not noticeable in him; he laughed at omens, the evil eye, and such 'nonsense,' but he did not like a hare to run across his path, and to meet a priest was not altogether agreeable to him. For all that, he was very respectful to clerical persons, and went up to receive their blessing, and even kissed the priest's hand every time, but he was not willing to enter into conversation with them. 'Such an extremely strong odour comes from them,' he explained: 'and I, poor sinner, am fastidious beyond reason; they've such long hair, and all oily, and they comb it out on all sides—they think they show me respect by so doing, and they clear their throats so loudly when they talk—from shyness may be, or I dare say they want to show respect in that way too. And besides, they make one think of one's last hour. And, I don't know how it is, but I still want to go on living. Only, my little sir, don't you repeat my words; we must respect the clergy—it's only fools that don't respect them; and I'm to blame to babble nonsense in my old age.'

Alexey Sergeitch, like most of the noblemen of his day, had received a very slight education; but he had, to some extent, made good the deficiency himself by reading. He read none but Russian books of the end of last century; the more modern authors he thought insipid and deficient in style.... While he read, he had placed at his side on a round, one-legged table, a silver tankard of frothing spiced kvas of a special sort, which sent an agreeable fragrance all over the house. He used to put on the end of his nose a pair of big, round spectacles, but in latter years he did not so much read as gaze dreamily over the rims of his spectacles, lifting his eyebrows, chewing his lips, and sighing. Once I caught him weeping with a book on his knees, greatly, I own, to my surprise.

He had recalled these lines:

'O pitiful race of man! Peace is unknown to thee! Thou canst not find it save In the dust of the grave.... Bitter, bitter is that sleep! Rest, rest in death ... but living weep!'

These lines were the composition of a certain Gormitch-Gormitsky, a wandering poet, to whom Alexey Sergeitch had given a home in his house, as he struck him as a man of delicate feeling and even of subtlety; he wore slippers adorned with ribbons, spoke with a broad accent, and frequently sighed, turning his eyes to heaven; in addition to all these qualifications, Gormitch-Gormitsky spoke French decently, having been educated in a Jesuit college, while Alexey Sergeitch only 'followed conversation.' But having once got terribly drunk at the tavern, that same subtle Gormitsky showed a turbulence beyond all bounds; he gave a fearful thrashing to Alexey Sergeitch's valet, the man cook, two laundry-maids who chanced to get in his way, and a carpenter from another village, and he broke several panes in the windows, screaming furiously all the while: 'There, I'll show them, these Russian loafers, rough-hewn billy-goats!'

And the strength the frail-looking creature put forth! It was hard work for eight men to master him! For this violent proceeding Alexey Sergeitch ordered the poet to be turned out of the house, after being put, as a preliminary measure, in the snow—it was winter-time—to sober him.

'Yes,' Alexey Sergeitch used to say, 'my day is over; I was a spirited steed, but I've run my last race now. Then, I used to keep poets at my expense, and I used to buy pictures and books of the Jews, geese of the best breeds, and pouter-pigeons of pure blood.... I used to go in for everything! Though dogs I never did care for keeping, because it goes with drinking, foulness, and buffoonery! I was a young man of spirit, not to be outdone. That there should be anything of Teliegin's and not first-rate ... why, it was not to be thought of! And I had a splendid stud of horses. And my horses came—from what stock do you think, young sir? Why, from none other than the celebrated stables of the Tsar, Ivan Alexeitch, brother of Peter the Great ... it's the truth I'm telling you! All fawn-coloured stallions, sleek—their manes to their knees, their tails to their hoofs.... Lions! And all that was—and is buried in the past. Vanity of vanities—and every kind of vanity! But still—why regret it? Every man has his limits set him. There's no flying above the sky, no living in the water, no getting away from the earth.... We'll live a bit longer, anyway!'

And the old man would smile again and sniff his Spanish snuff.

The peasants liked him; he was, in their words, a kind master, not easily angered. Only they, too, repeated that he was a worn-out steed. In former days Alexey Sergeitch used to go into everything himself—he used to drive out to the fields, and to the mill, and to the dairy, and peep into the granaries and the peasants' huts; every one knew his racing droshky, upholstered in crimson plush, and drawn by a tall mare, with a broad white star all over her forehead, called 'Beacon,' of the same famous breed. Alexey Sergeitch used to drive her himself, the ends of the reins crushed up in his fists. But when his seventieth year came, the old man let everything go, and handed over the management of the estate to the bailiff Antip, of whom he was secretly afraid, and whom he called Micromegas (a reminiscence of Voltaire!), or simply, plunderer. 'Well, plunderer, what have you to say? Have you stacked a great deal in the barn?' he would ask with a smile, looking straight into the plunderer's eyes. 'All, by your good favour, please your honour,' Antip would respond cheerfully. 'Favour's all very well, only you mind what I say, Micromegas! don't you dare touch the peasants, my subjects, out of my sight! If they come to complain ... I've a cane, you see, not far off!' 'Your cane, your honour, Alexey Sergeitch, I always keep well in mind,' Antip Micromegas would respond, stroking his beard. 'All right, don't forget it.' And the master and the bailiff would laugh in each other's faces. With the servants, and with the serfs in general, his 'subjects' (Alexey Sergeitch liked that word) he was gentle in his behaviour. 'Because, think a little, nephew; nothing of their own, but the cross on their neck—and that copper—and daren't hanker after other people's goods ... how can one expect sense of them?' It is needless to state that of the so-called 'serf question' no one even dreamed in those days; it could not disturb the peace of mind of Alexey Sergeitch: he was quite happy in the possession of his 'subjects'; but he was severe in his censure of bad masters, and used to call them the enemies of their order. He divided the nobles generally into three classes: the prudent, 'of whom there are too few'; the prodigal, 'of whom there are quite enough'; and the senseless, 'of whom there are shoals and shoals.'

'And if any one of them is harsh and oppressive with his subjects'—he would say—'then he sins against God, and is guilty before men!'

Yes, the house-serfs had an easy life of it with the old man; the 'subjects out of sight' no doubt fared worse, in spite of the cane with which he threatened Micromegas. And what a lot there were of them, those house-serfs, in his house! And for the most part sinewy, hairy, grumbling old fellows, with stooping shoulders, in long-skirted nankeen coats, belted round the waist, with a strong, sour smell always clinging to them. And on the women's side, one could hear nothing but the patter of bare feet, the swish of petticoats. The chief valet was called Irinarh, and Alexey Sergeitch always called him in a long-drawn-out call: 'I-ri-na-a-arh!' The others he called: 'Boy! Lad! Whoever's there of the men!' Bells he could not endure: 'It's not an eating-house, God forbid!' And what used to surprise me was that whatever time Alexey Sergeitch called his valet, he always promptly made his appearance, as though he had sprung out of the earth, and with a scrape of his heels, his hands behind his back, would stand before his master, a surly, as it were angry, but devoted servant!

Alexey Sergeitch was liberal beyond his means; but he did not like to be called 'benefactor.' 'Benefactor to you, indeed, sir! ... I'm doing myself a benefit, and not you, sir!' (when he was angry or indignant, he always addressed people with greater formality). 'Give to a beggar once,' he used to say, 'and give him twice, and three times.... And—if he should come a fourth time, give to him still—only then you might say too: "It's time, my good man, you found work for something else, not only for your mouth."' 'But, uncle,' one asked, sometimes, 'suppose even after that the beggar came again, a fifth time?' 'Oh, well, give again the fifth time.' He used to have the sick, who came to him for aid, treated at his expense, though he had no faith in doctors himself, and never sent for them. 'My mother,' he declared, 'used to cure illnesses of all sorts with oil and salt—she gave it internally, and rubbed it on too—it always answered splendidly. And who was my mother? She was born in the days of Peter the Great—only fancy that!'

Alexey Sergeitch was a Russian in everything; he liked none but Russian dishes, he was fond of Russian songs, but the harmonica—a 'manufactured contrivance'—he hated; he liked looking at the serf-girls' dances and the peasant-women's jigs; in his youth, I was told, he had been an enthusiastic singer and a dashing dancer; he liked steaming himself in the bath, and steamed himself so vigorously that Irinarh, who, serving him as bathman, used to beat him with a bundle of birch-twigs steeped in beer, to rub him with a handful of tow, and then with a woollen cloth—the truly devoted Irinarh used to say every time, as he crept off his shelf red as a 'new copper image': 'Well, this time I, the servant of God, Irinarh Tolobiev, have come out alive. How will it be next time?'

And Alexey Sergeitch spoke excellent Russian, a little old-fashioned, but choice and pure as spring water, continually interspersing his remarks with favourite expressions: ''Pon my honour, please God, howsoever that may be, sir, and young sir....'

But enough of him. Let us talk a little about Alexey Sergeitch's wife, Malania Pavlovna. Malania Pavlovna was born at Moscow.

She had been famous as the greatest beauty in Moscow—la Venus de Moscou. I knew her as a thin old woman with delicate but insignificant features, with crooked teeth, like a hare's, in a tiny little mouth, with a multitude of finely crimped little yellow curls on her forehead, and painted eyebrows. She invariably wore a pyramidal cap with pink ribbons, a high ruff round her neck, a short white dress, and prunella slippers with red heels; and over her dress she wore a jacket of blue satin, with a sleeve hanging loose from her right shoulder. This was precisely the costume in which she was arrayed on St. Peter's Day in the year 1789! On that day she went, being still a girl, with her relations to the Hodinskoe field to see the famous boxing-match arranged by Orlov. 'And Count Alexey Grigorievitch' (oh, how often I used to hear this story!) 'noticing me, approached, bowed very low, taking his hat in both hands, and said: "Peerless beauty," said he, "why have you hung that sleeve from your shoulder? Do you, too, wish to try a tussle with me? ... By all means; only I will tell you beforehand you have vanquished me—I give in! And I am your captive." And every one was looking at us and wondering.' And that very costume she had worn continually ever since. 'Only I didn't wear a cap, but a hat a la bergere de Trianon; and though I was powdered, yet my hair shone through it, positively shone through it like gold!' Malania Pavlovna was foolish to the point of 'holy innocence,' as it is called; she chattered quite at random, as though she were hardly aware herself of what dropped from her lips—and mostly about Orlov. Orlov had become, one might say, the principal interest of her life. She usually walked ... or rather swam, into the room with a rhythmic movement of the head, like a peacock, stood still in the middle, with one foot strangely turned out, and two fingers holding the tip of the loose sleeve (I suppose this pose, too, must once have charmed Orlov); she would glance about her with haughty nonchalance, as befits a beauty—and with a positive sniff, and a murmur of 'What next!' as though some importunate gallant were besieging her with compliments, she would go out again, tapping her heels and shrugging her shoulders. She used, too, to take Spanish snuff out of a tiny bonbonniere, picking it up with a tiny golden spoon; and from time to time, especially when any one unknown to her was present, she would hold up—not to her eyes, she had splendid sight, but to her nose—a double eyeglass in the shape of a half-moon, with a coquettish turn of her little white hand, one finger held out separate from the rest. How often has Malania Pavlovna described to me her wedding in the church of the Ascension, in Arbaty—such a fine church!—and how all Moscow was there ... 'and the crush there was!—awful! Carriages with teams, golden coaches, outriders ... one outrider of Count Zavadovsky got run over! and we were married by the archbishop himself—and what a sermon he gave us! every one was crying—wherever I looked I saw tears ... and the governor-general's horses were tawny, like tigers. And the flowers, the flowers that were brought! ... Simply loads of flowers!' And how on that day a foreigner, a wealthy, tremendously wealthy person, had shot himself from love—and how Orlov too had been there.... And going up to Alexey Sergeitch, he had congratulated him and called him a lucky man.... 'A lucky man you are, you silly fellow!' said he. And how in answer to these words Alexey Sergeitch had made a wonderful bow, and had swept the floor from left to right with the plumes of his hat, as if he would say: 'Your Excellency, there is a line now between you and my spouse, which you will not overstep!' And Orlov, Alexey Grigorievitch understood at once, and commended him. 'Oh! that was a man! such a man!' And how, 'One day, Alexis and I were at his house at a ball—I was married then—and he had the most marvellous diamond buttons! And I could not resist it, I admired them. "What marvellous diamonds you have, Count!" said I. And he, taking up a knife from the table, at once cut off a button and presented it to me and said: "In your eyes, my charmer, the diamonds are a hundred times brighter; stand before the looking-glass and compare them." And I stood so, and he stood beside me. "Well, who's right?" said he, while he simply rolled his eyes, looking me up and down. And Alexey Sergeitch was very much put out about it, but I said to him: "Alexis," said I, "please don't you be put out; you ought to know me better!" And he answered me: "Don't disturb yourself, Melanie!" And these very diamonds are now round my medallion of Alexey Grigorievitch—you've seen it, I dare say, my dear;—I wear it on feast-days on a St. George ribbon, because he was a brave hero, a knight of St. George: he burned the Turks.'

For all that, Malania Pavlovna was a very kind-hearted woman; she was easily pleased. 'She's not one to snarl, nor to sneer,' the maids used to say of her. Malania Pavlovna was passionately fond of sweet things—and a special old woman who looked after nothing but the jam, and so was called the jam-maid, would bring her, ten times a day, a china dish with rose-leaves crystallised in sugar, or barberries in honey, or sherbet of bananas. Malania Pavlovna was afraid of solitude— dreadful thoughts are apt to come over one, she would say—and was almost always surrounded by companions, whom she would urgently implore: 'Talk, talk! why do you sit like that, simply keeping your seats warm!' and they would begin twittering like canaries. She was no less devout than Alexey Sergeitch, and was very fond of praying; but as, in her own words, she had never learned to repeat prayers well, she kept for the purpose a poor deacon's widow who prayed with such relish! Never stumbled over a word in her life! And this deacon's widow certainly could utter the words of prayer in a sort of unbroken flow, not interrupting the stream to breathe out or draw breath in, while Malania Pavlovna listened and was much moved. She had another widow in attendance on her—it was her duty to tell her stories in the night. 'But only the old ones,' Malania Pavlovna would beg—'those I know already; the new ones are all so far-fetched.' Malania Pavlovna was flighty in the extreme, and at times she was fanciful too; some ridiculous notion would suddenly come into her head. She did not like the dwarf, Janus, for instance; she was always fancying he would suddenly get up and shout, 'Don't you know who I am? The prince of the Buriats. Mind, you are to obey me!' Or else that he would set fire to the house in a fit of spleen. Malania Pavlovna was as liberal as Alexey Sergeitch; but she never gave money—she did not like to soil her hands—but kerchiefs, bracelets, dresses, ribbons; or she would send pies from the table, or a piece of roast meat, or a bottle of wine. She liked feasting the peasant-women, too, on holidays; they would dance, and she would tap with her heels and throw herself into attitudes.

Alexey Sergeitch was well aware that his wife was a fool; but almost from the first year of his marriage he had schooled himself to keep up the fiction that she was very witty and fond of saying cutting things. Sometimes when her chatter began to get beyond all bounds, he would threaten her with his finger, and say as he did so: 'Ah, the tongue, the tongue! what it will have to answer for in the other world! It will be pierced with a redhot pin!'

Malania Pavlovna was not offended, however, at this; on the contrary, she seemed to feel flattered at hearing a reproof of that sort, as though she would say, 'Well! is it my fault if I'm naturally witty?'

Malania Pavlovna adored her husband, and had been all her life an exemplarily faithful wife; but there had been a romance even in her life—a young cousin, an hussar, killed, as she supposed, in a duel on her account; but, according to more trustworthy reports, killed by a blow on the head from a billiard-cue in a tavern brawl. A water-colour portrait of this object of her affections was kept by her in a secret drawer. Malania Pavlovna always blushed up to her ears when she mentioned Kapiton—such was the name of the young hero—and Alexey Sergeitch would designedly scowl, shake his finger at his wife again, and say: 'No trusting a horse in the field nor a woman in the house. Don't talk to me of Kapiton, he's Cupidon!' Then Malania Pavlovna would be all of a flutter and say: 'Alexis, Alexis, it's too bad of you! In your young days you flirted, I've no doubt, with all sorts of misses and madams—and so now you imagine....' 'Come, that's enough, that's enough, my dear Malania,' Alexey Sergeitch interrupted with a smile. 'Your gown is white—but whiter still your soul!' 'Yes, Alexis, it is whiter!' 'Ah, what a tongue, what a tongue!' Alexis would repeat, patting her hand.

To speak of 'views' in the case of Malania Pavlovna would be even more inappropriate than in the case of Alexey Sergeitch; yet I once chanced to witness a strange manifestation of my aunt's secret feelings. In the course of conversation I once somehow mentioned the famous chief of police, Sheshkovsky; Malania Pavlovna turned suddenly livid—positively livid, green, in spite of her rouge and paint—and in a thick and perfectly unaffected voice (a very rare thing with her—she usually minced a little, intoned, and lisped) she said: 'Oh, what a name to utter! And towards nightfall, too! Don't utter that name!' I was astonished; what kind of significance could his name have for such a harmless and inoffensive creature, incapable—not merely of doing—even of thinking of anything not permissible? Anything but cheerful reflections were aroused in me by this terror, manifesting itself after almost half a century.

Alexey Sergeitch died in his eighty-eighth year—in the year 1848, which apparently disturbed even him. His death, too, was rather strange. He had felt well the same morning, though by that time he never left his easy-chair. And all of a sudden he called his wife: 'Malania, my dear, come here.' 'What is it, Alexis?' 'It's time for me to die, my dear, that's what it is.' 'Mercy on you, Alexey Sergeitch! What for?' 'Because, first of all, one must know when to take leave; and, besides, I was looking the other day at my feet.... Look at my feet ... they are not mine ... say what you like ... look at my hands, look at my stomach ... that stomach's not mine—so really I'm using up another man's life. Send for the priest; and meanwhile, put me to bed—from which I shall not get up again.' Malania Pavlovna was terribly upset; however, she put the old man to bed and sent for the priest. Alexey Sergeitch confessed, took the sacrament, said good-bye to his household, and fell asleep. Malania Pavlovna was sitting by his bedside. 'Alexis!' she cried suddenly, 'don't frighten me, don't shut your eyes! Are you in pain?' The old man looked at his wife: 'No, no pain ... but it's difficult ... difficult to breathe.' Then after a brief silence: 'Malania,' he said, 'so life has slipped by—and do you remember when we were married ... what a couple we were?' 'Yes, we were, my handsome, charming Alexis!' The old man was silent again. 'Malania, my dear, shall we meet again in the next world?' 'I will pray God for it, Alexis,' and the old woman burst into tears. 'Come, don't cry, silly; maybe the Lord God will make us young again then—and again we shall be a fine pair!' 'He will make us young, Alexis!' 'With the Lord all things are possible,' observed Alexey Sergeitch. 'He worketh great marvels!—maybe He will make you sensible.... There, my love, I was joking; come, let me kiss your hand.' 'And I yours.' And the two old people kissed each other's hands simultaneously.

Alexey Sergeitch began to grow quieter and to sink into forgetfulness. Malania Pavlovna watched him tenderly, brushing the tears off her eyelashes with her finger-tips. For two hours she continued sitting there. 'Is he asleep?' the old woman with the talent for praying inquired in a whisper, peeping in behind Irinarh, who, immovable as a post, stood in the doorway, gazing intently at his expiring master. 'He is asleep,' answered Malania Pavlovna also in a whisper. And suddenly Alexey Sergeitch opened his eyes. 'My faithful companion,' he faltered, 'my honoured wife, I would bow down at your little feet for all your love and faithfulness—but how to get up? Let me sign you with the cross.' Malania Pavlovna moved closer, bent down.... But the hand he had raised fell back powerless on the quilt, and a few moments later Alexey Sergeitch was no more.