On the Eve (Alma Classics) Read online

  “I’m glad you took this road,” he said with an effort. “I shouldn’t have slept all night if I hadn’t caught you up. Give me your hand. You’re going home, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “But how can you do so without a hat?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve taken my cravat off too. It’s a warm night.”

  The two friends moved on a few steps.

  “I was very stupid today, wasn’t I?” Shubin asked suddenly.

  “To be frank, yes. I couldn’t understand you. I’ve never seen you like that. And what trifling reason made you get angry?”

  “H’m,” muttered Shubin, “that’s your word, but I’ve no time for trifling. You see,” he added, “I must tell you that I… that… think of me what you like, but, well, yes! I’m in love with Yelena.”

  “You’re in love with Yelena!” echoed Bersenev, coming to a halt.

  “Yes,” Shubin went on, with affected casualness. “Does that surprise you? I’ll tell you something else. Until this evening I was still able to hope that, in time, she would come to love me. But today I became convinced that I’ve nothing to hope for. She’s fallen in love with someone else.”

  “Someone else? But who?”

  “Who? You!” cried Shubin, clapping Bersenev on the shoulder.

  “Me!”

  “You,” Shubin repeated.

  Bersenev took a step back and remained motionless. Shubin fixed his eyes on him.

  “Does that surprise you as well? You’re a modest young man, but she loves you. You can rest assured about that.”

  “What nonsense you’re talking!” said Bersenev at last, in an exasperated voice.

  “No, it’s not nonsense. By the way, why are we standing here? Let’s keep going. It’s easier on the move. I’ve known her for a long time, and I know her well. I can’t be mistaken. You’re a man after her own heart. There was a time when she liked me; but firstly, I’m too frivolous a young man for her, while you’re a serious mortal; morally and physically you’re a well-ordered person, you… wait, I haven’t finished yet… you’re a scrupulously moderate enthusiast, a true representative of those priests of science of whom – no, not of whom – whereof the middle Russian nobility is so justly proud. And secondly, Yelena caught me kissing Zoya’s hand the other day!”

  “Zoya’s!”

  “Yes, Zoya’s. What do you expect? She’s got such nice shoulders.”

  “Shoulders?”

  “Well yes, shoulders, arms – isn’t it all the same thing? Yelena caught me making free with her after dinner, but before dinner I’d been disparaging her in Yelena’s presence. Unfortunately, Yelena does not understand the perfectly natural nature of such contradictions. Then you turned up; you’re an idealist, you believe… what is it you say you believe in?… You blush, you get embarrassed, you talk about Schiller* and Schelling (she’s always on the lookout for remarkable men), so you win while I, sad case that I am, try joking… and… and… meanwhile…”

  Shubin suddenly burst into tears, moved away to one side, sat down on the ground and began pulling at his hair.

  Bersenev went up to him.

  “Pavel,” he began, “what sort of childishness is this? For Heaven’s sake! What’s the matter with you today? Lord knows what kind of rubbish has got into your head, and you’re crying. Quite honestly, I think you’re pretending.”

  Shubin raised his head. In the moonlight, tears glistened on his cheeks, but there was a smile on his face.

  “Andrei Petrovich,” he said, “you can think whatever you like of me. I’m even prepared to admit that I’m being hysterical now, but by God, I’m in love with Yelena, and Yelena loves you. However, I promised to walk home with you and I’ll keep my promise.”

  He stood up.

  “What a night! Young, silvery, dark! How good it is to be one who is loved! How happy they are not to sleep! Will you sleep, Andrei Petrovich?”

  Bersenev made no reply and increased his pace.

  “Where are you hurrying to?” Shubin went on. “Believe me when I say that in your lifetime you will not experience another night like this, but at home Schelling awaits you. True, he did you a service today, but all the same, don’t hurry. Sing, if you can, sing even louder; if you can’t, take off your hat, throw back your head and smile to the stars. They’re all looking at you, at you alone; all the stars do is look at people in love – that’s what makes them so charming. You’re in love, aren’t you, Andrei Petrovich?… You don’t answer… Why don’t you answer?” Shubin began again. “All right, if you feel yourself happy then say nothing, nothing! I’m chattering away because I’m a poor, unloved, hapless creature, a conjurer, an artist, a charlatan; but what silent delights I would drink in from the night air, beneath these stars, beneath these diamonds, if I knew I were loved!… Bersenev, are you happy?”

  As before, Bersenev said nothing and continued walking quickly along the flat road. Ahead, between the trees, the lights of the village where he lived began to glimmer; it consisted in all of some ten small dachas. On the outskirts of the village, to the right of the road, beneath a pair of spreading birch trees, was a modest little shop; its windows were already shut, but a broad strip of light fanned out from the open door down onto the trampled-down grass and up onto the trees, sharply illuminating the whitish undersides of the dense leaves. A girl, evidently a housemaid, was standing in the shop with her back to the door and haggling with the shopkeeper; beneath a red kerchief, which she had thrown over her head and which she held under her chin with her bare hand, could just be seen her plump cheek and slender neck. The young men stepped into the strip of light. Shubin looked inside the shop, halted and shouted: “Annushka!” The girl turned quickly round, revealing a pretty, rather broad but fresh-complexioned face, brown eyes and black eyebrows. “Annushka!” Shubin repeated. The girl peered at him, became frightened and embarrassed and, without finishing her shopping, came down from the shop entrance, slipped hurriedly past them and, with a brief glance behind, set off to the left, across the road. The shopkeeper, a rotund, unflappable man, like all small tradesmen in the countryside, grunted and yawned in her wake, while Shubin turned to Bersenev and said: “That’s… that’s… you see, there’s a family I know here. That’s their… don’t go thinking…” And, without finishing the sentence, he ran after the retreating figure of the girl.

  “At least wipe away your tears,” Bersenev shouted after him, unable to prevent himself laughing. But when he returned home there was no cheerful expression on his face; he was no longer laughing. Not for a second did he believe what Shubin had told him, but his words had penetrated deep into his soul. “Pavel was having me on,” he thought, “but she’ll love someone some time… Whom will she love?”

  Bersenev had a piano in his room. It was small and by no means new, but it had a soft, pleasant, although not entirely pure tone. Bersenev sat down at it and began to play some chords. Like all members of the Russian gentry he had studied music in his youth and, like almost all members of the Russian gentry, he played very badly. However, he loved music passionately. Actually what he loved about music was not its artistic content, nor the forms in which it was expressed (symphonies, sonatas and even operas made him depressed), but its elemental force: he loved those vague, sweet, abstract, all-embracing sensations which are aroused in the soul by combinations and modulations of sounds. For more than an hour he did not leave the piano, repeating the same chords over and over again, clumsily seeking out new ones, pausing rapturously over diminished sevenths. His heart ached within him, and more than once his eyes filled with tears. He was not ashamed of them: he was shedding them in darkness. “Pavel is right,” he thought. “I have a presentiment: there will be no repeat of this evening.” At last he stood up, lit a candle, threw on his dressing gown and took from a shelf the second volume of Raumer’s
History of the Hohenstaufen.* Then, sighing once or twice, he settled down to some diligent reading.

  6

  Meanwhile Yelena returned to her room, sat down before the open window and placed her head in her hands. Spending about a quarter of an hour every evening by the window of her room had become a habit with her. During this time she would talk to herself and review the day which had passed. She was just over twenty years old. She was tall, had a pale and dark complexion and large grey eyes, surrounded by tiny freckles, beneath curved eyebrows, a completely regular nose and forehead, a tight mouth and a rather pointed chin. Her chestnut plait hung low over her slender neck. In everything about her, in her attentive and somewhat timid facial expression, in her clear but changeable gaze, in her seemingly forced smile, in her soft, uneven voice, there was something nervous and electric, something impulsive and hasty, in a word something which not everyone could like and which even put some people off. She had narrow, pink hands, long fingers and feet which were also narrow; she walked quickly, almost impetuously, leaning slightly forward. She had had a strange upbringing: at first she had worshipped her father, then she became passionately attached to her mother. Then she cooled towards both of them, especially towards her father. In recent times she had treated her mother as she would have a sick grandmother, while her father, who had been proud of her when she had the reputation of being an unusual child, became afraid of her when she grew up, and claimed that someone had put it into her head to become some sort of fervent republican. Weakness infuriated her, stupidity angered her and a lie remained unforgiven by her “for ever and ever”. Her demands yielded to nothing, her very prayers were not infrequently mingled with reproach. A person had only to lose her respect for her to pronounce judgement quickly, often too quickly, and that person ceased to exist as far as she was concerned. Every impression was sharply imprinted on her soul; life did not come easily for her.

  The governess, to whom Anna Vasilyevna had entrusted the completion of her daughter’s education – an education, we should note in parenthesis, which had not even been begun by her mother, who had lost interest – was the daughter of a ruined bribe-taker, was Russian and had been to boarding school. She was very sentimental, kind and deceitful. From time to time she fell in love, ending up, in 1850 (when Yelena was just seventeen), by marrying some officer, who promptly walked out on her. The governess was very fond of literature and herself dabbled in versifying. She instilled in her charge a love of reading, but reading alone did not satisfy Yelena: ever since her childhood she had longed for action, for active goodness. The poor, the hungry and the sick preoccupied her, worried her, tormented her; she dreamt about them, asked all her friends about them; she gave alms solicitously, with involuntary solemnity, almost excitedly. All mistreated animals, emaciated yard dogs, kittens condemned to death, sparrows fallen from the nest, even insects and reptiles, found a shield and a defender in Yelena; she fed them herself and had no feelings of repugnance towards them. Her mother did not try to stop her, but her father, on the other hand, was most indignant about his daughter’s “half-baked soft-heartedness”, as he put it, and claimed that you couldn’t move in the house for cats and dogs. “Lenochka,”* he would shout to her, “come quickly. There’s a spider eating a fly. Release the poor thing!” And Lenochka, thoroughly alarmed, would come running, release the fly and unstick its legs. “Now let yourself be bitten, seeing you’re so kind,” her father would observe sarcastically, but she did not listen to him. In her tenth year, Yelena got to know a little beggar girl, Katya, and would have secret meetings with her in the garden; she would bring her sweets, give her kerchiefs and ten-copeck pieces – Katya would not accept toys. She would sit down beside her on some dry ground, somewhere out of the way, behind a clump of nettles. With a feeling of joyful humility, Yelena would eat Katya’s stale bread and listen to her stories. Katya had an aunt, a spiteful old woman, who often beat her; Katya hated her and was always saying how she would run away from her aunt and live in “God-given freedom”. Yelena listened to these new and unfamiliar words with secret respect and fear, fixing her eyes on Katya. At such moments everything about her – her quick, black, almost animal-like eyes, her sunburnt arms, her toneless voice, even her tattered dress – seemed to Yelena to be something special, almost sacred. Yelena would return home and then think long and hard about beggars and God-given freedom; she thought of how she would cut herself a hazel stick, throw a bag over her shoulder and run away with Katya, how she would roam the roads wearing a garland of cornflowers: she had once seen Katya wearing such a garland. If at such times one of her family came into the room, she would shrink away from them and look surly. Once she ran through the rain to a meeting with Katya and muddied her dress; her father saw her and called her a slovenly peasant. She flared up – and there was terror and wonder in her heart. Often Katya would softly sing a rather coarse soldier’s song; Yelena learnt this song from her. Anna Vasilyevna overheard her singing it and was outraged.

  “Where did you get that filth from?” she asked her daughter.

  Yelena merely looked at her mother and said nothing; she felt that she would rather allow herself to be torn to pieces than give away her secret, and again there was terror and wonder in her heart. However, her friendship with Katya did not last long: the poor child caught a fever and died within a few days.

  When Yelena learnt of Katya’s death, she felt the loss grievously and for a long time could not sleep at night. The last words of the little beggar girl rang in her ears unceasingly and seemed to be calling her…

  But the years rolled by, swiftly and imperceptibly, like waters beneath snow, and Yelena’s youth flowed by, in outward inactivity but in inward struggle and anxiety. She had no girl friends; out of all the young women who visited the Stakhov house she did not make friends with any. Parental authority never weighed heavily on Yelena, and from the age of sixteen she became almost completely independent; she began to live her own life, but it was a solitary life. Her soul both blazed up and died down in solitude; she thrashed about like a bird in a cage, but there was no cage: no one was constraining her, no one was holding her back, but she struggled and exhausted herself. Sometimes she did not understand herself, was even afraid of herself. Everything around her seemed either senseless or incomprehensible. “How can one live without love? But there is no one to love!” she thought, terrified by such thoughts, by such sensations. At the age of eighteen she almost died of a virulent fever; her constitution, naturally healthy and robust, was seriously undermined and it took a long time for her to recover. Finally the last traces of her illness disappeared, but Yelena Nikolayevna’s father spoke of her “nerves” with a degree of exasperation. It sometimes occurred to her that she wanted something that no one else wanted and about which no one else in the whole of Russia dreamt of. Then she would calm down, would even laugh at herself, would pass carefree day after carefree day, but suddenly something powerful, something nameless, something she could not cope with would begin to boil up within her and seek to break out. The storm would pass and the tired wings of her soul would be folded away without having flown, but these outbursts took their toll. However much she attempted to conceal what was going on inside her, the anguish of her troubled soul could be detected in the very calmness of her outward appearance, and her family, frequently and with good reason, shrugged their shoulders, expressed astonishment and failed to comprehend her “oddities”.

  On the day on which our story began, Yelena stayed longer than usual at the window. She thought a great deal about Bersenev and about her conversation with him. She liked him; she believed in the warmth of his feelings and the purity of his intentions. He had never before spoken to her as he did that evening. She recalled the unassertive expression of his eyes and smile; she smiled herself and reflected, but not about him. She began to gaze into the night through the open window. For a long time she gazed at the dark, louring sky, then she stood up and, with a movement of her head, flic
ked her hair away from her face and, without knowing why herself, stretched out her bare, chilled arms towards it, towards this sky. Then she dropped her arms, fell to her knees before her bed, pressed her face into the pillow and, despite all her efforts not to yield to the emotion that had swept over her, began to shed strange, uncomprehending but burning tears.

  7

  It was not yet noon the next day when Bersenev set off for Moscow in a returning hire cab. He had to draw some money out at the post office and buy some books, and he also wanted to take the chance to meet Insarov and talk things over with him. In the course of his last conversation with Shubin, Bersenev had had the idea of inviting Insarov to his dacha. But finding him took time: he had moved from his former flat to another, which was difficult to get at. It was situated in the back yard of an ugly stone block built Petersburg-style between Arbat and Povarskaya Street.* Bersenev wandered fruitlessly from one grimy entrance porch to another, and equally fruitlessly called out for the concierge or for just “anybody”. Even in St Petersburg concierges try to avoid being seen by visitors, and this has been the practice in Moscow even longer. No one answered Bersenev’s summons; only an inquisitive tailor, in shirtsleeves and with a skein of grey thread over his shoulder, silently showed an unshaven, expressionless face with a black eye at a high fanlight window, while a hornless black nanny goat, which had climbed onto a dunghill, turned round, bleated piteously and began to chew the cud more rapidly. Finally, some woman in an old cloak and worn-out shoes took pity on Bersenev and pointed him to Insarov’s flat. Bersenev found him at home. He had rented the room from the very same tailor who had gazed from the fanlight with such indifference at the difficulties of a man who was lost. It was a large, almost completely empty room with dark-green walls, three square windows, a minute bedstead in one corner, a small leather sofa in another and a huge cage suspended beneath the ceiling; in this cage a nightingale had once lived. As soon as Bersenev crossed the threshold, Insarov went to greet him, without, however, exclaiming “Oh, it’s you!” or “Good Lord! What brings you here?” He did not even say “hello”, but simply pressed his hand and led him to the only chair in the room.