Fables for Children, Stories for Children, Natural Science Stories Part 35

"Indeed, Labazov was one of the most remarkable men of that time," began an intellectual. "In 1819 he was an ensign of the s.e.m.e.novski regiment, and was sent abroad with messages to Duke Z----. Then he returned and in the year '24 was received in the First Masonic lodge. The Masons of that time used all to gather at the house of D---- and at his house. He was very rich. Prince Zh----, Fedor D----, Ivan P----, those were his nearest friends. Then his uncle, Prince Visarion, to remove the young man from that society, took him to Moscow."

"Pardon me, Nikolay Stepanovich," another intellectual interrupted him, "it seems to me that that happened in the year '23, because Visarion Labazov was appointed a commander of the Third Corps in '24, and was then in Warsaw. He had offered him an adjutants.h.i.+p, and after his refusal, he was removed. However, pardon me for interrupting you."

"Not at all. Proceed!"

"Pardon me!"

"Proceed! You ought to know that better than I, and, besides, your memory and knowledge have been sufficiently attested here."

"In Moscow he against his uncle's will left the army," continued the one whose memory and knowledge had been attested, "and there he gathered around him a second society, of which he was the progenitor and the heart, if it be possible so to express it. He was rich, handsome, clever, educated; they say he was exceedingly amiable. My aunt used to tell me that she did not know a more bewitching man. Here he married Miss Krinski, a few months before the revolt broke out."

"The daughter of Nikolay Krinski, the one of Borodino fame, you know,"

somebody interrupted him.

"Well, yes. Her immense fortune he still possesses, but his own paternal estate pa.s.sed over to his younger brother, Prince Ivan, who is now Ober-Hof-Kaffermeister" (he gave him some such name) "and was a minister."

"The best thing is what he did for his brother," continued the narrator.

"When he was arrested, there was one thing which he succeeded in destroying, and that was his brother's letters and doc.u.ments."

"Was his brother mixed up in it, too?"

The narrator did not say "Yes," but compressed his lips and gave a significant wink.

"Then, during all the inquests Peter Labazov kept denying everything which concerned his brother, and so suffered more than the rest. But the best part of it is that Prince Ivan got all the property, and never sent a penny to his brother."

"They say that Peter Labazov himself declined it," remarked one of the hearers.

"Yes; but he declined it only because Prince Ivan wrote him before the coronation, excusing himself and saying that if he had not taken it, it would have been confiscated, and that he had children and debts, and that now he was unable to return it to him. Peter Labazov replied to him in two lines: 'Neither I nor my heirs have any right, nor can have any right, to the property legally appropriated by you.' That was all. How was that? And Prince Ivan swallowed it, and in delight locked up that doc.u.ment with the notes in a safe, and showed it to no one."

One of the peculiarities of the intellectual room was that its visitors knew, whenever they wanted to know, everything that was taking place in the world, no matter how secret the event might have been.

"Still it is a question," said a new interlocutor, "whether it was just to deprive the children of Prince Ivan of the property, with which they have grown up and have been educated, and to which they thought they had a right."

Thus the conversation was transferred to an abstract sphere, which did not interest Pakhtin.

He felt the necessity of communicating the news to fresh people, and so he rose and, speaking to the right and to the left, walked from one hall to another. One of his fellow officers stopped him to give him the news of Labazov's arrival.

"Who does not know that?" replied Ivan Pavlovich, with a calm smile, turning to the exit. The news had had time to complete its circle, and was again returning to him.

There was nothing else to do in the club, and he went to an evening party. It was not a special entertainment, but a salon where guests were received any evening. There were there eight ladies, and one old colonel, and all found it terribly dull. Pakhtin's firm gait alone and his smiling face cheered the ladies and maidens. And the news was the more appropriate, since the old Countess f.u.ks and her daughter were present in the salon. When Pakhtin told nearly word for word what he had heard in the intellectual room, Madame f.u.ks, shaking her head and marvelling at her old age, began to recall how she used to go out together with Natasha Krinski, the present Princess Labazov.

"Her marriage is a very romantic story, and all that happened under my eyes. Natasha was almost engaged to Myatlin, who was later killed in a duel with Debras. Just then Prince Peter arrived in Moscow, fell in love with her, and proposed to her. But her father, who wanted Myatlin very much,--they were, in general, afraid of Labazov because he was a Mason,--refused him. The young man continued to see her at b.a.l.l.s, everywhere, and became friendly with Myatlin, whom he begged to decline.

Myatlin agreed to do so, and he persuaded her to elope. She, too, agreed, but the last repentance----" (the conversation was taking place in French), "and she went to her father and said that everything was ready for the elopement, and she could leave him, but hoped for his magnanimity. And, indeed, her father forgave her,--everybody begged for her,--and gave his consent. Thus the wedding was celebrated, and it was a jolly wedding! Who of us thought that a year later she would follow him to Siberia! She, an only daughter, the most beautiful, the richest woman of that time. Emperor Alexander always used to notice her at b.a.l.l.s, and had danced with her so often. Countess G---- gave a _bal costume_,--I remember it as though it were to-day,--and she was a Neapolitan maid, oh, so charming! Whenever he came to Moscow, he used to ask, '_que fait la belle Napolitaine_?' And suddenly this woman, in such a condition (she bore a child on the way), did not stop for a moment to think, without preparing anything, without collecting her things, just as she was, when they took him, followed him a distance of five thousand versts."

"Oh, what a remarkable woman!" said the hostess.

"Both he and she were remarkable people," said another lady. "I have been told,--I don't know whether it is true,--that wherever they worked in the mines in Siberia, or whatever it is called, the convicts, who were with them, improved in their presence."

"But she has never worked in the mines," Pakhtin corrected her.

How much that year '56 meant! Three years before no one had been thinking of the Labazovs, and if any one recalled them, it was with that unaccountable feeling of dread with which one speaks of one lately dead; but now they vividly recalled all the former relations, all the beautiful qualities, and each lady was making a plan for getting the monopoly of the Labazovs, in order to treat the other guests to them.

"Their son and their daughter have come with them," said Pakhtin.

"If they are only as handsome as their mother used to be," said Countess f.u.ks. "Still, their father, too, was very, very handsome."

"How could they educate their children there?" asked the hostess.

"They say, nicely. They say that the young man is as nice, as amiable, and as cultured as though he had been brought up in Paris."

"I predict great success to that young person," said a homely spinster.

"All those Siberian ladies have something pleasantly trivial about them, which everybody, however, likes."

"Yes, yes," said another spinster.

"Here we have another rich prospective bride," said a third spinster.

The old colonel, of German origin, who had come to Moscow three years before, in order to marry a rich girl, decided as quickly as possible, before the young people knew anything about it, to present himself and propose. But the spinsters and ladies thought almost the same about the young Siberian.

"No doubt that is the one I am destined to marry," thought a spinster who had been going out for eight years.

"No doubt it was for the best that that stupid officer of the Chevalier Guards did not propose to me. I should certainly have been unhappy."

"Well, they will again grow yellow with envy, if this one, too, falls in love with me," thought a young and pretty lady.

We hear much about the provincialism of small towns,--but there is nothing worse than the provincialism of the upper cla.s.ses. There are no new persons there, and society is prepared to receive all kinds of new persons, if they should make their appearance; but they are rarely, very rarely, recognized as belonging to their circle and accepted, as was the case with the Labazovs, and the sensation produced by them is stronger than in a provincial town.

III.

"This is Moscow, white-stoned Mother Moscow," said Peter Ivanovich, rubbing his eyes in the morning, and listening to the tolling of the bells which was proceeding from Gazette Lane. Nothing so vividly resurrects the past as sounds, and these sounds of the Moscow bells, combined with the sight of a white wall opposite the window, and with the rumbling of wheels, so vividly reminded him not only of the Moscow which he had known thirty-five years before, but also of the Moscow with the Kremlin, with the palaces, with Ivan the bell, and so forth, which he had been carrying in his heart, that he experienced a childish joy at being a Russian, and in Moscow.

There appeared the Bukhara morning-gown, wide open over the broad chest with its chintz s.h.i.+rt, the pipe with its amber, the lackey with soft manners, tea, the odour of tobacco; a loud male voice was heard in Chevalier's apartments; there resounded the morning kisses, and the voices of daughter and son, and the Decembrist was as much at home as in Irkutsk, and as he would have been in New York or in Paris.

No matter how much I should like to present to my readers the Decembrist hero above all foibles, I must confess, for truth's sake, that Peter Ivanovich took great pains in shaving and combing himself, and in looking at himself in the mirror. He was dissatisfied with the garments, which had been made in Siberia with little elegance, and two or three times he b.u.t.toned and unb.u.t.toned his coat.

But Natalya Nikolaevna entered the drawing-room, rustling with her black moire gown, with mittens and with ribbons in her cap, which, though not according to the latest fas.h.i.+on, were so arranged that, far from making her appear _ridicule_, they made her look _distinguee_. For this ladies have a special sixth sense and perspicacity, which cannot be compared to anything.

Sonya, too, was so dressed that, although she was two years behind in fas.h.i.+on, she could not be reproached in any way. On her mother everything was dark and simple, and on the daughter bright and cheerful.

Serezha had just awakened, and so they went by themselves to ma.s.s.

Father and mother sat in the back seat, and their daughter was opposite them. Vasili climbed on the box, and the hired carriage took them to the Kremlin. When they got out of the carriage, the ladies adjusted their robes, and Peter Ivanovich took the arm of his Natalya Nikolaevna, and, throwing back his head, walked up to the door of the church. Many people, merchants, officers, and everybody else, could not make out what kind of people they were.

Who was that old man with his old sunburnt, and still unblanched face, with the large, straight work wrinkles of a peculiar fold, different from the wrinkles acquired in the English club, with snow-white hair and beard, with a good, proud glance and energetic movements? Who was that tall lady with that determined gait, and those weary, dimmed, large, beautiful eyes? Who was that fresh, stately, strong young lady, neither fas.h.i.+onable, nor timid? Merchants? No, no merchants. Germans? No, no Germans. Gentlefolk? No, they are different,--they are distinguished people. Thus thought those who saw them in church, and for some reason more readily and cheerfully made way for them than for men in thick epaulets. Peter Ivanovich bore himself just as majestically as at the entrance, and prayed quietly, with reserve, and without forgetting himself. Natalya Nikolaevna glided down on her knees, took out a handkerchief, and wept much during the cherubical song. Sonya seemed to be making an effort over herself in order to pray. Devotion did not come to her, but she did not look around, and diligently made the signs of the cross.

Serezha stayed at home, partly because he had overslept himself, partly because he did not like to stand through a ma.s.s, which made his legs faint,--a matter he was unable to understand, since it was a mere trifle for him to walk forty miles on snow-shoes, whereas standing through twelve pericopes was the greatest physical torture for him,--but chiefly because he felt that more than anything he needed a new suit of clothes.

He dressed himself and went to Blacksmith Bridge. He had plenty of money. His father had made it a rule, ever since his son had pa.s.sed his twenty-first year, to let him have as much money as he wished. It lay with him to leave his parents entirely without money.

How sorry I am for the 250 roubles which he threw away in Kuntz's shop of ready-made clothes! Any one of the gentlemen who met Serezha would have been only too happy to show him around, and would have regarded it as a piece of happiness to go with him to get his clothes made. But, as it was, he was a stranger in the crowd, and, making his way in his cap along Blacksmith Bridge, he went to the end, without looking into the shops, opened the door, and came out from it in a cinnamon-coloured half-dress coat, which was tight (though at that time they wore wide coats), and in loose black trousers (though they wore tight trousers), and in a flowery atlas waistcoat, which not one of the gentlemen, who were in Chevalier's special room, would have allowed their lackeys to wear, and bought a number of other a things; on the other hand, Kuntz marvelled at the young man's slender waist, the like of which, as he explained to everybody, he had never seen. Serezha knew that he had a beautiful waist, and he was very much flattered by the praise of a stranger, such as Kuntz was.