Virgin Soil Part 24

"Mariana did not deceive me. She told me plainly that she did not care for me... There is nothing in me she could care for, so she gave herself to you. Of course, she was quite free to do so."

"Stop a minute!" Nejdanov exclaimed. "What are you saying? What do you imply by the words 'gave herself'? I don't know what your sister told you, but I a.s.sure you--"

"I didn't mean physically, but morally, that is, with the heart and soul," Markelov interrupted him. He was obviously displeased with Nejdanov's exclamation. "She couldn't have done better. As for my sister, she didn't, of course, wish to hurt me. It can make no difference to her, but she no doubt hates you and Mariana too. She did not tell me anything untrue... but enough of her!"

"Yes," Nejdanov thought to himself, "she does hate us."

"It's all for the best," Markelov continued, still sitting in the same position. "The last fetters have been broken; there is nothing to hinder me now! It doesn't matter that Golushkin is an a.s.s, and as for Kisliakov's letters, they may perhaps be absurd, but we must consider the most important thing. Kisliakov says that everything is ready.

Perhaps you don't believe that too."

Nejdanov did not reply.

"You may be right, but if we've to wait until everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never make a beginning. If we weigh all the consequences beforehand we're sure to find some bad ones among them.

For instance, when our forefathers emanc.i.p.ated the serfs, do you think they could foresee that a whole cla.s.s of money-lending landlords would spring up as a result of the emanc.i.p.ation? Landlords who sell a peasant eight bushels of rotten rye for six roubles and in return for it get labour for the whole six roubles, then the same quant.i.ty of good sound rye and interest on top of that! Which means that they drain the peasants to the last drop of blood! You'll agree that our emanc.i.p.ators could hardly have foreseen that. Even if they had foreseen it, they would still have been quite right in freeing the serfs without weighing all the consequences beforehand! That is why I have decided!"

Nejdanov looked at Markelov with amazement, but the latter turned to one side and directed his gaze into a corner of the room. He sat with his eyes closed, biting his lips and chewing his moustache.

"Yes, I've decided!" he repeated, striking his knee with his brown hairy hand. "I'm very obstinate... It's not for nothing that I'm half a Little Russian."

He got up, dragged himself into his bedroom, and came back with a small portrait of Mariana in a glazed frame.

"Take this," he said in a sad, though steady voice. "I drew it some time ago. I don't draw well, but I think it's like her." (It was a pencil sketch in profile and was certainly like Mariana.) "Take it, Alexai; it is my bequest, and with this portrait I give you all my rights....

I know I never had any... but you know what I mean! I give you up everything, and her.... She is very good, Alexai--"

Markelov ceased; his chest heaved visibly.

"Take it. You are not angry with me, are you? Well, take it then. It's no use to me... now."

Nejdanov took the portrait, but a strange sensation oppressed his heart. It seemed to him that he had no right to take this gift; that if Markelov knew what was in his, Nejdanov's, heart, he would not have given it him. He stood holding the round piece of cardboard, carefully set in a black frame with a mount of gold paper, not knowing what to do with it. "Why, this is a man's whole life I'm holding in my hand," he thought. He fully realised the sacrifice Markelov was making, but why, why especially to him? Should he give back the portrait? No! that would be the grossest insult. And after all, was not the face dear to him? Did he not love her?

Nejdanov turned his gaze on Markelov not without some inward misgiving.

"Was he not looking at him, trying to guess his thoughts?" But Markelov was standing in a corner biting his moustache.

The old servant came into the room carrying a candle. Markelov started.

"It's time we were in bed, Alexai," he said. "Morning is wiser than evening. You shall have the horses tomorrow. Goodbye."

"And goodbye to you too, old fellow," he added turning to the servant and slapping him on the shoulder. "Don't be angry with me!"

The old man was so astonished that he nearly dropped the candle, and as he fixed his eyes on his master there was an expression in them of something other, something more, than his habitual dejection.

Nejdanov retired to his room. He was feeling wretched. His head was aching from the wine he had drunk, there were ringing noises in his ears, and stars jumping about in front of his eyes, even though he shut them. Golushkin, Vasia the clerk, Fomishka and Fimishka, were dancing about before him, with Mariana's form in the distance, as if distrustful and afraid to come near. Everything that he had said or done during the day now seemed to him so utterly false, such useless nonsense, and the thing that ought to be done, ought to be striven for, was nowhere to be found; unattainable, under lock and key, in the depths of a bottomless pit.

He was filled with a desire to go to Markelov and say to him, "Here, take back your gift, take it back!"

"Ugh! What a miserable thing life is!" he exclaimed.

He departed early on the following morning. Markelov was already standing at the door surrounded by peasants, but whether he had asked them to come, or they had come of their own accord, Nejdanov did not know.. Markelov said very little and parted with him coldly, but it seemed to Nejdanov that he had something of importance to communicate to him.

The old servant made his appearance with his usual melancholy expression.

The carriage soon left the town behind it, and coming out into the open country began flying at a furious rate. The horses were the same, but the driver counted on a good tip, as Nejdanov lived in a rich house.

And as is usually the case, when the driver has either had a drink, or expects to get one, the horses go at a good pace.

It was an ordinary June day, though the air was rather keen. A steady, high wind was blowing, but raising no dust in the road, owing to last night's rain. The laburnums glistened, rustling to and fro in the breeze; a ripple ran over everything. From afar the cry of the quail was carried over the hills, over the gra.s.sy ravines, as if the very cry was possessed of wings; the rooks were bathing in the suns.h.i.+ne; along the straight, bare line of the horizon little specks no bigger than flies could be distinguished moving about. These were some peasants re-ploughing a fallow field.

Nejdanov was so lost in thought that he did not see all this. He went on and on and did not even notice when they drove through Sipiagin's village.

He trembled suddenly as he caught sight of the house, the first story and Mariana's window. "Yes," he said to himself, a warm glow entering his heart, "Markelov was right. She is a good girl and I love her."

XXII

NEJDANOV changed his clothes hurriedly and went in to give Kolia his lesson. On the way he ran across Sipiagin in the dining-room. He bowed to him with chilling politeness, muttered through his teeth, "Got back all right?" and went into his study. The great statesman had already decided in his ministerial mind that as soon as the vacation came to an end he would lose no time in packing off to St. Petersburg "this extremely revolutionary young tutor," but meanwhile would keep an eye on him. "Je n'ai pas eu la main heureuse cette fois-ci", he thought to himself, still "j'aurais pu tomber pire". Valentina Mihailovna's sentiments towards Nejdanov however, were not quite so negative; she simply could not endure the idea that he, "a mere boy," had slighted her! Mariana had not been mistaken, Valentina Mihailovna had listened at the door in the corridor; the ill.u.s.trious lady was not above such proceedings. Although she had said nothing to her "flighty" niece during Nejdanov's absence, still she had let her plainly understand that everything was known to her, and that if she had not been so painfully sorry for her, and did not despise her from the bottom of her heart, she would have been most frightfully angry at the whole thing.

An expression of restrained inward contempt played over her face. She raised her eyebrows in scorn and pity when she looked at or spoke to Mariana, and she would fix her wonderful eyes, full of tender remonstrance and painful disgust, on the willful girl, who, after all her "fancies and eccentricities," had ended by kissing an insignificant undergraduate... in a dark room!

Poor Mariana! Her severe, proud lips had never tasted any man's kisses.

Valentina Mihailovna had not told her husband of the discovery she had made. She merely contented herself by addressing a few words to Mariana in his presence, accompanied by a significant smile, quite irrelevant to the occasion. She regretted having written to her brother, but was, on the whole, more pleased that the thing was done than be spared the regret and the letter not written.

Nejdanov got a glimpse of Mariana at lunch in the dining-room. It seemed to him that she had grown thinner and paler. She was not looking her best on that day, but the penetrating glance she turned on him directly he entered the room went straight to his heart. Valentina Mihailovna looked at him constantly, as though she were inwardly congratulating him. "Splendid! Very smart!" he read on her face, while she was studying his to find out if Markelov had shown him the letter. She decided in the end that he had.

On hearing that Nejdanov had been to the factory of which Solomin was the manager, Sipiagin began asking him various questions about it, but was soon convinced from the young man's replies that he had seen nothing there and dropped into a majestic silence, as if reproaching himself for having expected any practical knowledge from such an inexperienced individual! On going out of the room Mariana managed to whisper to Nejdanov: "Wait for me in the birch grove at the end of the garden. I'll be there as soon as possible."

"She is just as familiar with me as Markelov was," he thought to himself, and a strange, pleasant sensation came over him. How strange it would have seemed to him if she had suddenly become distant and formal again, if she had turned away from him. He felt that such a thing would have made him utterly wretched, but was not sure in his own mind whether he loved her or not. She was dear to him and he felt the need of her above everything--this he acknowledged from the bottom of his heart.

The grove Mariana mentioned consisted of some hundreds of big old weeping-birches. The wind had not fallen and the long tangled branches were tossing hither and thither like loosened tresses. The clouds, still high, flew quickly over the sky, every now and again obscuring the sun and making everything of an even hue. Suddenly it would make its appearance again and brilliant patches of light would flash out once more through the branches, crossing and recrossing, a tangled pattern of light and shade. The roar of the trees seemed to be filled with a kind of festive joy, like to the violent joy with which pa.s.sion breaks into a sad, troubled heart. It was just such a heart that Nejdanov carried in his bosom. He leaned against the trunk of a tree and waited. He did not really know what he was feeling and had no desire to know, but it seemed to him more awful, and at the same time easier, than at Markelov's.

Above everything he wanted to see her, to speak to her. The knot that suddenly binds two separate existences already had him in its grasp.

Nejdanov thought of the rope that is flung to the quay to make fast a s.h.i.+p. Now it is twisted about the post and the s.h.i.+p stops... Safe in port! Thank G.o.d!

He trembled suddenly. A woman's dress could be seen in the distance coming along the path. It was Mariana. But whether she was coming towards him or going away from him he could not tell until he noticed that the patches of light and shade glided over her figure from below upwards. So she was coming towards him; they would have glided from above downwards had she been going away from him. A few moments longer and she was standing before him with her bright face full of welcome and a caressing light in her eyes. A glad smile played about her lips. He seized the hand she held out to him, but could not say a single word; she also was silent. She had walked very quickly and was somewhat out of breath, but seemed glad that he was pleased to see her. She was the first to speak.

"Well," she began, "tell me quickly what you've decided."

Nejdanov was surprised.

"Decided? Why, was it necessary to decide anything just now?"

"Oh, you know what I mean. Tell me what you talked about, whom you've seen--if you've met Solomin. Tell me everything, everything. But wait a moment; let us go on a little further. I know a spot not quite so conspicuous as this."

She made him come with her. He followed her obediently over the tall thin gra.s.s.

She led him to the place she mentioned, and they sat down on the trunk of a birch that had been blown down in a storm.

"Now begin!" she said, and added directly afterwards, "I am so glad to see you again! I thought these two days would never come to an end! Do you know, I'm convinced that Valentina Mihailovna listened to us."