"Well, now, sit down, and I"ll sit down beside you and see how you write."
And then, not waiting for an invitation, she sat down at the end of my sofa, driving me into the dilemma of sitting down by the table, w.i.l.l.y-nilly, likewise. I may mention that my hut was so narrow that the table reached from the door to the window.
"I can"t write a word, though, at this moment," said I.
"Why? Because I"m here?"
"Naturally."
"Then read me what you have just written."
"There"s a lot of it."
"So much the better. I can remain here all the longer."
"Won"t they miss you at home?"
"They know that I am sure to turn up again."
Vanity is the horn by which one may always catch hold of a man. It flattered me to read what I had written, whoever the listener might be.
In other parts of the kingdom I had already gained applause with my recitations, but n.o.body in my own narrow little town had ever heard me speak. _Nemo profeta in patria._
And Bessy was a very appreciative audience. You could read from her face the effect I produced and the interest she took. She rested her face on her hand, smoothed down her hair, and fixed her attention that she might listen the better. She seemed quite frightened at the exciting scenes, her eyes and lips opened wide. I do not say this to praise myself, but simply as a justification of the fact that in those days I could recite with considerable emphasis. In one place, however, my voice began to falter.
"Well, what is it? Can"t you read your own writing?"
"Yes--no, I mean. I think we had better leave off here?"
"Why? You"ve come to the most interesting part."
"I don"t want to read it to you."
"Why? Do you mean to say you write such things as a girl ought not to know?"
"No, no! Anybody may read it except myself--before you."
The girl laughed, but there was something bitter in her laugh too.
"Oh, don"t be anxious on my account, pray! We read, at school, things of which you have no idea. It is an old inst.i.tution among us that every girl when she marries shall write a letter to her school friends on the very day after her wedding. We have a whole collection of such letters."
"And do you mean to tell me that _you_ have promised to increase this collection?" I cried, with all the indignation of my youthful mind.
The girl must have guessed my anger from my face, for she cast down her eyes and said, in a low voice: "It depends upon whose I shall be."
Immediately afterwards she laughed uproariously: "You may read your love-scene before me."
I answered more firmly than ever: "I will not read it before you."
She understood and stared at me.
"You fear, perhaps, that I shall take it for a declaration? You think, perhaps, that I shall laugh at you in consequence?"
"No! You will not laugh at me."
"Then what are you afraid of?"
"I do not fear, I wait."
"Wait! For what?"
"I am waiting till I count for something in the world; at present I am a mere cipher."
"One who is born a man can never be a mere cipher."
"Look now! This wooden booth is at present the whole of my property, this little pile of paper my whole claim upon the world; but in my soul there is a vigorous flame to which I can give no name. This flame would suffice to make a man a pretender to a throne, but it is not sufficient to make him propose to a girl."
"But you know that I am rich."
"And I am still richer, for I dine deliciously off a crust of bread, and I sleep sweetly on a bed of straw."
"Well, and that pleases me too. _I_ like a crust of bread and a bed of straw. You do not know me. A man might make a she-devil of me, though he built a temple in my name straight off, enshrined me on the altar, and knelt down before me. But he whom I truly loved might make an angel of me. I could be happy anywhere: in a shepherd"s hut, a strolling player"s tent, at a soldier"s bivouac, in a schoolmaster"s clay cabin. I would dream of luxury on my bed of straw."
And with that, she threw herself at full length on my bare sofa, and clasped her hands above her head.
Oh, what distracting loveliness!
Was it a blessing or a chastis.e.m.e.nt on the part of guiding Providence that I was able, at that moment, to see with my soul as well as with my eyes? This girl had in a few words unfolded before me the whole of her coming destiny.... I sat down at her feet by the side of the bare old sofa, and looked into her eyes.
Very softly I said to her: "She whom I love will not be my slave, but my queen. I will not filch my happiness, but win it. And she to whom I shall dedicate my heart shall be crowned by me with an aureola of glory, just as the rich of this world load _their_ darlings with pearls and diamonds. The lady of my heart must be honoured by all the world--but most of all by myself."
At these words the half-closed eyelids opened. The girl began to sob violently, leaped to her feet, threw her arms round my neck, kissed me, and ran away.
And I looked after her like one that dreams, while the shrubs and the vine-leaves concealed her vanishing form. The yellow-hammer cried in my ear, "Silly boy, silly boy!" And immediately there occurred to my mind the story of the young man whose confessor gave him a bundle of hay to eat as a penance for a sin unachieved.
And now, too, when I stand before the big silly bookcase, which is filled with nothing but my own works, I often think, would it not have been better if they had none of them been ever thought out? And instead of writing so much for the whole world, would it not have been better if I had written for my own private use, just so much as would go within the inside cover of a family Bible? Nowadays, a whole street in my native town is called after my name: would it not have been better if all I had there were a simple hut?
But no! I willed it so, and if it were possible for me to go back to the diverging cross-roads of my opening life, I would tread once more in the self-same footprints that I have left so long behind me.
CHAPTER IV
PEToFI WITH US--PLANS FOR THE FUTURE--THE RAPE OF THE BRIDES--AMATEUR THEATRICALS--MY MENSHIKOV
I really imagined that I loved and was beloved. I was always a welcome guest at her ladyship"s house, and was a regular visitor on her "at home" days. On such occasions I learnt to know Bessy from another point of view. She was a musician also. She could play the fiddle. Whether she played artistically I really cannot say, for I don"t understand music, and couldn"t tell the difference between Paul Racz[17] and Sarasate; but so much is certain, she knew all the cunning tricks and poses which I admired so much in the famous musicians of a later day. She could make arpeggios and pizzicatos like Ole Bull, _fughe di diavolo_ like Remenyi, and pianissimos like Sarasate. She could make her fiddle weep softly like Milanollo and Miss Terezina Tua, and she could lash it savagely with her fiddle-bow like the Russian Princess Olga Korinshka, or play with the instrument close up to ear like a gipsy _primas_.[18] When she played she had the beauty of a demon; every limb was set in motion, her shoulders marked time, her bosom heaved, her body waved to and fro, her mouth smiled provocatively, her eyes sparkled; at one moment she softly caressed the fiddle with her bow, at another she flogged the strings unmercifully, and at the end of the performance she stood there with the pose of a triumphant Toreadrix. At such moments every one was fascinated by her; why, then, should I have been an exception?
[Footnote 17: A famous gipsy musician.]