"I promised to tell you his story," began Arkady.
"The story of the beetle?"
"Come, don"t, Yevgeny. The story of my uncle. You will see he"s not the sort of man you fancy. He deserves pity rather than ridicule."
"I don"t dispute it; but why are you worrying over him?"
"One ought to be just, Yevgeny."
"How does that follow?"
"No; listen ..."
And Arkady told him his uncle"s story. The reader will find it in the following chapter.
CHAPTER VII
Pavel Petrovitch Kirsanov was educated first at home, like his younger brother, and afterwards in the Corps of Pages. From childhood he was distinguished by remarkable beauty; moreover he was self-confident, somewhat ironical, and had a rather biting humour; he could not fail to please. He began to be seen everywhere, directly he had received his commission as an officer. He was much admired in society, and he indulged every whim, even every caprice and every folly, and gave himself airs, but that too was attractive in him. Women went out of their senses over him; men called him a c.o.xcomb, and were secretly jealous of him. He lived, as has been related already, in the same apartments as his brother, whom he loved sincerely, though he was not at all like him. Nikolai Petrovitch was a little lame, he had small, pleasing features of a rather melancholy cast, small, black eyes, and thin, soft hair; he liked being lazy, but he also liked reading, and was timid in society.
Pavel Petrovitch did not spend a single evening at home, prided himself on his ease and audacity (he was just bringing gymnastics into fashion among young men in society), and had read in all some five or six French books. At twenty-eight he was already a captain; a brilliant career awaited him. Suddenly everything was changed.
At that time, there was sometimes seen in Petersburg society a woman who has even yet not been forgotten. Princess R----. She had a well-educated, well-bred, but rather stupid husband, and no children.
She used suddenly to go abroad, and suddenly return to Russia, and led an eccentric life in general. She had the reputation of being a frivolous coquette, abandoned herself eagerly to every sort of pleasure, danced to exhaustion, laughed and jested with young men, whom she received in the dim light of her drawing-room before dinner; while at night she wept and prayed, found no peace in anything, and often paced her room till morning, wringing her hands in anguish, or sat, pale and chill, over a psalter. Day came, and she was transformed again into a grand lady; again she went out, laughed, chattered, and simply flung herself headlong into anything which could afford her the slightest distraction. She was marvellously well-proportioned, her hair coloured like gold and heavy as gold hung below her knees, but no one would have called her a beauty; in her whole face the only good point was her eyes, and even her eyes were not good--they were grey, and not large--but their glance was swift and deep, unconcerned to the point of audacity, and thoughtful to the point of melancholy--an enigmatic glance. There was a light of something extraordinary in them, even while her tongue was lisping the emptiest of inanities. She dressed with elaborate care. Pavel Petrovitch met her at a ball, danced a mazurka with her, in the course of which she did not utter a single rational word, and fell pa.s.sionately in love with her. Being accustomed to make conquests, in this instance, too, he soon attained his object, but his easy success did not damp his ardour. On the contrary, he was in still more torturing, still closer bondage to this woman, in whom, even at the very moment when she surrendered herself utterly, there seemed always something still mysterious and unattainable, to which none could penetrate. What was hidden in that soul--G.o.d knows! It seemed as though she were in the power of mysterious forces, incomprehensible even to herself; they seemed to play on her at will; her intellect was not powerful enough to master their caprices. Her whole behaviour presented a series of inconsistencies; the only letters which could have awakened her husband"s just suspicions, she wrote to a man who was almost a stranger to her, whilst her love had always an element of melancholy; with a man she had chosen as a lover, she ceased to laugh and to jest, she listened to him, and gazed at him with a look of bewilderment. Sometimes, for the most part suddenly, this bewilderment pa.s.sed into chill horror; her face took a wild, death-like expression; she locked herself up in her bedroom, and her maid, putting her ear to the keyhole, could hear her smothered sobs. More than once, as he went home after a tender interview, Kirsanov felt within him that heartrending, bitter vexation which follows on a total failure.
"What more do I want?" he asked himself, while his heart was heavy. He once gave her a ring with a sphinx engraved on the stone.
"What"s that?" she asked; "a sphinx?"
"Yes," he answered, "and that sphinx is you."
"I?" she queried, and slowly raising her enigmatical glance upon him.
"Do you know that"s awfully flattering?" she added with a meaningless smile, while her eyes still kept the same strange look.
Pavel Petrovitch suffered even while Princess R---- loved him; but when she grew cold to him, and that happened rather quickly, he almost went out of his mind. He was on the rack, and he was jealous; he gave her no peace, followed her about everywhere; she grew sick of his pursuit of her, and she went abroad. He resigned his commission in spite of the entreaties of his friends and the exhortations of his superiors, and followed the princess; four years he spent in foreign countries, at one time pursuing her, at another time intentionally losing sight of her.
He was ashamed of himself, he was disgusted with his own lack of spirit ... but nothing availed. Her image, that incomprehensible, almost meaningless, but bewitching image, was deeply rooted in his heart. At Baden he once more regained his old footing with her; it seemed as though she had never loved him so pa.s.sionately ... but in a month it was all at an end: the flame flickered up for the last time and went out for ever. Foreseeing inevitable separation, he wanted at least to remain her friend, as though friendship with such a woman was possible.... She secretly left Baden, and from that time steadily avoided Kirsanov. He returned to Russia, and tried to live his former life again; but he could not get back into the old groove. He wandered from place to place like a man possessed; he still went into society; he still retained the habits of a man of the world; he could boast of two or three fresh conquests; but he no longer expected anything much of himself or of others, and he undertook nothing. He grew old and grey; spending all his evenings at the club, jaundiced and bored, and arguing in bachelor society became a necessity for him--a bad sign, as we all know. Marriage, of course, he did not even think of. Ten years pa.s.sed in this way; they pa.s.sed by colourless and fruitless--and quickly, fearfully quickly. Nowhere does time fly past as in Russia; in prison they say it flies even faster. One day at dinner at the club, Pavel Petrovitch heard of the death of the Princess R----. She had died at Paris in a state bordering on insanity.
He got up from the table, and a long time he paced about the rooms of the club, or stood stockstill near the card-players, but he did not go home earlier than usual. Some time later he received a packet addressed to him; in it was the ring he had given the princess. She had drawn lines in the shape of a cross over the sphinx and sent him word that the solution of the enigma--was the cross.
This happened at the beginning of the year 1848, at the very time when Nikolai Petrovitch came to Petersburg, after the loss of his wife.
Pavel Petrovitch had scarcely seen his brother since the latter had settled in the country; the marriage of Nikolai Petrovitch had coincided with the very first days of Pavel Petrovitch"s acquaintance with the princess. When he came back from abroad, he had gone to him with the intention of staying a couple of months with him, in sympathetic enjoyment of his happiness, but he had only succeeded in standing a week of it. The difference in the positions of the two brothers was too great. In 1848, this difference had grown less; Nikolai Petrovitch had lost his wife, Pavel Petrovitch had lost his memories; after the death of the princess he tried not to think of her.
But to Nikolai, there remained the sense of a well-spent life, his son was growing up under his eyes; Pavel, on the contrary, a solitary bachelor, was entering upon that indefinite twilight period of regrets that are akin to hopes, and hopes that are akin to regrets, when youth is over, while old age has not yet come.
This time was harder for Pavel Petrovitch than for another man; in losing his past, he lost everything.
"I will not invite you to Maryino now," Nikolai Petrovitch said to him one day, (he had called his property by that name in honour of his wife); "you were dull there in my dear wife"s time, and now I think you would be bored to death."
"I was stupid and fidgety then," answered Pavel Petrovitch; "since then I have grown quieter, if not wiser. On the contrary, now, if you will let me, I am ready to settle with you for good."
For all answer Nikolai Petrovitch embraced him; but a year and a half pa.s.sed after this conversation, before Pavel Petrovitch made up his mind to carry out his intention. When he was once settled in the country, however, he did not leave it, even during the three winters which Nikolai Petrovitch spent in Petersburg with his son. He began to read, chiefly English; he arranged his whole life, roughly speaking, in the English style, rarely saw the neighbours, and only went out to the election of marshals, where he was generally silent, only occasionally annoying and alarming land-owners of the old school by his liberal sallies, and not a.s.sociating with the representatives of the younger generation. Both the latter and the former considered him "stuck up"; and both parties respected him for his fine aristocratic manners; for his reputation for successes in love; for the fact that he was very well dressed and always stayed in the best room in the best hotel; for the fact that he generally dined well, and had once even dined with Wellington at Louis Philippe"s table; for the fact that he always took everywhere with him a real silver dressing-case and a portable bath; for the fact that he always smelt of some exceptionally "good form"
scent; for the fact that he played whist in masterly fashion, and always lost; and lastly, they respected him also for his incorruptible honesty. Ladies considered him enchantingly romantic, but he did not cultivate ladies" acquaintance....
"So you see, Yevgeny," observed Arkady, as he finished his story, "how unjustly you judge of my uncle! To say nothing of his having more than once helped my father out of difficulties, given him all his money--the property, perhaps you don"t know, wasn"t divided--he"s glad to help any one, among other things he always sticks up for the peasants; it"s true, when he talks to them he frowns and sniffs eau de cologne." ...
"His nerves, no doubt," put in Bazarov.
"Perhaps; but his heart is very good. And he"s far from being stupid.
What useful advice he has given me especially ... especially in regard to relations with women."
"Aha! a scalded dog fears cold water, we know that!"
"In short," continued Arkady, "he"s profoundly unhappy, believe me; it"s a sin to despise him."
"And who does despise him?" retorted Bazarov. "Still, I must say that a fellow who stakes his whole life on one card--a woman"s love--and when that card fails, turns sour, and lets himself go till he"s fit for nothing, is not a man, but a male. You say he"s unhappy; you ought to know best; to be sure, he"s not got rid of all his fads. I"m convinced that he solemnly imagines himself a superior creature because he reads that wretched _Galignani_, and once a month saves a peasant from a flogging."
"But remember his education, the age in which he grew up," observed Arkady.
"Education?" broke in Bazarov. "Every man must educate himself, just as I"ve done, for instance.... And as for the age, why should I depend on it? Let it rather depend on me. No, my dear fellow, that"s all shallowness, want of backbone! And what stuff it all is, about these mysterious relations between a man and woman? We physiologists know what these relations are. You study the anatomy of the eye; where does the enigmatical glance you talk about come in there? That"s all romantic, nonsensical, aesthetic rot. We had much better go and look at the beetle."
And the two friends went off to Bazarov"s room, which was already pervaded by a sort of medico-surgical odour, mingled with the smell of cheap tobacco.
CHAPTER VIII
Pavel Petrovitch did not long remain present at his brother"s interview with his bailiff, a tall, thin man with a sweet consumptive voice and knavish eyes, who to all Nikolai Petrovitch"s remarks answered, "Certainly, sir," and tried to make the peasants out to be thieves and drunkards. The estate had only recently been put on to the new reformed system, and the new mechanism worked, creaking like an ungreased wheel, warping and cracking like homemade furniture of unseasoned wood.
Nikolai Petrovitch did not lose heart, but often he sighed, and was gloomy; he felt that the thing could not go on without money, and his money was almost all spent. Arkady had spoken the truth; Pavel Petrovitch had more than once helped his brother; more than once, seeing him struggling and cudgelling his brains, at a loss which way to turn, Pavel Petrovitch moved deliberately to the window, and with his hands thrust into his pockets, muttered between his teeth, "_mais je puis vous de l"argent_," and gave him money; but to-day he had none himself, and he preferred to go away. The petty details of agricultural management worried him; besides, it constantly struck him that Nikolai Petrovitch, for all his zeal and industry, did not set about things in the right way, though he would not have been able to point out precisely where Nikolai Petrovitch"s mistake lay. "My brother"s not practical enough," he reasoned to himself; "they impose upon him."
Nikolai Petrovitch, on the other hand, had the highest opinion of Pavel Petrovitch"s practical ability, and always asked his advice. "I"m a soft, weak fellow, I"ve spent my life in the wilds," he used to say; "while you haven"t seen so much of the world for nothing, you see through people; you have an eagle eye." In answer to which Pavel Petrovitch only turned away, but did not contradict his brother.
Leaving Nikolai Petrovitch in his study, he walked along the corridor, which separated the front part of the house from the back; when he had reached a low door, he stopped in hesitation, then pulling his moustaches, he knocked at it.
"Who"s there? Come in," sounded Fenitchka"s voice.
"It"s I," said Pavel Petrovitch, and he opened the door.
Fenitchka jumped up from the chair on which she was sitting with her baby, and giving him into the arms of a girl, who at once carried him out of the room, she put straight her kerchief hastily.
"Pardon me, if I disturb you," began Pavel Petrovitch, not looking at her; "I only wanted to ask you ... they are sending into the town to-day, I think ... please let them buy me some green tea."
"Certainly," answered Fenitchka; "how much do you desire them to buy?"
"Oh, half a pound will be enough, I imagine. You have made a change here, I see," he added, with a rapid glance round him, which glided over Fenitchka"s face too. "The curtains here," he explained, seeing she did not understand him.
"Oh, yes, the curtains; Nikolai Petrovitch was so good as to make me a present of them; but they have been put up a long while now."