"But, Susanna Ivanovna, excuse me," I began, "what makes you suppose that Alexander Daviditch had any conversation... with that person?"
"What? Why, he himself came to me and told me all about it, and bragged of it... and laughed just as his father laughs! Here, here, take it,"
she went on, thrusting the ma.n.u.script into my hand, "read it, send it to him, burn it, throw it away, do what you like, as you please.... But I can"t die like this with no one knowing.... Now it is time.... I must go."
She got up from the window-seat.... I stopped her.
"Where are you going, Susanna Ivanovna, mercy on us! Listen, what a storm is raging! You are so lightly dressed.... And your home is not near here. Let me at least go for a carriage, for a sledge...."
"No, no, I want nothing," she said resolutely, repelling me and taking up her cloak and shawl. "Don"t keep me, for G.o.d"s sake! or... I can"t answer for anything! I feel an abyss, a dark abyss under my feet....
Don"t come near me, don"t touch me!" With feverish haste she put on her cloak, arranged her shawl.... "Good-bye... good-bye.... Oh, my unhappy people, for ever strangers, a curse lies upon us! No one has ever cared for me, was it likely he..." She suddenly ceased. "No; one man loved me," she began again, wringing her hands, "but death is all about me, death and no escape! Now it is my turn.... Don"t come after me," she cried shrilly. "Don"t come! don"t come!"
I was petrified, while she rushed out; and an instant later, I heard the slam downstairs of the heavy street door, and the window panes shook again under the violent onslaught of the blast.
I could not quickly recover myself. I was only beginning life in those days: I had had no experience of pa.s.sion nor of suffering, and had rarely witnessed any manifestation of strong feeling in others.... But the sincerity of this suffering, of this pa.s.sion, impressed me. If it had not been for the ma.n.u.script in my hands, I might have thought that I had dreamed it all--it was all so unlikely, and swooped by like a pa.s.sing storm. I was till midnight reading the ma.n.u.script. It consisted of several sheets of letter-paper, closely covered with a large, irregular writing, almost without an erasure. Not a single line was quite straight, and one seemed in every one of them to feel the excited trembling of the hand that held the pen. Here follows what was in the ma.n.u.script. I have kept it to this day.
XVII
MY STORY
I am this year twenty-eight years old. Here are my earliest recollections; I was living in the Tambov province, in the country house of a rich landowner, Ivan Matveitch Koltovsky, in a small room on the second storey. With me lived my mother, a Jewess, daughter of a dead painter, who had come from abroad, a woman always ailing, with an extraordinarily beautiful face, pale as wax, and such mournful eyes, that sometimes when she gazed long at me, even without looking at her, I was aware of her sorrowful, sorrowful eyes, and I would burst into tears and rush to embrace her. I had tutors come to me; I had music lessons, and was called "miss." I dined at the master"s table together with my mother. Mr. Koltovsky was a tall, handsome old man with a stately manner; he always smelt of _ambre_. I stood in mortal terror of him, though he called me Suzon and gave me his dry, sinewy hand to kiss under its lace-ruffles. With my mother he was elaborately courteous, but he talked little even with her. He would say two or three affable words, to which she promptly made a hurried answer; and he would be silent and sit looking about him with dignity, and slowly picking up a pinch of Spanish snuff from his round, golden snuff-box with the arms of the Empress Catherine on it.
My ninth year has always remained vivid in my memory.... I learnt then, from the maids in the servants" room, that Ivan Matveitch Koltovsky was my father, and almost on the same day, my mother, by his command, was married to Mr. Ratsch, who was something like a steward to him. I was utterly unable to comprehend the possibility of such a thing, I was bewildered, I was almost ill, my brain suffered under the strain, my mind was overclouded. "Is it true, is it true, mamma," I asked her, "that scented bogey" (that was my name for Ivan Matveitch) "is my father?" My mother was terribly scared, she shut my mouth.... "Never speak to any one of that, do you hear, Susanna, do you hear, not a word!"... she repeated in a shaking voice, pressing my head to her bosom.... And I never did speak to any one of it.... That prohibition of my mother"s I understood.... I understood that I must be silent, that my mother begged my forgiveness!
My unhappiness began from that day. Mr. Ratsch did not love my mother, and she did not love him. He married her for money, and she was obliged to submit. Mr. Koltovsky probably considered that in this way everything had been arranged for the best, _la position etait regularisee_. I remember the day before the marriage my mother and I--both locked in each other"s arms--wept almost the whole morning--bitterly, bitterly--and silently. It is not strange that she was silent.... What could she say to me? But that I did not question her shows that unhappy children learn wisdom sooner than happy ones... to their cost.
Mr. Koltovsky continued to interest himself in my education, and even by degrees put me on a more intimate footing. He did not talk to me... but morning and evening, after flicking the snuff from his jabot with two fingers, he would with the same two fingers--always icy cold--pat me on the cheek and give me some sort of dark-coloured sweetmeats, also smelling of _ambre_, which I never ate. At twelve years old I became his reader---_sa pet.i.te lectrice_. I read him French books of the last century, the memoirs of Saint Simon, of Mably, Renal, Helvetius, Voltaire"s correspondence, the encyclopedists, of course without understanding a word, even when, with a smile and a grimace, he ordered me, "relire ce dernier paragraphe, qui est bien remarquable!"
Ivan Matveitch was completely a Frenchman. He had lived in Paris till the Revolution, remembered Marie Antoinette, and had received an invitation to Trianon to see her. He had also seen Mirabeau, who, according to his account, wore very large b.u.t.tons--_exagere en tout_, and was altogether a man of _mauvais ton, en depit de sa naissance!_ Ivan Matveitch, however, rarely talked of that time; but two or three times a year, addressing himself to the crooked old emigrant whom he had taken into his house, and called for some unknown reason "M. le Commandeur," he recited in his deliberate, nasal voice, the impromptu he had once delivered at a soiree of the d.u.c.h.esse de Polignac. I remember only the first two lines.... It had reference to a comparison between the Russians and the French:
"L"aigle se plait aux regions austeres Ou le ramier ne saurait habiter..."
"Digne de M. de Saint Aulaire!" M. le Commandeur would every time exclaim.
Ivan Matveitch looked youngish up to the time of his death: his cheeks were rosy, his teeth white, his eyebrows thick and immobile, his eyes agreeable and expressive, clear, black eyes, perfect agate. He was not at all unreasonable, and was very courteous with every one, even with the servants.... But, my G.o.d! how wretched I was with him, with what joy I always left him, what evil thoughts confounded me in his presence! Ah, I was not to blame for them!... I was not to blame for what they had made of me....
Mr. Ratsch was, after his marriage, a.s.signed a lodge not far from the big house. I lived there with my mother. It was a cheerless life I led there. She soon gave birth to a son, Viktor, this same Viktor whom I have every right to think and to call my enemy. From the time of his birth my mother never regained her health, which had always been weak.
Mr. Ratsch did not think fit in those days to keep up such a show of good spirits as he maintains now: he always wore a morose air and tried to pa.s.s for a busy, hard-working person. To me he was cruel and rude. I felt relief when I retired from Ivan Matveitch"s presence; but my own home too I was glad to leave.... Unhappy was my youth! For ever tossed from one sh.o.r.e to the other, with no desire to anchor at either! I would run across the courtyard in winter, through the deep snow, in a thin frock--run to the big house to read to Ivan Matveitch, and as it were be glad to go.... But when I was there, when I saw those great cheerless rooms, the bright-coloured, upholstered furniture, that courteous and heartless old man in the open silk wadded jacket, in the white jabot and white cravat, with lace ruffles falling over his fingers, with a _soupcon_ of powder (so his valet expressed it) on his combed-back hair, I felt choked by the stifling scent of _ambre_, and my heart sank. Ivan Matveitch usually sat in a large low chair; on the wall behind his head hung a picture, representing a young woman, with a bright and bold expression of face, dressed in a sumptuous Hebrew costume, and simply covered with precious stones, with diamonds.... I often stole a glance at this picture, but only later on I learned that it was the portrait of my mother, painted by her father at Ivan Matveitch"s request. She had changed indeed since those days! Well had he succeeded in subduing and crushing her! "And she loved him! Loved that old man!" was my thought.... "How could it be! Love him!" And yet, when I recalled some of my mother"s glances, some half-uttered phrases and unconscious gestures.... "Yes, yes, she did love him!" I repeated with horror. Ah, G.o.d, spare others from knowing aught of such feelings!
Every day I read to Ivan Matveitch, sometimes for three or four hours together.... So much reading in such a loud voice was harmful to me. Our doctor was anxious about my lungs and even once communicated his fears to Ivan Matveitch. But the old man only smiled--no; he never smiled, but somehow sharpened and moved forward his lips--and told him: "Vous ne savez pas ce qu"il y a de ressources dans cette jeunesse." "In former years, however, M. le Commandeur,"... the doctor ventured to observe.
Ivan Matveitch smiled as before. "Vous revez, mon cher," he interposed: "le commandeur n"a plus de dents, et il crache a chaque mot. J"aime les voix jeunes."
And I still went on reading, though my cough was very troublesome in the mornings and at night.... Sometimes Ivan Matveitch made me play the piano. But music always had a soporific influence on his nerves. His eyes closed at once, his head nodded in time, and only rarely I heard, "C"est du Steibelt, n"est-ce pas? Jouez-moi du Steibelt!" Ivan Matveitch looked upon Steibelt as a great genius, who had succeeded in overcoming in himself "la grossiere lourdeur des Allemands," and only found fault with him for one thing: "trop de fougue! trop d"imagination!"... When Ivan Matveitch noticed that I was tired from playing he would offer me "du cachou de Bologne." So day after day slipped by....
And then one night--a night never to be forgotten!--a terrible calamity fell upon me. My mother died almost suddenly. I was only just fifteen.
Oh, what a sorrow that was, with what cruel violence it swooped down upon me! How terrified I was at that first meeting with death! My poor mother! Strange were our relations; we pa.s.sionately loved each other...
pa.s.sionately and hopelessly; we both as it were treasured up and hid from each other our common secret, kept obstinately silent about it, though we knew all that was pa.s.sing at the bottom of our hearts! Even of the past, of her own early past, my mother never spoke to me, and she never complained in words, though her whole being was nothing but one dumb complaint. We avoided all conversation of any seriousness. Alas! I kept hoping that the hour would come, and she would open her heart at last, and I too should speak out, and both of us would be more at ease.... But the daily little cares, her irresolute, shrinking temper, illnesses, the presence of Mr. Ratsch, and most of all the eternal question,--what is the use? and the relentless, unbroken flowing away of time, of life.... All was ended as though by a clap of thunder, and the words which would have loosed us from the burden of our secret--even the last dying words of leave-taking--I was not destined to hear from my mother! All that is left in my memory is Mr. Ratsch"s calling, "Susanna Ivanovna, go, please, your mother wishes to give you her blessing!" and then the pale hand stretched out from the heavy counterpane, the agonised breathing, the dying eyes.... Oh, enough! enough!
With what horror, with what indignation and piteous curiosity I looked next day, and on the day of the funeral, into the face of my father...
yes, my father! In my dead mother"s writing-case were found his letters.
I fancied he looked a little pale and drawn... but no! Nothing was stirring in that heart of stone. Exactly as before, he summoned me to his room, a week later; exactly in the same voice he asked me to read: "Si vous le voulez bien, les observations sur l"histoire de France de Mably, a la page 74... la ou nous avons ete interrompus." And he had not even had my mother"s portrait moved! On dismissing me, he did indeed call me to him, and giving me his hand to kiss a second time, he observed: "Suzanne, la mort de votre mere vous a privee de votre appui naturel; mais vous pourrez toujours compter sur ma protection," but with the other hand he gave me at once a slight push on the shoulder, and, with the sharpening of the corners of the mouth habitual with him, he added, "Allez, mon enfant." I longed to shriek at him: "Why, but you know you"re my father!" but I said nothing and left the room.
Next morning, early, I went to the graveyard. May had come in all its glory of flowers and leaves, and a long while I sat on the new grave. I did not weep, nor grieve; one thought was filling my brain: "Do you hear, mother? He means to extend his protection to me, too!" And it seemed to me that my mother ought not to be wounded by the smile which it instinctively called up on my lips.
At times I wonder what made me so persistently desire to wring--not a confession... no, indeed! but, at least, one warm word of kinship from Ivan Matveitch? Didn"t I know what he was, and how little he was like all that I pictured in my dreams as a _father_!... But I was so lonely, so alone on earth! And then, that thought, ever recurring, gave me no rest: "Did not she love him? She must have loved him for something?"
Three years more slipped by. Nothing changed in the monotonous round of life, marked out and arranged for us. Viktor was growing into a boy. I was eight years older and would gladly have looked after him, but Mr.
Ratsch opposed my doing so. He gave him a nurse, who had orders to keep strict watch that the child was not "spoilt," that is, not to allow me to go near him. And Viktor himself fought shy of me. One day Mr. Ratsch came into my room, perturbed, excited, and angry. On the previous evening unpleasant rumours had reached me about my stepfather; the servants were talking of his having been caught embezzling a considerable sum of money, and taking bribes from a merchant.
"You can a.s.sist me," he began, tapping impatiently on the table with his fingers. "Go and speak for me to Ivan Matveitch."
"Speak for you? On what ground? What about?"
"Intercede for me.... I"m not like a stranger any way... I"m accused...
well, the fact is, I may be left without bread to eat, and you, too."
"But how can I go to him? How can I disturb him?"
"What next! You have a right to disturb him!"
"What right, Ivan Demianitch?"
"Come, no humbug.... He cannot refuse you, for many reasons. Do you mean to tell me you don"t understand that?"
He looked insolently into my eyes, and I felt my cheeks simply burning.
Hatred, contempt, rose up within me, surged in a rush upon me, drowning me.
"Yes, I understand you, Ivan Demianitch," I answered at last--my own voice seemed strange to me--"and I am not going to Ivan Matveitch, and I will not ask him for anything. Bread, or no bread!"
Mr. Ratsch shivered, ground his teeth, and clenched his fists.
"All right, wait a bit, your highness!" he muttered huskily. "I won"t forget it!" That same day, Ivan Matveitch sent for him, and, I was told, shook his cane at him, the very cane which he had once exchanged with the Due de la Rochefoucauld, and cried, "You be a scoundrel and extortioner! I put you outside!" Ivan Matveitch could hardly speak Russian at all, and despised our "coa.r.s.e jargon," _ce jargon vulgaire et rude_. Some one once said before him, "That same"s self-understood."
Ivan Matveitch was quite indignant, and often afterwards quoted the phrase as an example of the senselessness and absurdity of the Russian tongue.
"What does it mean, that same"s self-understood?" he would ask in Russian, with emphasis on each syllable. "Why not simply that"s understood, and why same and self?"
Ivan Matveitch did not, however, dismiss Mr. Ratsch, he did not even deprive him of his position. But my stepfather kept his word: he never forgot it.
I began to notice a change in Ivan Matveitch. He was low-spirited, depressed, his health broke down a little. His fresh, rosy face grew yellow and wrinkled; he lost a front tooth. He quite ceased going out, and gave up the reception-days he had established for the peasants, without the a.s.sistance of the priest, _sans le concours du clerge_.
On such days Ivan Matveitch had been in the habit of going in to the peasants in the hall or on the balcony, with a rose in his b.u.t.tonhole, and putting his lips to a silver goblet of vodka, he would make them a speech something like this: "You are content with my actions, even as I am content with your zeal, whereat I rejoice truly. We are all _brothers_; at our birth we are equal; I drink your health!" He bowed to them, and the peasants bowed to him, but only from the waist, no prostrating themselves to the ground, that was strictly forbidden. The peasants were entertained with good cheer as before, but Ivan Matveitch no longer showed himself to his subjects. Sometimes he interrupted my reading with exclamations: "La machine se detraque! Cela se gate!" Even his eyes--those bright, stony eyes--began to grow dim and, as it were, smaller; he dozed oftener than ever and breathed hard in his sleep. His manner with me was unchanged; only a shade of chivalrous deference began to be perceptible in it. He never failed to get up--though with difficulty--from his chair when I came in, conducted me to the door, supporting me with his hand under my elbow, and instead of Suzon began to call me sometimes, "ma chere demoiselle," sometimes, "mon Antigone."
M. le Commandeur died two years after my mother"s death; his death seemed to affect Ivan Matveitch far more deeply. A contemporary had disappeared: that was what distressed him. And yet in later years M. le Commandeur"s sole service had consisted in crying, "Bien joue, mal reussi!" every time Ivan Matveitch missed a stroke, playing billiards with Mr. Ratsch; though, indeed, too, when Ivan Matveitch addressed him at table with some such question as: "N"est-ce pas, M. le Commandeur, c"est Montesquieu qui a dit cela dans ses _Lettres Persanes_?" he had still, sometimes dropping a spoonful of soup on his ruffle, responded profoundly: "Ah, Monsieur de Montesquieu? Un grand ecrivain, monsieur, un grand ecrivain!" Only once, when Ivan Matveitch told him that "les theophilanthropes ont eu pourtant du bon!" the old man cried in an excited voice, "Monsieur de Kolontouskoi" (he hadn"t succeeded in the course of twenty years in learning to p.r.o.nounce his patron"s name correctly), "Monsieur de Kolontouskoi! Leur fondateur, l"instigateur de cette secte, ce La Reveillere Lepeaux etait un bonnet rouge!" "Non, non," said Ivan Matveitch, smiling and rolling together a pinch of snuff: "des fleurs, des jeunes vierges, le culte de la Nature... ils out eu du bon, ils out eu du bon!"...I was always surprised at the extent of Ivan Matveitch"s knowledge, and at the uselessness of his knowledge to himself.
Ivan Matveitch was perceptibly failing, but he still put a good face on it. One day, three weeks before his death, he had a violent attack of giddiness just after dinner. He sank into thought, said, "C"est la fin,"
and pulling himself together with a sigh, he wrote a letter to Petersburg to his sole heir, a brother with whom he had had no intercourse for twenty years. Hearing that Ivan Matveitch was unwell, a neighbour paid him a visit--a German, a Catholic--once a distinguished physician, who was living in retirement in his little place in the country. He was very rarely at Ivan Matveitch"s, but the latter always received him with special deference, and in fact had a great respect for him. He was almost the only person in the world he did respect. The old man advised Ivan Matveitch to send for a priest, but Ivan Matveitch responded that "ces messieurs et moi, nous n"avons rien a nous dire,"
and begged him to change the subject. On the neighbour"s departure, he gave his valet orders to admit no one in future.
Then he sent for me. I was frightened when I saw him; there were blue patches under his eyes, his face looked drawn and stiff, his jaw hung down. "Vous voila grande, Suzon," he said, with difficulty articulating the consonants, but still trying to smile (I was then nineteen), "vous allez peut-etre bientot rester seule. Soyez toujours sage et vertueuse.
C"est la derniere recommandation d"un"--he coughed--"d"un vieillard qui vous veut du bien. Je vous ai recommande a mon frere et je ne doute pas qu"il ne respecte mes volontes...." He coughed again, and anxiously felt his chest. "Du reste, j"esepre encore pouvoir faire quelque chose pour vous... dans mon testament." This last phrase cut me to the heart, like a knife. Ah, it was really too... too contemptuous and insulting! Ivan Matveitch probably ascribed to some other feeling--to a feeling of grief or grat.i.tude--what was expressed in my face, and as though wishing to comfort me, he patted me on the shoulder, at the same time, as usual, gently repelling me, and observed: "Voyons, mon enfant, du courage! Nous sommes tous mortels! Et puis il n"y a pas encore de danger. Ce n"est qu"une precaution que j"ai cru devoir prendre.... Allez!"