A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories

their sitting-room, and strange to say--possibly because I had been thinking so much that night and morning of Russia-- Acia struck me as a typically Russian girl, and a girl of the humbler class, almost like a Russian servant- girl. She wore an old gown, she had combed her hair back behind her ears, and was sitting still as a mouse at the window, working at some embroidery in a frame, quietly, demurely, as though she had never done anything else all her life. She said scarcely anything, looked quietly at her work, and her features wore such an ordinary, commonplace expression, that I could not help thinking of our Katias and Mashas at home in Russia. To complete the resemblance she started singing in a low voice, 'Little mother, little dove.' I looked at her little face, which was rather yellow and listless, I thought of my dreams of the previous night, and I felt a pang of regret for something.

It was exquisite weather. Gagin announced that he was going to make a sketch to-day from nature; I asked him if he would let me go with him, whether I shouldn't be in his way.

'On the contrary,' he assured me; 'you may give me some good advice.'

He put on a hat a la Vandyck, and a blouse, took a canvas under his arm, and set out; I sauntered after him. Acia stayed at home. Gagin, as he went out, asked her to see that the soup wasn't too thin; Acia promised to look into the kitchen. Gagin went as far as the valley I knew already, sat down on a stone, and began to sketch a hollow oak with spreading branches. I lay on the grass and took out a book; but I didn't read two pages, and he simply spoiled a sheet of paper; we did little else but talk, and as far as I am competent to judge, we talked rather cleverly and subtly of the right method of working, of what we must avoid, and what one must cling to, and wherein lay the significance of the artist in our age. Gagin, at last, decided that he was not in the mood to-day, and lay down beside me on the grass. And then our youthful eloquence flowed freely; fervent, pensive, enthusiastic by turns, but consisting almost always of those vague generalities into which a Russian is so ready to expand. When we had talked to our hearts' content, and were full of a feeling of satisfaction as though we had got something done, achieved some sort of success, we returned home. I found Acia just as I had left her; however assiduously I watched her I could not detect a shade of coquetry, nor a sign of an intentionally assumed role in her; this time it was impossible to reproach her for artificiality.

'Aha!' said Gagin; 'she has imposed fasting and penance on herself.'

Towards evening she yawned several times with obvious genuineness, and went early to her room. I myself soon said good-bye to Gagin, and as I went home, I had no dreams of any kind; that day was spent in sober sensations. I remember, however, as I lay down to sleep, I involuntarily exclaimed aloud-- 'What a chameleon the girl is!' and after a moment's thought I added; 'anyway, she's not his sister.' VI

A WHOLE fortnight passed by. I visited the Gagins every day. Acia seemed to avoid me, but she did not permit herself one of the mischievous tricks which had so surprised me the first two days of our acquaintance. She seemed secretly wounded or embarrassed; she even laughed less than at first. I watched her with curiosity.

She spoke French and German fairly well; but one could easily see, in everything she did, that she had not from childhood been brought up under a woman's care, and that she had had a curious, irregular education that had nothing in common with Gagin's bringing up. He was, in spite of the Vandyck hat and the blouse, so thoroughly every inch of him the soft, half-effeminate Great Russian nobleman, while she was not like the young girl of the same class. In all her movements there was a certain restlessness. The wild stock had not long been grafted, the new wine was still fermenting. By nature modest and timid, she was exasperated by her own shyness, and in her exasperation tried to force herself to be bold and free and easy, in which she was not always successful. I sometimes began to talk to her about her life in Russia, about her past; she answered my questions reluctantly. I found out, however, that before going abroad she had lived a long while in the country. I came upon her once, intent on a book, alone. With her head on her hands and her fingers thrust into her hair, she was eagerly devouring the lines.

'Bravo!' I said, going up to her; 'how studious you are!' She raised her head, and looked gravely and severely at me. 'You think I can do nothing but laugh,' she said, and was about to go away. . . .

I glanced at the title of the book; it was some French novel.

'I can't commend your choice, though,' I observed.

'What am I to read then?' she cried; and flinging the book on the table, she added--'so I'd better go and play the fool,' and ran out into the garden.

That same day, in the evening, I was reading Gagin Hermann und Dorothea. Acia at first kept fidgeting about us, then all at once she stopped, listened, softly sat down by me, and heard the reading through to the end. The next day I hardly knew her again, till I guessed it had suddenly occurred to her to be as domestic and discreet as Dorothea. In fact I saw her as a half-enigmatic creature. Vain, self-conscious to the last degree, she attracted me even when I was irritated by her. Of one thing only I felt more and more convinced; and that was, that she was not Gagin's sister. His manner with her was not like a brother's, it was too affectionate, too considerate, and at the same time a little constrained.

A curious incident apparently confirmed my suspicions.

One evening, when I reached the vineyard where the Gagins lived, I found the gate fastened. Without losing much time in deliberation, I made my way to a broken-down place I had noticed before in the hedge and jumped over it. Not far from this spot there was a little arbour of acacias on one side of the path. I got up to it and was just about to pass it. . . . Suddenly I was struck by Acia's voice passionately and tearfully uttering the following words:

'No, I'll love no one but you, no, no, I will love you only, for ever!'

'Come, Acia, calm yourself,' said Gagin; 'you know I believe you.'

Their voices came from the arbour. I could see them both through the thin net-work of leaves. They did not notice me.

'You, you only,' she repeated, and she flung herself on his neck, and with broken sobs began kissing him and clinging to his breast.

'Come, come,' he repeated, lightly passing his hand over her hair.

For a few instants I stood motionless . . . Suddenly I started--should I go up to them?--'On no consideration,' flashed through my head. With rapid footsteps I turned back to the hedge, leaped over it into the road, and almost running, went home. I smiled, rubbed my hands, wondered at the chance which had so suddenly confirmed my surmises (I did not for one instant doubt their accuracy) and yet there was a great bitterness in my heart. What accomplished hypocrites they are, though, I thought. And what for? Why should he try to take me in? I shouldn't have expected it of him . . . And what a touching scene of reconciliation! VII

I SLEPT badly, and next morning got up early, fastened a knapsack on my back, and telling my landlady not to expect me back for the night, set off walking to the mountains, along the upper part of the stream on which Z. is situated. These mountains, offsets of the ridge known as the Hundsruck, are very interesting from a geological point of view. They are especially remarkable for the purity and regularity of the strata of basalt; but I was in no mood for geological observations. I did not take stock of what was passing within me. One feeling was clear to me; a disinclination to see the Gagins. I assured myself that the sole reason of my sudden distaste for their society was anger at their duplicity. Who forced them to pass themselves off as brother and sister? However, I tried not to think about them; I sauntered in leisurely fashion about the mountains and valleys, sat in the village inns, talking peacefully to the innkeepers and people drinking in them, or lay on a flat stone warmed by the sun, and watched the clouds floating by. Luckily it was exquisite weather. In such pursuits I passed three days, and not without pleasure, though my heart did ache at times. My own mood was in perfect harmony with the peaceful nature of that quiet countryside.

I gave myself up entirely to the play of circumstances, of fleeting impressions; in slow succession they flowed through my soul, and left on it at last one general sensation, in which all I had seen, felt, and heard in those three days was mingled--all; the delicate fragrance of resin in the forest, the call and tap of the woodpeckers, the never- ceasing chatter of the clear brooks, with spotted trout lying in the sand at the bottom, the somewhat softened outlines of the mountains, the surly rocks, the little clean villages, with respectable old churches and trees, the storks in the meadows, the neat mills with swiftly turning wheels, the beaming faces of the villagers, their blue smocks and grey stockings, the creaking, deliberately-moving wagons, drawn by sleek horses, and sometimes cows, the long-haired young men, wandering on the clean roads, planted with apple and pear trees. . . .

Even now I like to recall my impressions of those days. Good luck go with thee, modest nook of Germany, with thy simple plenty, with traces everywhere of busy hands, of patient though leisurely toil. . . . Good luck and peace to thee!