On the Eve

The 'honoured stranger' listened to Shubin's speech, his head held contemptuously on one side and his arms akimbo.

'I don't understand what you say,' he commented at last. 'Do you suppose I'm a cobbler or a watchmaker? Hey! I'm an officer, an official, so there.'

'I don't doubt that——' Shubin was beginning.

'What I say is,' continued the stranger, putting him aside with his powerful arm, like a twig out of the path —'why didn't you sing again when we shouted bis? And I'll go away directly, this minute, only I tell you what I want, this fraulein, not that madam, no, not her, but this one or that one (he pointed to Elena and Zoya) must give me einen Kuss, as we say in German, a kiss, in fact; eh? That's not much to ask.'

'Einen Kuss, that's not much,' came again from the ranks of his companions, 'Ih! der Stakramenter!' cried one tipsy German, bursting with laughter.

Zoya clutched at Insarov's arm, but he broke away from her, and stood directly facing the insolent giant.

'You will please to move off,' he said in a voice not loud but sharp.

The German gave a heavy laugh, 'Move off? Well, I like that. Can't I walk where I please? Move off? Why should I move off?'

'Because you have dared to annoy a lady,' said Insarov, and suddenly he turned white, 'because you're drunk.'

'Eh? me drunk? Hear what he says. Horen Sie das, Herr Provisor? I'm an officer, and he dares... Now I demand satisfaction. Einen Kuss will ich.'

'If you come another step nearer——' began Insarov.

'Well? What then'

'I'll throw you in the water!'

'In the water? Herr Je! Is that all? Well, let us see that, that would be very curious, too.'

The officer lifted his fists and moved forward, but suddenly something extraordinary happened. He uttered an exclamation, his whole bulky person staggered, rose from the ground, his legs kicking in the air, and before the ladies had time to shriek, before any one had time to realise how it had happened, the officer's massive figure went plop with a heavy splash, and at once disappeared under the eddying water.

'Oh!' screamed the ladies with one voice. 'Mein Gott!' was heard from the other side. An instant passed... and a round head, all plastered over with wet hair, showed above water, it was blowing bubbles, this head; and floundering with two hands just at its very lips. 'He will be drowned, save him! save him!' cried Anna Vassilyevna to Insarov, who was standing with his legs apart on the bank, breathing heavily.

'He will swim out,' he answered with contemptuous and unsympathetic indifference. 'Let us go on,' he added, taking Anna Vassilyevna by the arm. 'Come, Uvar Ivanovitch, Elena Nikolaevna.'

'A—a—o—o' was heard at that instant, the plaint of the hapless German who had managed to get hold of the rushes on the bank.

They all followed Insarov, and had to pass close by the party. But, deprived of their leader, the rowdies were subdued and did not utter a word; but one, the boldest of them, muttered, shaking his head menacingly: 'All right... we shall see though... after that'; but one of the others even took his hat off. Insarov struck them as formidable, and rightly so; something evil, something dangerous could be seen in his face. The Germans hastened to pull out their comrade, who, directly he had his feet on dry ground, broke into tearful abuse and shouted after the 'Russian scoundrels,' that he would make a complaint, that he would go to Count Von Kizerits himself, and so on.

But the 'Russian scoundrels' paid no attention to his vociferations, and hurried on as fast as they could to the castle. They were all silent, as they walked through the garden, though Anna Vassilyevna sighed a little. But when they reached the carriages and stood still, they broke into an irrepressible, irresistible fit of Homeric laughter. First Shubin exploded, shrieking as if he were mad, Bersenyev followed with his gurgling guffaw, then Zoya fell into thin tinkling little trills, Anna Vassilyevna too suddenly broke down, Elena could not help smiling, and even Insarov at last could not resist it. But the loudest, longest, most persistent laugh was Uvar Ivanovitch's; he laughed till his sides ached, till he choked and panted. He would calm down a little, then would murmur through his tears: 'I— thought—what's that splash—and there—he—went plop.' And with the last word, forced out with convulsive effort, his whole frame was shaking with another burst of laughter. Zoya made him worse. 'I saw his legs,' she said, 'kicking in the air.' 'Yes, yes,' gasped Uvar Ivanovitch, 'his legs, his legs—and then splash!—there he plopped in!'

'And how did Mr. Insarov manage it? why the German was three times his size?' said Zoya.

'I'll tell you,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch, rubbing his eyes, 'I saw; with one arm about his waist, he tripped him up, and he went plop! I heard—a splash—there he went.'

Long after the carriages had started, long after the castle of Tsaritsino was out of sight, Uvar Ivanovitch was still unable to regain his composure. Shubin, who was again with him in the carriage, began to cry shame on him at last.

Insarov felt ashamed. He sat in the coach facing Elena (Bersenyev had taken his seat on the box), and he said nothing; she too was silent. He thought that she was condemning his action; but she did not condemn him. She had been scared at the first minute; then the expression of his face had impressed her; afterwards she pondered on it all. It was not quite clear to her what the nature of her reflections was. The emotion she had felt during the day had passed away; that she realised; but its place had been taken by another feeling which she did not yet fully understand. The partie de plaisir had been prolonged too late; insensibly evening passed into night. The carriage rolled swiftly along, now beside ripening cornfields, where the air was heavy and fragrant with the smell of wheat; now beside wide meadows, from which a sudden wave of freshness blew lightly in the face. The sky seemed to lie like smoke over the horizon. At last the moon rose, dark and red. Anna Vassilyevna was dozing; Zoya had poked her head out of window and was staring at the road. It occurred to Elena at last that she had not spoken to Insarov for more than an hour. She turned to him with a trifling question; he at once answered her, delighted. Dim sounds began stirring indistinctly in the air, as though thousands of voices were talking in the distance; Moscow was coming to meet them. Lights twinkled afar off; they grew more and more frequent; at last there was the grating of the cobbles under their wheels. Anna Vassilyevna awoke, every one in the carriage began talking, though no one could hear what was said; everything was drowned in the rattle of the cobbles under the two carriages, and the hoofs of the eight horses. Long and wearisome seemed the journey from Moscow to Kuntsovo; all the party were asleep or silent, leaning with their heads pressed into their respective corners; Elena did not close her eyes; she kept them fixed on Insarov's dimly-outlined figure. A mood of sadness had come upon Shubin; the breeze was blowing into his eyes and irritating him; he retired into the collar of his cloak and was on the point of tears. Uvar Ivanovitch was snoring blissfully, rocking from side to side. The carriages came to a standstill at last. Two men-servants lifted Anna Vassilyevna out of the carriage; she was all to pieces, and at parting from her fellow travellers, announced that she was 'nearly dead'; they began thanking her, but she only repeated, 'nearly dead.' Elena for the first time pressed Insarov's hand at parting, and for a long while she sat at her window before undressing; Shubin seized an opportunity to whisper to Bersenyev:

'There, isn't he a hero; he can pitch drunken Germans into the river!'

'While you didn't even do that,' retorted Bersenyev, and he started homewards with Insarov.

The dawn was already showing in the sky when the two friends reached their lodging. The sun had not yet risen, but already the chill of daybreak was in the air, a grey dew covered the grass, and the first larks were trilling high, high up in the shadowy infinity of air, whence like a solitary eye looked out the great, last star.

XVI

Soon after her acquaintance with Insarov, Elena (for the fifth or sixth time) began a diary. Here are some extracts from it:

'June.... Andrei Petrovitch brings me books, but I can't read them. I'm ashamed to