regret at the sudden departure of such a pleasant acquaintance; but she could not force herself to hypocrisy, and continued to sit without stirring or speaking, while Anna Vassilyevna sighed and lamented. Elena tried to keep near Bersenyev; she was not afraid of him, though he even knew part of her secret; she was safe under his wing from Shubin, who still persisted in staring at her—not mockingly but attentively. Bersenyev, too, was thrown into perplexity during the evening: he had expected to see Elena more gloomy. Happily for her, an argument sprang up about art between him and Shubin; she moved apart and heard their voices as it were through a dream. By degrees, not only they, but the whole room, everything surrounding her, seemed like a dream—everything: the samovar on the table, and Uvar Ivanovitch's short waistcoat, and Zoya's polished finger-nails, and the portrait in oils of the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovitch on the wall; everything retreated, everything was wrapped in mist, everything ceased to exist. Only she felt sorry for them all. 'What are they living for?' she thought.
'Are you sleepy, Lenotchka?' her mother asked her. She did not hear the question.
'A half untrue insinuation, do you say?' These words, sharply uttered by Shubin, suddenly awakened Elena's attention. 'Why,' he continued, 'the whole sting lies in that. A true insinuation makes one wretched—that's unchristian—and to an untrue insinuation a man is indifferent—that's stupid, but at a half true one he feels vexed and impatient. For instance, if I say that Elena Nikolaevna is in love with one of us, what sort of insinuation would that be, eh?'
'Ah, Monsieur Paul,' said Elena, 'I should like to show myself vexed, but really I can't. I am so tired.'
'Why don't you go to bed?' observed Anna Vassilyevna, who was always drowsy in the evening herself, and consequently always eager to send the others to bed. 'Say good-night to me, and go in God's name; Andrei Petrovitch will excuse you.'
Elena kissed her mother, bowed to all and went away. Shubin accompanied her to the door. 'Elena Nikolaevna,' he whispered to her in the doorway, 'you trample on Monsieur Paul, you mercilessly walk over him, but Monsieur Paul blesses you and your little feet, and the slippers on your little feet, and the soles of your little slippers.'
Elena shrugged her shoulders, reluctantly held out her hand to him—not the one Insarov had kissed—and going up to her room, at once undressed, got into bed, and fell asleep. She slept a deep, unstirring sleep, as even children rarely sleep—the sleep of a child convalescent after sickness, when its mother sits near its cradle and watches it, and listens to its breathing.
XX
'Come to my room for a minute,' Shubin said to Bersenyev, directly the latter had taken leave of Anna Vassilyevna: 'I have something to show you.'
Bersenyev followed him to his attic. He was surprised to see a number of studies, statuettes, and busts, covered with damp cloths, set about in all the corners of the room.
'Well I see you have been at work in earnest,' he observed to Shubin.
'One must do something,' he answered. 'If one thing doesn't do, one must try another. However, like a true Corsican, I am more concerned with revenge than with pure art.
'I don't understand you,' said Bersenyev.
'Well, wait a minute. Deign to look this way, gracious friend and benefactor, my vengeance number one.'
Shubin uncovered one figure, and Bersenyev saw a capital bust of Insarov, an excellent likeness. The features of the face had been correctly caught by Shubin to the minutest detail, and he had given him a fine expression, honest, generous, and bold.
Bersenyev went into raptures over it.
'That's simply exquisite!' he cried. 'I congratulate you. You must send it to the exhibition! Why do you call that magnificent work your vengeance?'
'Because, sir, I intended to offer this magnificent work as you call it to Elena Nikolaevna on her name day. Do you see the allegory? We are not blind, we see what goes on about us, but we are gentlemen, my dear sir, and we take our revenge like gentlemen.... But here,' added Shubin, uncovering another figure, 'as the artist according to modern aesthetic principles enjoys the enviable privilege of embodying in himself every sort of baseness which he can turn into a gem of creative art, we in the production of this gem, number two, have taken vengeance not as gentlemen, but simply en canaille.'
He deftly drew off the cloth, and displayed to Bersenyev's eyes a statuette in Dantan's style, also of Insarov. Anything cleverer and more spiteful could not be imagined. The young Bulgarian was represented as a ram standing on his hind-legs, butting forward with his horns. Dull solemnity and aggressiveness, obstinacy, clumsiness and narrowness were simply printed on the visage of the 'sire of the woolly flock,' and yet the likeness to Insarov was so striking that Bersenyev could not help laughing.
'Eh? is it amusing?' said Shubin. 'Do you recognise the hero? Do you advise me to send it too to the exhibition? That, my dear fellow, I intend as a present for myself on my own name day.... Your honour will permit me to play the fool.'
And Shubin gave three little leaps, kicking himself behind with his heels.
Bersenyev picked up the cloth off the floor—and threw it over the statuette.
'Ah, you, magnanimous'—began Shubin. 'Who the devil was it in history was so particularly magnanimous? Well, never mind! And now,' he continued, with melancholy triumph, uncovering a third rather large mass of clay, 'you shall behold something which will show you the humility and discernment of your friend. You will realise that he, like a true artist again, feels the need and the use of self-castigation. Behold!'
The cloth was lifted and Bersenyev saw two heads, modelled side by side and close as though growing together.... He did not at once know what was the subject, but looking closer, he recognised in one of them Annushka, in the other Shubin himself. They were, however, rather caricatures than portraits. Annushka was represented as a handsome fat girl with a low forehead, eyes lost in layers of fat, and a saucily turned-up nose. Her thick lips had an insolent curve; her whole face expressed sensuality, carelessness, and boldness, not without goodnature. Himself Shubin had modelled as a lean emaciated rake, with sunken cheeks, his thin hair hanging in weak wisps about his face, a meaningless expression in his dim eyes, and his nose sharp and thin as a dead man's.
Bersenyev turned away with disgust. 'A nice pair, aren't they, my dear fellow?' said Shubin; 'won't you graciously compose a suitable title? For the first two I have already thought of titles. On the bust shall be inscribed: 'A hero resolving to liberate his country.' On the statuette: 'Look out, sausage-eating Germans!' And for this work what do you think of 'The future of the artist Pavel Yakovlitch Shubin?' Will that do?'
'Leave off,' replied Bersenyev. 'Was it worth while to waste your time on such a ——' He could not at once fix on a suitable word.
'Disgusting thing, you mean? No, my dear fellow, excuse me, if anything ought to go to the exhibition, it's that group.'
'It's simply disgusting,' repeated Bersenyev. 'And besides, it's nonsense. You have absolutely no such degrading tendencies to which, unhappily, our artists have such a frequent bent. You have simply libelled yourself.'
'Do you think so?' said Shubin gloomily. 'I have none of them, and if they come upon me, the fault is all one person's. Do you know,' he added, tragically knitting his brows, 'that I have been trying drinking?'
'Nonsense?'
'Yes, I have, by God,' rejoined Shubin; and suddenly grinning and brightening,—'but I didn't like it, my dear boy, the stuff sticks in my throat, and my head afterwards is a perfect drum. The great Lushtchihin himself— Harlampy Lushtchihin—the greatest drunkard in Moscow, and a Great Russian drunkard too, declared there was nothing to be made of me. In his words, the bottle does not speak to me.'
Bersenyev was just going to knock the group over but Shubin stopped him.
'That'll do, my dear boy, don't smash it; it will serve as a lesson, a scare-crow.'
Bersenyev laughed.
