On the Eve

'If that's what it is, I will spare your scarecrow then,' he said. And now, 'Long live eternal true art!'

'Long live true art!' put in Shubin. 'By art the good is better and the bad is not all loss!'

The friends shook hands warmly and parted.

XXI

Elena's first sensation on awakening was one of happy consternation. 'Is it possible? Is it possible?' she asked herself, and her heart grew faint with happiness. Recollections came rushing on her... she was overwhelmed by them. Then again she was enfolded by the blissful peace of triumph. But in the course of the morning, Elena gradually became possessed by a spirit of unrest, and for the remainder of the day she felt listless and weary. It was true she knew now what she wanted, but that made it no easier for her. That never-to-be forgotten meeting had cast her for ever out of the old groove; she was no longer at the same standpoint, she was far away, and yet everything went on about her in its accustomed order, everything pursued its own course as though nothing were changed; the old life moved on its old way, reckoning on Elena's interest and co-operation as of old. She tried to begin a letter to Insarov, but that too was a failure; the words came on to paper either lifeless or false. Her diary she had put an end to by drawing a thick stroke under the last line. That was the past, and every thought, all her soul, was turned now to the future. Her heart was heavy. To sit with her mother who suspected nothing, to listen to her, answer her and talk to her, seemed to Elena something wicked; she felt the presence of a kind of falseness in her, she suffered though she had nothing to blush for; more than once an almost irresistible desire sprang up in her heart to tell everything without reserve, whatever might come of it afterwards. 'Why,' she thought, 'did not Dmitri take me away then, from that little chapel, wherever he wanted to go? Didn't he tell me I was his wife before God? What am I here for?' She suddenly began to feel shy of every one, even of Uvar Ivanovitch, who was flourishing his fingers in more perplexity than ever. Now everything about her seemed neither sweet nor friendly, nor even a dream, but, like a nightmare, lay, an immovable dead load, on her heart; seeming to reproach her and be indignant with her, and not to care to know about her....'You are ours in spite of everything,' she seemed to hear. Even her poor pets, her ill-used birds and animals looked at her—so at least she fancied—with suspicion and hostility. She felt conscience-stricken and ashamed of her feelings. 'This is my home after all,' she thought, 'my family, my country.'... 'No, it's no longer your country, nor your family,' another voice affirmed within her. Terror was overmastering her, and she was vexed with her own feebleness. The trial was only beginning and she was losing patience already... Was this what she had promised?

She did not soon gain control of herself. But a week passed and then another.... Elena became a little calmer, and grew used to her new position. She wrote two little notes to Insarov, and carried them herself to the post: she could not for anything—through shame and through pride—have brought herself to confide in a maid. She was already beginning to expect him in person.... But instead of Insarov, one fine morning Nikolai Artemyevitch made his appearance.

XXII

No one in the house of the retired lieutenant of guards, Stahov, had ever seen him so sour, and at the same time so self-confident and important as on that day. He walked into the drawing-room in his overcoat and hat, with long deliberate stride, stamping with his heels; he approached the looking-glass and took a long look at himself, shaking his head and biting his lips with imperturbable severity. Anna Vassilyevna met him with obvious agitation and secret delight (she never met him otherwise); he did not even take off his hat, nor greet her, and in silence gave Elena his doe-skin glove to kiss. Anna Vassilyevna began questioning him about the progress of his cure; he made her no reply. Uvar Ivanovitch made his appearance; he glanced at him and said, 'bah!' He usually behaved coldly and haughtily to Uvar Ivanovitch, though he acknowledged in him 'traces of the true Stahov blood.' Almost all Russian families of the nobility are convinced, as is well known, of the existence of exceptional hereditary characteristics, peculiar to them alone; we have more than once heard discussions 'among ourselves' of the Podsalaskinsky 'noses,' and the 'Perepreyevsky' necks. Zoya came in and sat down facing Nikolai Artemyevitch. He grunted, sank into an armchair, asked for coffee, and only then took off his hat. Coffee was brought him; he drank a cup, and looking at everybody in turn, he growled between his teeth, 'Sortes, s'il vous plait,' and turning to his wife he added, 'et vous, madame, restez, je vous prie.'

They all left the room, except Anna Vassilyevna. Her head was trembling with agitation. The solemnity of Nikolai Artemyevitch's preparations impressed her. She was expecting something extraordinary.

'What is it?' she cried, directly the door was closed.

Nikolai Artemyevitch flung an indifferent glance at Anna Vassilyevna.

'Nothing special; what a way you have of assuming the air of a victim at once!' he began, quite needlessly dropping the corners of his mouth at every word. 'I only want to forewarn you that we shall have a new guest dining here to-day.'

'Who is it?'

'Kurnatovsky, Yegor Andreyevitch. You don't know him. The head secretary in the senate.'

'He is to dine with us to-day?'

'Yes.'

'And was it only to tell me this that you made every one go away?'

Nikolai Artemyevitch again flung a glance—this time one of irony—at Anna Vassilyevna.

'Does that surprise you? Defer your surprise a little.'

He ceased speaking. Anna Vassilyevna too was silent for a little time.

'I could have wished——' she was beginning.

'I know you have always looked on me as an 'immoral' man,' began Nikolai Artemyevitch suddenly.

'I!' muttered Anna Vassilyevna, astounded.

'And very likely you are right. I don't wish to deny that I have in fact sometimes given you just grounds for dissatisfaction' ('my greys!' flashed through Anna Vassilyevna's head), 'though you must yourself allow, that in the condition, as you are aware, of your constitution——'

'And I make no complaint against you, Nikolai Artemyevitch.'

'C'est possible. In any case, I have no intention of justifying myself. Time will justify me. But I regard it as my duty to prove to you that I understand my duties, and know how to care for—for the welfare of the family entrusted—entrusted to me.'

'What's the meaning of all this?' Anna Vassilyevna was thinking. (She could not guess that the preceding evening at the English club a discussion had arisen in a corner of the smoking-room as to the incapacity of Russians to make speeches. 'Which of us can speak? Mention any one!' one of the disputants had exclaimed. 'Well, Stahov, for instance,' had answered the other, pointing to Nikolai Artemyevitch, who stood up on the spot almost squealing with delight.)

'For instance,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, 'my daughter Elena. Don't you consider that the time has come for her to take a decisive step along the path—to be married, I mean to say. All these intellectual and philanthropic pursuits are all very well, but only up to a certain point, up to a certain age. It's time for her to drop her mistiness, to get out of the society of all these artists, scholars, and Montenegrins, and do like everybody else.'

'How am I to understand you?' asked Anna Vassilyevna.

'Well, if you will kindly listen,' answered Nikolai Artemyevitch, still with the same dropping of the corners of his lips, 'I will tell you plainly, without beating about the bush. I have made acquaintance, I have become intimate with this young man, Mr. Kurnatovsky, in the hope of having him for a son-in-law. I venture to think that when you see him, you will not accuse me of partiality or precipitate judgment.' (Nikolai Artemyevitch was admiring his own eloquence as he talked.) 'Of excellent education—educated in the highest legal college—excellent manners, thirty-