'Going away? Where to?'
'To his own country, to Bulgaria.'
'To the Turks!' cried Anna Vassilyevna and fell into a swoon.
Elena ran to her mother.
'Away!' clamoured Nikolai Artemyevitch, seizing his daughter by the arm, 'away, unworthy girl!'
But at that instant the door of the room opened, and a pale face with glittering eyes appeared: it was the face of Shubin.
'Nikolai Artemyevitch!' he shouted at the top of his voice, 'Augustina Christianovna is here and is asking for you!'
Nikolai Artemyevitch turned round infuriated, threatening Shubin with his fist; he stood still a minute and rapidly went out of the room.
Elena fell at her mother's feet and embraced her knees.
Uvar Ivanovitch was lying on his bed. A shirt without a collar, fastened with a heavy stud enfolded his thick neck and fell in full flowing folds over the almost feminine contours of his chest, leaving visible a large cypress-wood cross and an amulet. His ample limbs were covered with the lightest bedclothes. On the little table by the bedside a candle was burning dimly beside a jug of kvas, and on the bed at Uvar ivanovitch's feet was sitting Shubin in a dejected pose.
'Yes,' he was saying meditatively, 'she is married and getting ready to go away. Your nephew was bawling and shouting for the benefit of the whole house; he had shut himself up for greater privacy in his wife's bedroom, but not merely the maids and the footmen, the coachman even could hear it all! Now he's just tearing and raving round; he all but gave me a thrashing, he's bringing a father's curse on the scene now, as cross as a bear with a sore head; but that's of no importance. Anna Vassilyevna's crushed, but she's much more brokenhearted at her daughter leaving her than at her marriage.'
Uvar Ivanovitch flourished his fingers.
'A mother,' he commented, 'to be sure.'
'Your nephew,' resumed Shubin, 'threatens to lodge a complaint with the Metropolitan and the General- Governor and the Minister, but it will end by her going. A happy thought to ruin his own daughter! He'll crow a little and then lower his colours.'
'They'd no right,' observed Uvar Ivanovitch, and he drank out of the jug.
'To be sure. But what a storm of criticism, gossip, and comments will be raised in Moscow! She's not afraid of them.... Besides she's above them. She's going away... and it's awful to think where she's going—to such a distance, such a wilderness! What future awaits her there? I seem to see her setting off from a posting station in a snow-storm with thirty degrees of frost. She's leaving her country, and her people; but I understand her doing it. Whom is she leaving here behind her? What people has she seen? Kurnatovsky and Bersenyev and our humble selves; and these are the best she's seen. What is there to regret about it? One thing's bad; I'm told her husband —the devil, how that word sticks in my throat!—Insarov, I'm told, is spitting blood; that's a bad lookout. I saw him the other day: his face—you could model Brutus from it straight off. Do you know who Brutus was, Uvar Ivanovitch?'
'What is there to know? a man to be sure.'
'Precisely so: he was a 'man.' Yes he's a wonderful face, but unhealthy, very unhealthy.'
'For fighting... it makes no difference,' observed Uvar Ivanovitch.
'For fighting it makes no difference, certainly; you are pleased to express yourself with great justice to-day; but for living it makes all the difference. And you see she wants to live with him a little while.'
'A youthful affair,' responded Uvar Ivanovitch.
'Yes, a youthful, glorious, bold affair. Death, life, conflict, defeat, triumph, love, freedom, country.... Good God, grant as much to all of us! That's a very different thing from sitting up to one's neck in a bog, and pretending it's all the same to you, when in fact it really is all the same. While there—the strings are tuned to the highest pitch, to play to all the world or to break!'
Shubin's head sank on to his breast.
'Yes,' he resumed, after a prolonged silence, 'Insarov deserves her. What nonsense, though! No one deserves her... Insarov... Insarov ... What's the use of pretended modesty? We'll own he's a fine fellow, he stands on his own feet, though up to the present he has done no more than we poor sinners; and are we such absolutely worthless dirt? Am I such dirt, Uvar Ivanovitch? Has God been hard on me in every way? Has He given me no talents, no abilities? Who knows, perhaps, the name of Pavel Shubin will in time be a great name? You see that bronze farthing there lying on your table. Who knows; some day, perhaps in a century, that bronze will go to a statue of Pavel Shubin, raised in his honour by a grateful posterity!'
Uvar Ivanovitch leaned on his elbow and stared at the enthusiastic artist.
'That's a long way off,' he said at last with his usual gesture; 'we're speaking of other people, why bring in yourself?'
'O great philosopher of the Russian world!' cried Shubin, 'every word of yours is worth its weight in gold, and it's not to me but to you a statue ought to be raised, and I would undertake it. There, as you are lying now, in that pose; one doesn't know which is uppermost in it, sloth or strength! That's how I would cast you in bronze. You aimed a just reproach at my egoism and vanity! Yes! yes! it's useless talking of one's-self; it's useless bragging. We have no one yet, no men, look where you will. Everywhere—either small fry, nibblers, Hamlets on a small scale, self-absorbed, or darkness and subterranean chaos, or idle babblers and wooden sticks. Or else they are like this: they study themselves to the most shameful detail, and are for ever feeling the pulse of every sensation and reporting to themselves: 'That's what I feel, that's what I think.' A useful, rational occupation! No, if we only had some sensible men among us, that girl, that delicate soul, would not have run away from us, would not have slipped off like a fish to the water! What's the meaning of it, Uvar Ivanovitch? When will our time come? When will men be born among us?'
'Give us time,' answered Uvar Ivanovitch; 'they will be——'
'They will be? soil of our country! force of the black earth! thou hast said: they will be. Look, I will write down your words. But why are you putting out the candle?'
'I'm going to sleep; good-bye.'
XXXI
Shubin had spoken truly. The unexpected news of Elena's marriage nearly killed Anna Vassilyevna. She took to her bed. Nikolai Artemyevitch insisted on her not admitting her daughter to her presence; he seemed to be enjoying the opportunity of showing himself in the fullest sense the master of the house, with all the authority of the head of the family; he made an incessant uproar in the household, storming at the servants, and constantly saying: 'I will show you who I am, I will let you know—you wait a little!' While he was in the house, Anna Vassilyevna did not see Elena, and had to be content with Zoya, who waited on her very devotedly, but kept thinking to herself: '
This dumb reproach, more deeply than any other, cut Elena to the heart; at such moments she felt, not remorse, but a deep, boundless pity akin to remorse.
'Mamma, dear mamma!' she would repeat, kissing her hands; 'what was I to do? I'm not to blame, I loved him, I could not have acted differently. Throw the blame on fate for throwing me with a man whom papa doesn't like, and who is taking me away from you.'
'Ah!' Anna Vassilyevna cut her short, 'don't remind me of that. When I think where you mean to go, my heart is ready to burst!'
'Dear mamma,' answered Elena, 'be comforted; at least, it might have been worse; I might have died.'
