Part 11 (1/2)
XIX.
The little house at which Lavretsky had arrived, and in which Glafira Petrovna had died two years before, had been built of solid pine timber in the preceding century. It looked very old, but it was good for another fifty years or more. Lavretsky walked through all the rooms, and, to the great disquiet of the faded old flies which clung to the cornices without moving, their backs covered with white dust, he had the windows thrown open everywhere. Since the death of Glafira Petrovna, no one had opened them. Every thing had remained precisely as it used to be in the house. In the drawing-room the little white sofas, with their thin legs, and their s.h.i.+ning grey coverings, all worn and rumpled, vividly recalled to mind the times of Catharine. In that room also stood the famous arm-chair of the late proprietress, a chair with a high, straight back, in which, even in her old age, she used always to sit bolt upright. On the wall hung an old portrait of Fedor's great-grandfather, Andrei Lavretsky. His dark, sallow countenance could scarcely be distinguished against the cracked and darkened background. His small, malicious eyes looked out morosely from beneath the heavy, apparently swollen eyelids. His black hair, worn without powder, rose up stiff as a brush above his heavy, wrinkled forehead. From the corner of the portrait hung a dusky wreath of _immortelles_. ”Glafira Petrovna deigned to weave it herself,”
observed Anthony. In the bed-room stood a narrow bedstead, with curtains of some striped material, extremely old, but of very good quality. On the bed lay a heap of faded cus.h.i.+ons and a thin, quilted counterpane; and above the bolster hung a picture of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in the Temple, the very picture which the old lady, when she lay dying, alone and forgotten, pressed for the last time with lips which were already beginning to grow cold. Near the window stood a toilet table, inlaid with different kinds of wood and ornamented with plates of copper, supporting a crooked mirror in a frame of which the gilding had turned black. In a line with the bed-room was the oratory, a little room with bare walls; in the corner stood a heavy case for holding sacred pictures, and on the floor lay the sc.r.a.p of carpet, worn threadbare, and covered with droppings from wax candles, on which Glafira Petrovna used to prostrate herself when she prayed.
Anton went out with Lavretsky's servant to open the stable and coach-house doors. In his stead appeared an old woman, almost as old as himself, her hair covered by a handkerchief, which came down to her very eyebrows. Her head shook and her eyes seemed dim; but they wore, also, an expression of zealous obedience, habitual and implicit, and, at the same time, of a kind of respectful condolence. She kissed Lavretsky's hand, and then remained near the door, awaiting his orders. He could not remember what her name was, nor even whether he had ever seen her before. It turned out that her name was Apraxia.
Some forty years previously, Glafira Petrovna had struck her off the list of the servants who lived in the house, and had ordered her to become a poultry-maid. She seldom spoke, seemed half idiotic, and always wore a servile look. Besides this old couple, and three paunchy little children in long s.h.i.+rts, Anton's great-grandchildren, there lived also in the seigniorial household an untaxable[A] moujik, who had only one arm. He cackled like a black-c.o.c.k, and was fit for nothing. Of very little more use was the infirm old hound which had saluted Lavretsky's return by its barking. For ten whole years it had been fastened to a heavy chain, purchased by order of Glafira Petrovna, a burden under which it was now scarcely able to move.
[Footnote A: One who had not received the usual grant of land from the community, and was not subject to rates like the rest.]
Having examined the house, Lavretsky went out into the garden, and was well pleased with it. It was all overgrown with steppe gra.s.s, with dandelions, and with gooseberry and raspberry bushes; but there was plenty of shade in it, a number of old lime-trees growing there, of singularly large stature, with eccentrically ordered branches. They had been planted too close together, and a hundred years seemed to have elapsed since they were pruned. At the end of the garden was a small, clear lake, surrounded by a fringe of high, reddish-colored rushes. The traces of a human life that is past soon disappear.
Glafira's manor-house had not yet grown wild, but it seemed to have become already immersed in that quiet slumber which all that is earthly sleeps, whenever it is not affected by the restlessness of humanity.
Lavretsky also went through the village. The women looked at him from the door-ways of their cottages, each resting her cheek upon her hand.
The men bowed low from afar, the children ran Out of sight, the dogs barked away at their ease. At last he felt hungry, but he did not expect his cook and the other servants till the evening. The waggon bringing provisions from Lavriki had not yet arrived. It was necessary to have recourse to Anton. The old man immediately made his arrangements. He caught an ancient fowl, and killed and plucked it.
Apraxia slowly squeezed and washed it, scrubbing it as if it had been linen for the wash, before putting it into the stewpan. When at last it was ready, Anton laid the table, placing beside the dish a three-footed plated salt-cellar, blackened with age, and a cut gla.s.s decanter, with a round gla.s.s stopper in its narrow neck. Then, in a kind of chant, he announced to Lavretsky that dinner was ready, and took his place behind his master's chair, a napkin wound around his right hand, and a kind of air of the past, like the odor of cypress-wood hanging about him. Lavretsky tasted the broth, and took the fowl out of it. The bird's skin was covered all over with round blisters, a thick tendon ran up each leg, and the flesh was as tough as wood, and had a flavor like that which pervades a laundry. After dinner Lavretsky said that he would take tea if--
”I will bring it in a moment,” broke in the old man, and he kept his promise. A few pinches of tea were found rolled up in a sc.r.a.p of red paper. Also a small, but very zealous and noisy little _samovar_[A]
was discovered, and some sugar in minute pieces, which looked as if they had been all but melted away. Lavretsky drank his tea out of a large cup. From his earliest childhood he remembered this cup, on which playing cards were painted, and from which only visitors were allowed to drink; and now he drank from it, like a visitor.
[Footnote A: Urn.]
Towards the evening came the servants. Lavretsky did not like to sleep in his aunt's bed, so he had one made up for him in the dining-room.
After putting out the candle, he lay for a long time looking around him, and thinking what were not joyous thoughts. He experienced the sensations which every one knows who has had to spend the night for the first time in a long uninhabited room. He fancied that the darkness which pressed in upon him from all sides could not accustom itself to the new tenant--that the very walls of the house were astonished at him. At last he sighed, pulled the counterpane well over him, and went to sleep. Anton remained on his legs long after every one else had gone to bed. For some time he spoke in a whisper to Apraxia, sighing low at intervals, and three times he crossed himself.
The old servants had never expected that their master would settle down among them at Vasilievskoe, when he had such a fine estate, with a well-appointed manor-house close by. They did not suspect what was really the truth, that Lavriki was repugnant to its owner, that it aroused in his mind too painful recollections. After they had whispered to each other enough, Anton took a stick, and struck the watchman's board, which had long hung silently by the barn. Then he lay down in the open yard, without troubling himself about any covering for his white head. The May night was calm and soothing, and the old man slept soundly.
XX.
The next day Lavretsky rose at a tolerably early hour, chatted with the _starosta_,[A] visited the rick-yard, and had the chain taken off the yard dog, which just barked a little, but did not even come out of its kennel. Then, returning home, he fell into a sort of quiet reverie, from which he did not emerge all day. ”Here I am, then, at the very bottom of the river!”[B] he said to himself more than once.
He sat near the window without stirring, and seemed to listen to the flow of the quiet life which surrounded him, to the rare sounds which came from the village solitude. Behind the nettles some one was singing with a thin, feeble voice; a gnat seemed to be piping a second to it The voice stopped, but the gnat still went on piping. Through the monotonous and obtrusive buzzing of the flies might be heard the humming of a large humble bee, which kept incessantly striking its head against the ceiling. A c.o.c.k crowed in the street, hoa.r.s.ely protracting its final note, a cart rattled past, a gate creaked in the village. ”What?” suddenly screeched a woman's voice. ”Ah, young lady!”
said Anton to a little girl of two years old whom he was carrying in his arms. ”Bring the _kva.s.s_ here,” continued the same woman's voice.
Then a death-like silence suddenly ensued.
[Footnote A: The head of the village.]
[Footnote B: A popular phrase, to express a life quiet as the depths of a river are.]
Nothing stirred, not a sound was audible. The wind did not move the leaves. The swallows skimmed along he ground one after another without a cry, and their silent flight made a sad impression upon the heart of the looker-on. ”Here I am, then, at the bottom of the river,” again thought Lavretsky. ”And here life is always sluggish and still; whoever enters its circle must resign himself to his fate. Here there is no use in agitating oneself, no reason why one should give oneself trouble. He only will succeed here who traces his onward path as patiently as the plougher traces the furrow with his plough. And what strength there is in all around; what robust health dwells in the midst of this inactive stillness! There under the window climbs the large-leaved burdock from the thick gra.s.s. Above it the lovage extends its sappy stalk, while higher still the Virgin's tears hang out their rosy tendrils. Farther away in the fields s.h.i.+nes the rye, and the oats are already in ear, and every leaf or its tree, every blade of gra.s.s on its stalk, stretches itself out to its full extent. On a woman's love my best years have been wasted!” (Lavretsky proceeded to think.) ”Well, then, let the dulness here sober me and calm me down; let it educate me into being able to work like others without hurrying.” And he again betook himself to listening to the silence, without expecting anything, and yet, at the same time, as if incessantly expecting something. The stillness embraced him on all sides; the sun went down quietly in a calm, blue sky, on which the clouds floated tranquilly, seeming as if they knew why and whither they were floating. In the other parts of the world, at that very moment, life was seething, noisily bestirring itself. Here the same life flowed silently along, like water over meadow gra.s.s. It was late in the evening before Lavretsky could tear himself away from the contemplation of this life so quietly welling forth--so tranquilly flowing past. Sorrow for the past melted away in his mind as the snow melts in spring; but, strange to say, never had the love of home exercised so strong or so profound an influence upon him.
XXI.
In the course of a fortnight Lavretsky succeeded in setting Glafira Petrovna's little house in order, and in tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the court-yard and the garden. Its stable became stocked with horses; comfortable furniture was brought to it from Lavriki; and the town supplied it with wine, and with books and newspapers. In short, Lavretsky provided himself with every thing he wanted, and began to lead a life which was neither exactly that of an ordinary landed proprietor, nor exactly that of a regular hermit. His days pa.s.sed by in uniform regularity, but he never found them dull, although he had no visitors. He occupied himself a.s.siduously and attentively with the management of his estate; he rode about the neighborhood, and he read. But he read little. He preferred listening to old Anton's stories.