A common story Page 2

  "Mustn't stir for you—have to sit like the dead!" Agrafena hissed like a snake, wiping a cup with both hands as though she would have liked to have broken it to pieces.

  " Good-bye, good-bye," said Yevsay, with a colossal sigh, "it's the last day, Agrafena Ivanovna!"

  "And thank God for it! The devil's welcome to you for all I care, there will be more room. There—get along, one can't stir a step; you straddle your long legs all over the place!"

  He touched her on the shoulder; how she answered him ! He sighed again, but did not move from his place, and it would have been quite needless if he had; Agrafena did not really wish him to go. Yevsay knew this, and was not uneasy.

  " Who will take my place, I wonder ? " he asked always with a sigh.

  " The devil!" she answered abruptly.

  " So long as it's not Proshka. But who will play cards with you ? "

  " Well, if it were Proshka, what does it matter to you ? " she asked angrily.

  Yevsay got up.

  " Don't play with Proshka, for mercy's sake, don't," he said anxiously, and almost menacingly.

  " But who can prevent me ? You, pray, you scarecrow ? "

  "My darling, Agrafena Ivanovna!" he began imploringly, seizing her round the waist, I should have said, if there had been any sign of a waist about her.

  She responded to his embrace by a sharp elbow in his chest.

  " My darling, Agrafena Ivanovna !" he repeated, " will Proshka love you as I do ? Look at him; what an impudent fellow he is; not a woman in the house he does not make up to. But me—ah! you are the only woman in the world for me. If it were not the master's will—oh ! "

  He choked at this point, and waved his hand in the air.

  Agrafena could hold out no longer; even her sorrow at last found vent in tears.

  " But will you go away from me, you villain ? " she said, weeping. " What are you chattering about, stupid ? Me keep company with Proshka! Can't you see for yourself that you can never get a word of sense out of him ? He can do nothing but try to put his stupid arms round one."

  " Did he do that ? Oh, the brute ! And you never told me ! I'd have shown him."

  " Let him try it on! Am I the only petticoat in the house ? Me keep company with Proshka! What an idea! Even to sit by him makes me sick, the pig! And you have always to be on the look out with him, or he's trying to gobble up something on the sly; but you don't notice it, of course! "

  " If such a thing should happen, Agrafena Ivanovna— the devil's too strong for us, you know—better let Grishka have my place here; at least he's a civil fellow and hard working; he didn't sneer "

  " There's an idea now!" Agrafena fell upon him. " Why do you foist some one on me, as if I were like—like that! Go away, I say. It's not the likes of me to go and throw myself into any one else's arms. Only with you, you wretch, the devil truly led me into temptation, and I repent it. The very idea!"

  " God bless you for your goodness ! it's a weight off my heart!" Yevsay cried.

  "You're glad!" she shrieked savagely again; "it is a good thing you're glad at something—be as glad as you like."

  And her lips grew white with anger. Both were silent.

  " Agrafena Ivanovna," said Yevsay timidly, after a short pause.

  " Well, what now ? "

  " Why, I was quite forgetting; not a drop nor a morsel of anything have I tasted this morning."

  " Oh, that's what you're after."

  " I couldn't eat for sorrow, my dear."

  She took from the bottom shelf of the cupboard, from behind a loaf of sugar, a glass of vodka and two huge slices of bread and ham. All this had long before been made ready for him by her own careful hand.

  She threw them to him, as one would hardly throw a bone to a dog.

  One piece fell on the floor.

  " Here, then, ready for you ! yes! for you, may it choke you. But hush, don't munch for all the house to hear!"

  She turned away from him with an expression of simulated aversion, but he slowly began to eat, looking doubtfully at Agrafena and covering his mouth with one hand.

  Meanwhile the coachman appeared at the gates with the three horses, and took them under the shelter of the stable. Removing his cap, he took out of it a dirty towel and rubbed the sweat off his face. Anna Pavlovna saw him from the window, and she turned pale. Her knees trembled under her, and her arms hung limp, although she had been expecting it. Recovering herself with an effort, she called for Agrafena.

  " Go on tiptoe, quietly, and see whether Sashenka is asleep," she said. " He will sleep too long, dear heart,

  pei haps, and it is the last day; so I shall see nothing of him. But no! you can't do it. You'll be sure to thump into the room like a cow. I had better go myself/'

  And she went.

  " Go on, then, you're not a cow, I suppose" grumbled Agrafena to herself. " A cow, indeed ! you'd be glad of a few more such cows ! "

  Alexandr Fedoritch himself met Anna Pavlovna on her way, a fair young man in all the bloom of youth, health and strength. He said good-morning cheerfully to his mother, but suddenly catching sight of the trunk and packages he seemed rather disturbed, walked away to the window in silence, and began to draw with his finger on the window-pane. After a minute he spoke again to his mother and looked unconcernedly, even with pleasure, at the preparations for the journey.

  " What made you sleep so late, dearie ?" said Anna Pavlovna, "isn't your face a little swollen? Let me moisten your eyes and cheeks with some rose-water.

  " No, I don't want any, mamma." r " What will you like for breakfast ? Would tea be best or ' coffee ? I have ordered some beef cutlets and sour cream fritters—what will you have ? "

  " It's all the same to me, mamma."

  Anna Pavlovna went on packing the linen, then stopped and gazed at her son with a look of anguish.

  " Sasha! " she said, after a pause.

  "What do you want, mamma?"

  She hesitated to speak, as if she were afraid of something.

  " Where are you going, my dear one, and why ? " she asked at last in a low voice.

  "How, where, mamma? To Petersburg—why?—why to w

  " Listen, Sasha," she said with great emotion, placing her hand on his shoulder, evidently with the intention of making a last appeal; " it is not too late ; think again, and stop."

  "Stop! but how is it possible? Look, my clothes are packed," he said, not knowing what to say.

  "Yourclothes packed, but there!—there!—see, now they are unpacked."

  In three armfuls she had emptied all out of the trunk.

  " How can it be so, mamma ? I am all ready—and to change so suddenly—what will they say ? "

  He looked distressed.

  " It is not so much for my own sake as for yours, that I persuade you not to go. Why are you going ? To try and find happiness. But have you not been happy here, I wonder? Does not your mother think of nothing_.elsfi.3lL, day long but how"to gratif^every_wish of yours ? Of course, at your age now, your mother's devotion alone is not enough for your happiness : and I don't expect it. Well, * look round you; every one is eager to please you. And Maria "Karpovna's daughter/ Sonushta?* There—you blusKecT Ah, my darling, how shejoves jou—God bless her! They say she has not slept foFthree nights 1"

  " There! Mamma! how you talk ! She is so "

  " Yes, yes ! as though I don't see. Ah, and, by-the-by, she has taken your handkerchiefs to hem. * I won't let anyone else do them,' she said, 'I will mark them myself.' You see. What more would you have ? Stay!"

  He listened in silence, hanging his head and playing with the tassel of his dressing-gown.

  " What will you find in Petersburg ?" she continued. " Do you think you will find life as easy there as here? Oh, my dear, God knows what you may have to bear and put up with; you will suffer cold and hunger and want There are plenty of bad people everywhere, but you won't meet with good ones so easily. As for social consideration, whether you are in town or country, you will be just as much a pers
on of consideration. Suppose you don't see Petersburg society —still you may think yourself the best in the land living here; and so it is in everything, my dear one. You are a well-educated, fine, good-looking fellow. I am an old woman, and the only happiness left me in this world is the sight of you. You might marry, God might bless you with children, and I could nurse them and you could live without troubles or anxiety, a peaceful tranquil life, envying no man—but there, perhaps things may not go well—perhaps you will remember my words. Sashenka! stay!"

  He coughed and sighed, but did not utter a word.

  " A nd look out here." s he continued, opening the door on to the balcony^J^are not you sorry yourself to be leaving sucrTa home?"

  From the balcony came a fresh scent. Round the house , right into the distance stretched the garden, full of old lime , trees, thick wild roses, service-berries, and bushes of lilac. And among the trees were beds of bright-coloured flowers, , and here and there, little paths ran zigzagging in and out, v while in the distance was a softly splashing lake, on one side golden with the rays of the morning sun and smo'oth as glass, on the other as dark-blue as the sky mirrored • in it, and stirred by faint ripples./ And then an amphitheatre formed by the fields of waving corn and bordered by a dark forest. L *~ Anna Pavlovna, screening her eyes from the sun with one hand, with the other pointed out every object in turn to her son.

  " Look ! " she said, " how abundantly God has blessed our meadows! There, from that field of rye alone we shall harvest four thousand bushels ; and there is the wheat and the buckwheat: only the buckwheat is not as good this year as last; it looks as though it will be poor. And the forest too! how the forest has grown ! Think how great is the wisdom of God 1 The fuel from our share we shall sell for a thousand at least. And the game, too ! And you know all this is yours, my dear; I am only your steward. Look at the lake, how splendid ! It is really heavenly ! The fish are in shoals there we only need to buy sturgeon ; the carp and the perch and the gremilles are simply swarming, we have enough for ourselves and our people as well. Over there are your cows and horses grazing. Here you alone are master of all, but in Petersburg I daresay everybody will think himself as good as you are. And you want to run away from all this plenty, you don't even know what you are running to—to your ruin perhaps. God help you! Do stay !" He was silent.

  "But you are not listening," she said. "What are you looking at so steadily ? "

  He pointed with his hand silently and thoughtfully into the distance. Anna Pavlovna looked and her face fell.

  There between the fields ran a path twisting like a snake and disappearing into the forest, the path to the promised land—to Petersburg.

  Anna Pavlovna was silent for some minutes, trying to recover herself.

  " That's how it is, then ! " she said at last, sadly. " Well, my dear, God bless you ! Go, then, if you are so bent on it. I will not oppose it. You shall not say anyway that your mother monopolised your young life. ,,

  Poor mother! This is all the recompense for your love ! Was not this what you expected ?

  Ah, but mothers expect no recompense. A mother's love is without reason, without power of choice. If you are great, renowned, proud, handsome, if your name is on men's lips, and your exploits make a noise in the world, then your old mother's head is trembling with happiness, she weeps and laughs and prays long and fervently. And the son, for the most part, does not even think of sharing his triumphs with his mother. If you are poor in mind and spirit, if nature has stamped you with the stigma of deformity, and the pangs of disease torture you body and soul, or if men spurn you from them and there is no place for you among them—the more place for you in your mother's heart. She clasps her misshapen, deficient child all the closer to her heart, and her prayers are still longer and more fervent.

  How can we blame Alexandr for egoism, because he was determined to leave Tiome? He was twent y^ From, his nursery life had been all smiles"Tor~1iim—hii mother iddltgeTTTiim and spoiled him^ as mothers do spoil an only son; his nurses all sang to him from his cradle that he would walk in gold and never know sorrow; his teachers declared that he would do something, and, in addition to the adoration of his own household, the daughter of their neighbour smiled on him. And the old cat, Vaska, seemed to be more amiable to him than to any one else in the house.

  Sorrow, tears, trouble—all that he knew of only by hearsay, as we know of some disease, which has not appeared openly, but which lurks hidden away somewhere in men. So the future presented itself to him in rainbow colours. Something beckoned him into the distance, but what precisely, that he could not tell. Seductive phantoms glimmered before him, but he could never catch a close view of them; he could hear mingled sounds—now the

  voice of glory, nojL the voice of love—and all moved him to a sweet unrest. J

  The world of his home soon seemed narrow to him. Nature, and his mother's fondness, the devotion of his nurses and of all the household, his soft bed, and dainty food and purring cats—all these comforts, so dearly prized in the decline of life, he would have gladly exchanged for

  i the unknown, full of alluring and mysterious fascination.

  4 Even his love for Sophia—a first, soft, rosy love—did not J restrain him. What was this love to him? He dreamed

  ! of a colossal passion which should achieve great exploits and

  . triumph over every obstacle. He loved Sophia meanwhile with a small love while waiting jbr thegreater. He dreamed, too, of great deeds in his country'sservice. He studied many subjects and diligently. On his certificate it was recorded that he had mastered some dozen sciences and half-dozen languages, ancient and modern. Above all he dreamed of making a name as a writer. His verses were the admiration of his school-fellows. Before him stretched a number of paths; and they seemed each better than the other. He did not know into which to throw himself. Only the straight path was hidden from his eyes; had he . seen it, even now perhaps he would not have gone away.

  How could he stay? His mother wished it—that was quite another matter and very natural. In her heart all feelings had died away except one—love for her son, and it clutched feverishly at this last object. Except for him what was left for her ? Nothing but death. It has long been an accepted fact that a woman's heart cannot live without love.

  Alexandr had been spoiled, but was not demoralised by his home life. He was so happily formed by Nature that his mother's love and the adoration of all around him only influenced him in a good direction, prematurely awakening, for example, his sympathetic feelings, and inspiring in him an excessive confidence in every one. This very fact perhaps tended to kindle ambition in him, but ambition in itself is only a mould; all will depend on what is the substance you pour into it.

  f By far the greatest danger for him was the fact that his

  Tnother, for all her devotion to him, could not give him a

  true view of life, and did not prepare him for the struggle

  A COMMON STORY .11

  which awaited him and awaits every man in his turn. Bui this would have needed a master hand, a clear intellect, and a fund of great experience not bounded by the narrow provincial horizon. It would have needed some one who was even able to love him rather less, not to think of him every minute, not to remove out of his way every care and every obstacle, not to weep and to suffer in his place even in his childhood, so as to enable him to feel the approach of difficulties for himself, to meet them with his own forces, and to think for his own future—in a word, to understand that he is a man. How was Anna Pavlovna to know all this, still more to put it into practice J7 The reader has seen what she was. Would he not like to see more of her ?

  She had already forgotten her son's selfishness. Alexandr Fedoritch found her engaged in packing a second time his clothes and linen. In the bustle and the preparations for the journey she had apparently completely forgotten her sorrow.

  " Here, Sashenka, notice well where I put things," she said. " Below everything, at the bottom of the trunk, the sheets, a d
ozen. Look, is it right in the list? "

  "Yes, mamma."

  " All with your mark, you see. A. F. A., all our darling Sonushka. Without her our stupid creatures would not have been ready for a long time. What next ? Ah, the pillow-cases. One, two, three, four—yes, all the dozen here. Here are your shirts, three dozen—what linen ! Look at it —it's Dutch make—I drove myself to the shop, to Vassili Vassilitch's; he brought out the three best pieces he had. Mind you count them over by the list, dear boy, every time you get them home from the laundress; they are all bran new. You won't see many such shirts in Petersburg, very likely they will change them; there are such dishonest creatures to be sure, who have no fear of God. Socks— twenty-two pairs. D o y ou know wh 9t T haYS t hni1 g hr of ?

  TQDUt your porkpr-hook with ynnr trinity inj^sork^ Vnu

  w flTnb 't need any_iilLy£u get to Petersburg—so Ond ffra.nt T if anything should hap pen, they ™*y 1-11™™^^ v^n«- *v>«>y w ill not find It. Anil" the letter tQ.^our uncle I. .have.put the re, too] now"deHghtecTKe"will be toTe sure ! Here's seventeen years gone by and we've never sent a word to one another—that's a long time. Here are your neckties, and

  here are the handkerchiefs; one half-dozen is still with Sonushka. Don't tear your handkerchiefs, my darling; they are all good cambric. I bought them at Meheev's at two and a quarter roubles a yard. Now, that's all the linen. Now your clothes. But where is Yevsay ? Why isn't he looking on ? Yevsay !"

  Yevsay came lazily into the room.

  " What are your orders ? " he asked still more lazily.

  " What are my orders ? " repeated Anna Pavlovna angrily. " Why aren't you looking where I pack the things ? But when you want anything on the journey, you will go and turn everything topsy-turvy. He can't tear himself from his sweetheart, such a treasure ! The day is long enough, you will have plenty of time. Is this how you mean to look after your master in Petersburg ? You had better be careful. Look here : these are the dress clothes ; you see where I lay them? And you, Sashenka, be careful of them; don't wear them every day; the cloth cost sixteen roubles a yard. When you go to see the best people wear it and don't sit down all anyhow, like your auntie, who never could sit down on an empty chair or sofa, but was bound to go and plump down where some one had put a hat or some such thing; the other day she sat down on a saucer of jam—such a mess she made ! When you go out rather more quietly wear this coat here. Now your waistcoats—one, two, three, four. Two pairs of trousers. Well, there are clothes to last you the next three years. Ah ! I am tired and no mistake, the whole morning I have been on my legs. You can go, Yevsay. Let us talk a little of something else. Soon our guests will be here, and then there will be no time." She sat down on the sofa and made her son sit down beside her.