“But are they rich?”
“I think so; the estate is sizable. They live well enough. Besides the usual Saturdays, they give several balls during the winter; he himself doesn’t enter into things; his wife handles everything; c’est une femme de tête.”
“What’s the daughter like?”
“Nothing special! Good-looking enough and not stupid, they say, but who is stupid nowadays? Anyway, I’ve never discussed anything with her except the weather and dances, but she must have a touch of her father’s German blood. I can’t stand all these Germans and half-Germans.”
“A good match?”
“No! There’s a younger brother.”
“What do people do there on Saturdays?”
“Well, they mostly talk. Not too many people there. You’ll see.”
“Oh, I’m so fed up with conversations! You can’t escape from them.”
The carriage stopped at the entrance of a large house on Tverskoi Boulevard.
“Here we are,” said one of the two young men who were sitting in it, and both got out and ran up the wrought-iron staircase. In the vestibule, they made sure with a glance that their German-tailored clothing was fitted just right; they entered, bowed to their hostess, and looked around.
In the elegant drawing room were about thirty people. Some were talking among themselves in low tones, some were listening, others passing through; but it seemed as if all of them were weighed down by a sense of duty, evidently quite onerous, and it seemed that they all found amusing themselves a bit boring. There were no loud voices or arguments, nor any cigars either. This was a drawing room completely comme il faut; even the ladies did not smoke.
Not far from the door sat the hostess on one of those nondescript pieces of furniture that fills our rooms these days. In another corner stood a tea table. Nearby, some exceedingly nice young girls were whispering among themselves. A bit farther away, next to a large bronze clock on which it had just struck half past ten, a very noteworthy and graceful woman, submerged (so to speak) in a huge velvet armchair, was conversing with three young men sitting near her. They were talking about someone.
“He died this morning,” one of them said.
“Nothing to mourn about,” answered his lovely neighbor, looking at him in the most charming way.
“Well,” said one youth, smiling, “he was not so young anymore but very handsome; he was wicked but clever.”
“He was simply unbearable,” said the lady, “and I never liked his looks; there was something angry about them.”
“Who has died?” softly asked a shapely, pale, dark-haired girl of eighteen, going up to the tea table and bowing to one of the ladies near it. “Who has died, Olga?”
“I don’t know,” Olga replied.
The dark-haired girl sat down at the table and started to pour tea.
The graceful lady in the velvet armchair continued her clever conversation with the three young men. Judging by that conversation, it was limp and banal enough, but to judge by the expressions, the smiles and glances of the people talking, it was extremely lively and sophisticated.
“Who is that, Cécile?” Olga whispered to the young girl pouring tea.
Cecily looked up.
“The man who came in with Ilichev? I forget his name. It’s the first time he’s ever come to our house. It seems he’s a poet.”
Olga gave a haughty pout and turned her head toward the other side of the room. Two more men appeared. One of them led the other to the hostess, Vera Vladimirovna von Lindenborn, and introduced him. She greeted them most pleasantly.
“I am truly glad to be able to meet you at last. I hope that some time you will give us the pleasure of hearing you read your work.”
Vera Vladimirovna was not only a highly educated woman who entertained poets and artists, but also a woman of tact. She did not wish to put her visitor’s talent to use the very first time.
In the opposite corner of the drawing room, a distinguished man with graying hair barely perceptible in the candlelight, with a certain artificial carelessness in his dress and pretensions to profundity and perspicacity, went up to a young dandy leaning toward the window, whose eccentric hairstyle and spotless gloves were silhouetted very effectively against the heavy, cherry-colored curtain that fell to the parquet floors and set off his waistcoat, of the latest Parisian cut. He did not even contemplate having any other affectation.
“Look at the group near the tea table,” the distinguished man said to him. “Shall I tell you what is going on there? Sophia Strenetskaia is wondering where she can find a magnanimous bridegroom who will rescue the family from inevitable poverty and clear their debts to the Board of Guardians. Olga Valitskaia is out of sorts because Prince Victor has not come. Princess Alina is laughing so hard in vain; the victorious Uhlan won’t leave her cousin alone today, and the latter is using him to infuriate a certain other gentleman in the room. Amusing, isn’t it?”
“You’re a terrible man!” the young dandy respectfully answered, twirling his whiskers.
The terrible man smiled condescendingly.
In the mature ladies’ circle, the conversation was more innocent.
“Will you be moving to the Park soon?” Vera Vladimirovna was asked by a tall, important-looking lady sitting next to her, who until then had observed a strict silence.1
“In about two weeks, at the beginning of June,” she answered. “It seems the bad weather has passed. Will you be there too?”
“Yes, I love it. At least there you can spend the summer in good society, not like in the country, where you have to get along with God knows what kind of neighbors.”
“I agree completely,” said another well-dressed lady of forty, who wore roses in her hair and short sleeves as a kind of antidote against old age. “I am terribly glad to have escaped the district of Ryazan. My husband was absolutely set on taking me there for the summer, but thanks to my brother’s wedding, I’m lucky enough to end up in Petersburg instead of Ryazan. Even here in Moscow, I’m feeling a little stifled.”
“You’re an enemy of Moscow,” remarked Vera Vladimirovna.
“Why? I only share the opinion of Napoleon and think that, except for two or three salons such as this one, Moscow is a large village. And I admit I’m not devoted to villages.”
Meanwhile, the pouring of tea ceased, and Cecily and the young girls went out on the wide balcony. It was a magnificent May night, full of stars. The lindens growing green in front of the balcony rustled so softly, so harmoniously sadly, so mysteriously that it seemed as if they were growing not on the Tverskoi Boulevard, but in the free expanse of virgin nature. Cecily leaned on the iron railing and became lost in thought about heaven knows what.
Her friends were laughing among themselves. One, a lively blonde girl, with her back to the railing, looked through a lorgnette at the drawing room and made her remarks in a semiwhisper. She was obliged to make fun of people because she had the reputation of being very witty.
“I think,” she said, “that that blue dress will soon get a medal, it’s done such long service.”
The girls almost burst out laughing.
One of them asked, “Doesn’t my brother’s uniform become him?”
“Not at all,” said the blonde. “A man in a uniform should be swarthy and dark-haired, like Chatsky,2 for example. Don’t you agree, Cecily, that Chatsky is very handsome?”
“Not in my opinion,” Cecily answered. “His features are too sharp. I like a man to have a modest appearance, and even an almost feminine shyness.”
“Where is Dmitry Ivachinsky?” the blonde suddenly asked her.
“He’s visiting his father in the country,” said Cecily in a voice that showed she was blushing.
“When is he coming back?” the blonde continued with a meaningful smile.
“How should I know?” Cecily turned and went into the drawing room again.
Some mothers were already looking for their daughters, to take them home. Vera Vladimirovna came up to Cecily.
“Time to sleep, Cécile,” she said. “You know that doctor’s orders are for you to go to bed early, and it’s already almost midnight. Go on, my dear, people will understand.” She made the sign of the cross over her, and Cecily went out, walked past a long series of rooms lighted and dark, turned into a barely lit corridor, and went into her own room.
There, everything was peaceful and silent. In the adjoining room, her old Englishwoman had already been in a deep sleep for two hours.
As is well known, a young lady of the highest circles cannot exist without an Englishwoman. In our society, we do not speak English, our ladies generally read English novels in French translations, and Shakespeare and Byron are completely off-limits, but if your six-year-old daughter speaks anything but English, she is badly educated. It often follows that the mother, not as well educated as her daughter, has trouble talking to her, but this inconvenience is of slight importance. A child needs an English nurse more than a mother.
Cecily called to the maid and began to undress slowly and pensively. She was thinking that most likely the summer would be pleasant, that the summerhouse would be fun, that soon Dmitry Ivachinsky would return and that they would take walks together and dance and go horseback riding. But at the same time, in the midst of these happy thoughts, a strange and inexplicable one kept breaking through—a heavy and persistent feeling, as if she were being made to guess a riddle, find a word, remember a name and was not able to … Finally, she lay down, the maid went out carrying the candle, and everything grew quiet. In the cozy, soundless room, the small lamp flickered in front of the icon of the Savior.
The clock on the small column between the windows struck half past twelve with one resounding stroke in the silence. Cecily’s gaze wandered lazily around the bedroom; the peaceful icon in its brilliant setting came and went before her eyes; then drowsiness closed them … but the question in her soul just would not fall asleep … how had it been? … who? … and where? …
The heavenly vault shone with stars …
The mist was dispelled … a fragrance wafted in …
Is this a chamber, airy and wondrous?
Is this a rich and moonlit garden?
How clear is the sleepless lament of the fountain!
How familiar to her the bounds of the unknown!
Bowing to her with a fragrant caress,
All around the timid flowers shine.
The moon is silent in the depths of air,
Like a clear pearl in the sea’s boundlessness;
A hollow answer sounds in the leaves far off,
Like a whispering lyre, and is borne into the distance.
And the midnight radiance of all the worlds,
And all the sighs, gliding through silence,
And all the fragrant breaths of spring
Melt into a single harmony.
What secret knowledge
Troubles her young soul?
Whom does she wait for,
Whose arrival does she sense?
Over whom have sycamores bowed down?
What will shine bright in that darkness?—
Commanding gaze,
Victorious brow.
She remembers what never was,
Recognizes what she has never met.
He is reflected in the mirror of her thoughts
Like the light of a star in a mirror of water.
He stands, powerful and stern,
Stands unmoving and silent;
He looks into her eyes with his eyes,
Looks into her soul with his soul.
What reproach of guilt, of error,
Brings a frown to that brow?
On that unsmiling countenance
What a melancholy love!
What lay so heavy on the young girl’s heart
Like an inescapable sentence? …
She walks—walks against her will
Across distances ever more silent
To where, powerful and despondent
That glance shines, like a summons.
And she stood before the unknown force,
Bowing a submissive head.
And from his lips there came a word
Sadder than the song of far-off streams;
It seemed as if a gentle kiss
Had touched her youthful brow.
