And so the ikhmenevs moved to St Petersburg. I shall not describe my meeting with Natasha after such a long absence. She had never been out of my mind throughout those four years. Of course, I didn’t fully understand my feelings for her when I thought of her, but when we met again, I soon realized that she was destined to be mine. At first, for a few days after their arrival, it seemed to me that she hadn’t grown up much over the years and remained the same little girl I had known before we parted. But after that, with every passing day I was able to identify something new, something hitherto utterly unfamiliar in her, as though it had been concealed from me on purpose, as though the girl had been deliberately hiding it from me – and how delightful this process of discovery proved to be! Ikhmenev was at first irritable and bitter after their move to St Petersburg. His affairs were going badly; he fumed and fretted over documents and had no time for us. Anna Andreyevna wandered about as though lost, and at first could not make head or tail of anything. St Petersburg frightened her. She sighed and grieved; she wept for former times, for her hearth and home at Ikhmenevka, for the fact that Natasha was of age and still not spoken for, and for want of a more suitable confidant, she let me into all kinds of odd secrets.
It was at this time, shortly before their arrival, that I had finished my first novel, the one that marked the beginning of my literary career, and being a complete tiro, I at first had no idea what to do with it. I didn’t mention any of this to the Ikhmenevs; as a matter of fact it nearly led to a quarrel between us, for they accused me of leading an idle life because I hadn’t got a post and wasn’t looking for one. Ikhmenev, no doubt out of fatherly concern, reproached me bitterly, angrily even. But I was simply too embarrassed to tell them what I was doing. Well, how could I possibly say to them that I didn’t want to go out to work and would rather write novels? So to gain time I pulled the wool over their eyes. I said I was being turned down for posts, but that I was making every effort to find one. Ikhmenev was too busy to check up on me. I remember one occasion when Natasha, having had her fill of our discussions, took me aside with a confidential air and tearfully implored me to think about my future; she questioned me and enquired what precisely I was doing, and when I wasn’t forthcoming, she extracted a solemn oath from me that I wouldn’t allow myself to end up as an idler and a ne’er-do-well. Though I didn’t disclose even to her what I was doing, I remember that for just one word of approval from her about my work – after all, it was my first novel – I’d gladly have forgone all the flattering tributes that were subsequently paid me by the critics and literati. At long last my novel was published. Even before it appeared in print, it had caused quite a stir in the literary world. B.* was over the moon after reading my manuscript. Frankly, if there ever was a time when I was really happy, it wasn’t during those first intoxicating moments of my success, but long before that, when I hadn’t yet read or shown my manuscript to anyone – during those long nights of ecstatic hopes and dreams and passionate love of my work, when I had grown attached to my vision, to the characters I had created myself, as though they were my own offspring, as though they really existed – and I loved, rejoiced and grieved over them, at times even shedding quite genuine tears over my guileless hero. I can’t begin to describe how happy the old folk were at my success, even though at first they were utterly taken aback. The whole thing was a complete surprise to them. Anna Andreyevna, for instance, simply couldn’t accept that the widely celebrated new author was the same Vanya who… and so on and so forth, and just kept shaking her head. Ikhmenev stood his ground for a long time, and when the first rumours reached him, became agitated and carried on about my lost opportunity of a career in government service and the dissolute life that writers in general led. But constant references and allusions in journals, and finally a few favourable words from people in whom he had complete trust, forced him to change his attitude. And when he saw that I was suddenly earning something at last, and realized the kind of money that could be made from writing, his final doubts were dispelled. By nature quick to change from mistrust to wholehearted enthusiasm, he was now happy as a child at my good fortune, and suddenly began to entertain the wildest dreams and the most radiant hopes about my prospects. Every day he would devise new opportunities and plans for me, and the things he came up with! He began to show unexpected and quite unprecedented signs of respect for me. All the same, I remember there were occasions when doubts would suddenly assail him anew, often in the very midst of the most ecstatic flights of fancy, and he would feel perplexed again.
“A scribbler, a poet! Doesn’t make sense… Whoever heard of poets establishing themselves, getting on in life? They’re such a bunch of scatterbrains, such a feckless lot!”
I noticed that these doubts and awkward considerations came to him mostly towards the end of the day (how vividly I recall every detail of those golden days!). At dusk Ikhmenev would always become strangely nervous, susceptible and wary. Natasha and I were aware of this, and we teased him about it. I remember how I would keep up his spirits with anecdotes about Sumarokov’s generalship, about the court poet Derzhavin having a casket full of gold coins sent to him, about the Empress herself visiting the great scientist and writer Lomonosov.* I plied him with stories about Pushkin and Gogol.
“I know, my boy, I know all that,” Ikhmenev would retort, perhaps hearing these stories for the first time in his life. “Hm! Listen Vanya, one thing I’m glad of is that your what-ye-m’call-it isn’t poetry. Poetry, my boy, is rubbish – don’t argue! I know what I’m talking about. I wish you all the very best, but poetry is sheer nonsense, an utter waste of time, I tell you! Poetry is for schoolboys, and in the end it lands you in the loony bin… So Pushkin was great, no disputing that! But it’s just ditties, nothing more – very ephemeral stuff, all that… Truth to tell, I haven’t had a chance to read him much… But prose, now, that’s another matter altogether! Your prose writer can tell you a thing or two – well, about love for your motherland say, and virtue in general… yes! Pity I can’t put it any better, my boy, but you know what I mean. I’m saying it for your own good… All right, let’s have it then!” he concluded with a show of interest after I had brought the book along at last and we were all seated at the round table after tea. “Let’s hear what it is you’ve concocted. People are saying no end of things about you! Let’s see, let’s see!”
I opened my novel and prepared to read. It had been published that very evening, and when I finally obtained a copy, I had rushed straight to the Ikhmenevs to read it to them.
I had been upset at not being able to do this earlier from the manuscript, but it had been at the printers’. Natasha had actually cried with disappointment; she remonstrated with me and reproached me that strangers would read my novel before she did… But there we were at last sitting round the table. Ikhmenev affected a very serious and critical expression. He wanted to be a strict, impartial judge – “to decide for himself”. Dear old Anna Andreyevna also assumed a most solemn air – I’m not sure that she didn’t put on a new bonnet for the occasion. She had already been aware for some time that I worshipped her precious Natasha, that I choked and things went blank in front of my eyes whenever I spoke to her, and that Natasha herself was beginning to regard me a little more kindly than previously. Yes, at long last this was it, this was the moment of glory, the realization of golden hopes, complete happiness, everything had come at once, at a stroke! Also the good lady – bless her! – couldn’t help noticing that her husband had begun to be rather fulsome in his praise of me and was casting meaningful glances at me and his daughter… and suddenly she took fright. After all, I was no princeling, no duke, not even a collegiate councillor, versed in law, young, handsome and sporting an order or two! Anna Andreyevna never dreamt by halves.
“They praise the young man,” she mused, “but why? No one knows. An author, a poet… But what is an author exactly?”