On the Eve: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

On one of the hottest days of the summer of 1853, in the shade of a
tall lime-tree on the bank of the river Moskva, not far from Kuntsovo,
two young men were lying on the grass. One, who looked about
twenty-three, tall and swarthy, with a sharp and rather crooked nose,
a high forehead, and a restrained smile on his wide mouth, was lying
on his back and gazing meditatively into the distance, his small grey
eyes half closed. The other was lying on his chest, his curly, fair
head propped on his two hands; he, too, was looking away into the
distance. He was three years older than his companion, but seemed
much younger. His moustache was only just growing, and his chin was
covered with a light curly down. There was something childishly
pretty, something attractively delicate, in the small features of his
fresh round face, in his soft brown eyes, lovely pouting lips, and
little white hands. Everything about him was suggestive of the happy
light-heartedness of perfect health and youth--the carelessness,
conceit, self-indulgence, and charm of youth. He used his eyes, and
smiled and leaned his head as boys do who know that people look at
them admiringly. He wore a loose white coat, made like a blouse, a
blue kerchief wrapped his slender throat, and a battered straw hat had
been flung on the grass beside him.

His companion seemed elderly in comparison with him; and no one would
have supposed, from his angular figure, that he too was happy and
enjoying himself. He lay in an awkward attitude; his large head--wide
at the crown and narrower at the base--hung awkwardly on his long neck;
awkwardness was expressed in the very pose of his hands, of his
body, tightly clothed in a short black coat, and of his long legs with
their knees raised, like the hind-legs of a grasshopper. For all that,
it was impossible not to recognise that he was a man of good education;
the whole of his clumsy person bore the stamp of good-breeding; and
his face, plain and even a little ridiculous as it was, showed a
kindly nature and a thoughtful habit. His name was Andrei Petrovitch
Bersenyev; his companion, the fair-haired young man, was called Pavel
Yakovlitch Shubin.

'Why don't you lie on your face, like me?' began Shubin. 'It's ever so
much nicer so; especially when you kick up your heels and clap them
together--like this. You have the grass under your nose; when you're
sick of staring at the landscape you can watch a fat beetle crawling
on a blade of grass, or an ant fussing about. It's really much nicer.
But you've taken up a pseudo-classical pose, for all the world like a
ballet-dancer, when she reclines upon a rock of paste-board. You
should remember you have a perfect right to take a rest now. It's no
joking matter to come out third! Take your ease, sir; give up all
exertion, and rest your weary limbs!'

Shubin delivered this speech through his nose in a half-lazy,
half-joking voice (spoilt children speak so to friends of the house
who bring them sweetmeats), and without waiting for an answer he went
on:

'What strikes me most forcibly in the ants and beetles and other
worthy insects is their astounding seriousness. They run to and fro
with such a solemn air, as though their life were something of such
importance! A man the lord of creation, the highest being, stares at
them, if you please, and they pay no attention to him. Why, a gnat
will even settle on the lord of creation's nose, and make use of him
for food. It's most offensive. And, on the other hand, how is their
life inferior to ours? And why shouldn't they take themselves
seriously, if we are to be allowed to take ourselves seriously? There
now, philosopher, solve that problem for me! Why don't you speak? Eh?'

'What?' said Bersenyev, starting.

'What!' repeated Shubin. 'Your friend lays his deepest thoughts
before you, and you don't listen to him.'

'I was admiring the view. Look how hot and bright those fields are in
the sun.' Bersenyev spoke with a slight lisp.

'There's some fine colour laid on there,' observed Shubin. 'Nature's
a good hand at it, that's the fact!'

Bersenyev shook his head.

'You ought to be even more ecstatic over it than I. It's in your
line: you're an artist.'

'No; it's not in my line,' rejoined Shubin, putting his hat on the
back of his head. 'Flesh is my line; my work's with flesh--modelling
flesh, shoulders, legs, and arms, and here there's no form, no finish;
it's all over the place. . . . Catch it if you can.'

'But there is beauty here, too,' remarked Bersenyev.--'By the way,
have you finished your bas-relief?'

'Which one?'

'The boy with the goat.'

'Hang it! Hang it! Hang it!' cried Shubin, drawling--'I looked at
the genuine old things, the antiques, and I smashed my rubbish to
pieces. You point to nature, and say "there's beauty here, too." Of
course, there's beauty in everything, even in your nose there's
beauty; but you can't try after all kinds of beauty. The ancients,
they didn't try after it; beauty came down of itself upon their
creations from somewhere or other--from heaven, I suppose. The whole
world belonged to them; it's not for us to be so large in our reach;
our arms are short. We drop our hook into one little pool, and keep
watch over it. If we get a bite, so much the better, if not----'

Shubin put out his tongue.

'Stop, stop,' said Bensenyev, 'that's a paradox. If you have no
sympathy for beauty, if you do not love beauty wherever you meet it,
it will not come to you even in your art. If a beautiful view, if
beautiful music does not touch your heart; I mean, if you are not
sympathetic----'

'Ah, you are a confirmed sympathetic!' broke in Shubin, laughing at
the new title he had coined, while Bersenyev sank into thought.

'No, my dear fellow,' Shubin went on, 'you're a clever person, a
philosopher, third graduate of the Moscow University; it's dreadful
arguing with you, especially for an ignoramus like me, but I tell you
what; besides my art, the only beauty I love is in women ... in
girls, and even that's recently.'

He turned over on to his back and clasped his hands behind his head.

A few instants passed by in silence. The hush of the noonday heat lay
upon the drowsy, blazing fields.

'Speaking of women,' Shubin began again, 'how is it no one looks
after Stahov? Did you see him in Moscow?'

'No.'

'The old fellow's gone clean off his head. He sits for whole days
together at his Augustina Christianovna's, he's bored to death, but
still he sits there. They gaze at one another so stupidly. ... It's
positively disgusting to see them. Man's a strange animal. A man with
such a home; but no, he must have his Augustina Christianovna! I
don't know anything more repulsive than her face, just like a duck's!
The other day I modelled a caricature of her in the style of Dantan.
It wasn't half bad. I will show it you.'

'And Elena Nikolaevna's bust?' inquired Bersenyev, 'is it getting on?'

'No, my dear boy, it's not getting on. That face is enough to drive
one to despair. The lines are pure, severe, correct; one would think
there would be no difficulty in catching a likeness. It's not as easy
as one would think though. It's like a treasure in a fairy-tale--you
can't get hold of it. Have you ever noticed how she listens? There's
not a single feature different, but the whole expression of the eyes
is constantly changing, and with that the whole face changes. What is
a sculptor--and a poor one too--to do with such a face? She's a
wonderful creature--a strange creature,' he added after a brief pause.

'Yes; she is a wonderful girl,' Bersenyev repeated after him.

'And she the daughter of Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov! And after that
people talk about blood, about stock! The amusing part of it is that
she really is his daughter, like him, as well as like her mother, Anna
Vassilyevna. I respect Anna Vassilyevna from the depths of my heart,
she's been awfully good to me; but she's no better than a hen. Where
did Elena get that soul of hers? Who kindled that fire in her?
There's another problem for you, philosopher!'

But as before, the 'philosopher' made no reply. Bersenyev did not in
general err on the side of talkativeness, and when he did speak, he
expressed himself awkwardly, with hesitation, and unnecessary
gesticulation. And at this time a kind of special stillness had fallen
on his soul, a stillness akin to lassitude and melancholy. He had not
long come from town after prolonged hard work, which had absorbed him
for many hours every day. The inactivity, the softness and purity of
the air, the consciousness of having attained his object, the
whimsical and careless talk of his friend, and the image--so suddenly
called up--of one dear to him, all these impressions different--yet at
the same time in a way akin--were mingled in him into a single vague
emotion, which at once soothed and excited him, and robbed him of his
power. He was a very highly strung young man.

It was cool and peaceful under the lime-tree; the flies and bees
seemed to hum more softly as they flitted within its circle of shade.
The fresh fine grass, of purest emerald green, without a tinge of
gold, did not quiver, the tall flower stalks stood motionless, as
though enchanted. On the lower twigs of the lime-tree the little
bunches of yellow flowers hung still as death. At every breath a sweet
fragrance made its way to the very depths of the lungs, and eagerly
the lungs inhaled it. Beyond the river in the distance, right up to the
horizon, all was bright and glowing. At times a slight breeze passed
over, breaking up the landscape and intensifying the brightness; a
sunlit vapour hung over the fields. No sound came from the birds; they
do not sing in the heat of noonday; but the grasshoppers were chirping
everywhere, and it was pleasant as they sat in the cool and quietness,
to hear that hot, eager sound of life; it disposed to slumber and
inclined the heart to reveries.

'Have you noticed,' began Bersenyev, eking out his words with
gesticulations, 'what a strange feeling nature produces in us?
Everything in nature is so complete, so defined, I mean to say, so
content with itself, and we understand that and admire it, and at the
same time, in me at least, it always excites a kind of restlessness, a
kind of uneasiness, even melancholy. What is the meaning of it? Is it
that in the face of nature we are more vividly conscious of all our
incompleteness, our indefiniteness, or have we little of that content
with which nature is satisfied, but something else--I mean to say,
what we need, nature has not?'

'H'm,' replied Shubin, 'I'll tell you, Andrei Petrovitch, what all
that comes from. You describe the sensations of a solitary man, who
is not living but only looking on in ecstasy. Why look on? Live,
yourself, and you will be all right. However much you knock at
nature's door, she will never answer you in comprehensible words,
because she is dumb. She will utter a musical sound, or a moan, like a
harp string, but don't expect a song from her. A living heart,
now--that will give you your answer--especially a woman's heart. So,
my dear fellow, I advise you to get yourself some one to share your
heart, and all your distressing sensations will vanish at once.
"That's what we need," as you say. This agitation, and melancholy, all
that, you know, is simply a hunger of a kind. Give the stomach some
real food, and everything will be right directly. Take your place in
the landscape, live in the body, my dear boy. And after all, what is
nature? what's the use of it? Only hear the word, love--what an
intense, glowing sound it has! Nature--what a cold, pedantic
expression. And so' (Shubin began humming), 'my greetings to Marya
Petrovna! or rather,' he added, 'not Marya Petrovna, but it's all the
same! _Voo me compreny_.'

Bersenyev got up and stood with his chin leaning on his clasped hands.
'What is there to laugh at?' he said, without looking at his
companion, 'why should you scoff? Yes, you are right: love is a
grand word, a grand feeling. . . . But what sort of love do you mean?'

Shubin too, got up. 'What sort? What you like, so long as it's there.
I will confess to you that I don't believe in the existence of
different kinds of love. If you are in love----'

'With your whole heart,' put in Bersenyev.

'Well, of course, that's an understood thing; the heart's not an
apple; you can't divide it. If you're in love, you're justified. And
I wasn't thinking of scoffing. My heart's as soft at this moment as if
it had been melted. ... I only wanted to explain why nature has the
effect on us you spoke of. It's because she arouses in us a need for
love, and is not capable of satisfying it. Nature is gently driving us
to other living embraces, but we don't understand, and expect
something from nature herself. Ah, Andrei, Andrei, this sun, this sky
is beautiful, everything around us is beautiful, still you are sad;
but if, at this instant, you were holding the hand of a woman you
loved, if that hand and the whole woman were yours, if you were even
seeing with her eyes, feeling not your own isolated emotion, but her
emotion--nature would not make you melancholy or restless then, and
you would not be observing nature's beauty; nature herself would be
full of joy and praise; she would be re-echoing your hymn, because
then you would have given her--dumb nature--speech!'

Shubin leaped on to his feet and walked twice up and down, but
Bersenyev bent his head, and his face was overcast by a faint flush.

'I don't altogether agree with you,' he began: 'nature does not always
urge us ... towards love.' (He could not at once pronounce the word.)
'Nature threatens us, too; she reminds us of dreadful . . . yes,
insoluble mysteries. Is she not destined to swallow us up, is she not
swallowing us up unceasingly? She holds life and death as well; and
death speaks in her as loudly as life.'

'In love, too, there is both life and death,' interposed Shubin.

'And then,' Bersenyev went on: 'when I, for example, stand in the
spring in the forest, in a green glade, when I can fancy the romantic
notes of Oberon's fairy horn' (Bersenyev was a little ashamed when he
had spoken these words)--'is that, too----'

'The thirst for love, the thirst for happiness, nothing more!' broke
in Shubin. 'I, too, know those notes, I know the languor and the
expectation which come upon the soul in the forest's shade, in its
deep recesses, or at evening in the open fields when the sun sets and
the river mist rises behind the bushes. But forest, and river, and
fields, and sky, every cloud and every blade of grass sets me
expecting, hoping for happiness, I feel the approach, I hear the voice
of happiness calling in everything. "God of my worship, bright and
gay!" That was how I tried to begin my sole poem; you must own it's a
splendid first line, but I could never produce a second. Happiness!
happiness! as long as life is not over, as long as we have the use of
all our limbs, as long as we are going up, not down, hill! Damn it
all!' pursued Shubin with sudden vehemence, 'we are young, and neither
fools nor monsters; we will conquer happiness for ourselves!'

He shook his curls, and turned a confident almost challenging glance
upwards to the sky. Bersenyev raised his eyes and looked at him.

'Is there nothing higher than happiness?' he commented softly.

'And what, for instance?' asked Shubin, stopping short.

'Why, for instance, you and I are, as you say, young; we are good
men, let us suppose; each of us desires happiness for himself. . . .
But is that word, happiness, one that could unite us, set us both on
fire, and make us clasp each other's hands? Isn't that word an
egoistic one; I mean, isn't it a source of disunion?'

'Do you know words, then, that unite men?'

'Yes; and they are not few in number; and you know them, too.'

'Eh? What words?'

'Well, even Art--since you are an artist--Country, Science, Freedom,
Justice.'

'And what of love?' asked Shubin.

'Love, too, is a word that unites; but not the love you are eager for
now; the love which is not enjoyment, the love which is
self-sacrifice.'

Shubin frowned.

'That's all very well for Germans; I want to love for myself; I want
to be first.'

'To be first,' repeated Bersenyev. 'But it seems to me that to put
one's-self in the second place is the whole significance of our life.'

'If all men were to act as you advise,' commented Shubin with a
plaintive expression, 'none on earth would eat pine-apples; every
one would be offering them to other people.'

'That's as much as to say, pine-apples are not necessary; but you
need not be alarmed; there will always be plenty of people who like
them enough to take the bread out of other men's mouths to get them.'

Both friends were silent a little.

'I met Insarov again the other day,' began Bersenyev. 'I invited him
to stay with me; I really must introduce him to you--and to the
Stahovs.'

'Who is Insarov? Ah, to be sure, isn't it that Servian or Bulgarian
you were telling me about? The patriot? Now isn't it he who's at the
bottom of all these philosophical ideas?'

'Perhaps.'

'Is he an exceptional individual?'

'Yes.'

'Clever? Talented?'

'Clever--talented--I don't know, I don't think so.'

'Not? Then, what is there remarkable in him?'

'You shall see. But now I think it's time to be going. Anna
Vassilyevna will be waiting for us, very likely. What's the time?'

'Three o'clock. Let us go. How baking it is! This conversation has
set all my blood aflame. There was a moment when you, too, ... I am
not an artist for nothing; I observe everything. Confess, you are
interested in a woman?'

Shubin tried to get a look at Bersenyev's face, but he turned away and
walked out of the lime-tree's shade. Shubin went after him, moving his
little feet with easy grace. Bersenyev walked clumsily, with his
shoulders high and his neck craned forward. Yet, he looked a man of
finer breeding than Shubin; more of a gentleman, one might say, if
that word had not been so vulgarised among us.

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