On the Eve: Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Two days later, Insarov in accordance with his promise arrived at
Bersenyev's with his luggage. He had no servant; but without any
assistance he put his room to rights, arranged the furniture, dusted
and swept the floor. He had special trouble with the writing table,
which would not fit into the recess in the wall assigned for it; but
Insarov, with the silent persistence peculiar to him succeeded in
getting his own way with it. When he had settled in, he asked
Bersenyev to let him pay him ten roubles in advance, and arming
himself with a thick stick, set off to inspect the country surrounding
his new abode. He returned three hours later; and in response to
Bersenyev's invitation to share his repast, he said that he would not
refuse to dine with him that day, but that he had already spoken to
the woman of the house, and would get her to send him up his meals for
the future.

'Upon my word!' said Bersenyev, 'you will fare very badly; that old
body can't cook a bit. Why don't you dine with me, we would go halves
over the cost.'

'My means don't allow me to dine as you do,' Insarov replied with a
tranquil smile.

There was something in that smile which forbade further insistence;
Bersenyev did not add a word. After dinner he proposed to Insarov that
he should take him to the Stahovs; but he replied that he had
intended to devote the evening to correspondence with his Bulgarians,
and so he would ask him to put off the visit to the Stahovs till next
day. Bersenyev was already familiar with Insarov's unbending will;
but it was only now when he was under the same roof with him, that he
fully realised at last that Insarov would never alter any decision,
just in the same way as he would never fail to carry out a promise he
had given; to Bersenyev--a Russian to his fingertips--this more
than German exactitude seemed at first odd, and even rather
ludicrous; but he soon got used to it, and ended by finding it--if not
deserving of respect--at least very convenient.

The second day after his arrival, Insarov got up at four o'clock in
the morning, made a round of almost all Kuntsovo, bathed in the river,
drank a glass of cold milk, and then set to work. And he had plenty of
work to do; he was studying Russian history and law, and political
economy, translating the Bulgarian ballads and chronicles, collecting
materials on the Eastern Question, and compiling a Russian grammar for
the use of Bulgarians, and a Bulgarian grammar for the use of
Russians. Bersenyev went up to him and began to discuss Feuerbach.
Insarov listened attentively, made few remarks, but to the point; it
was clear from his observations that he was trying to arrive at a
conclusion as to whether he need study Feuerbach, or whether he could
get on without him. Bersenyev turned the conversation on to his
pursuits, and asked him if he could not show him anything. Insarov
read him his translation of two or three Bulgarian ballads, and was
anxious to hear his opinion of them. Bersenyev thought the
translation a faithful one, but not sufficiently spirited. Insarov
paid close attention to his criticism. From the ballads Bersenyev
passed on to the present position of Bulgaria, and then for the first
time he noticed what a change came over Insarov at the mere mention of
his country: not that his face flushed nor his voice grew louder--no!
but at once a sense of force and intense onward striving was expressed
in his whole personality, the lines of his mouth grew harder and less
flexible, and a dull persistent fire glowed in the depths of his eyes.
Insarov did not care to enlarge on his own travels in his country;
but of Bulgaria in general he talked readily with any one. He talked
at length of the Turks, of their oppression, of the sorrows and
disasters of his countrymen, and of their hopes: concentrated
meditation on a single ruling passion could be heard in every word he
uttered.

'Ah, well, there's no mistake about it,' Bersenyev was reflecting
meanwhile, 'that Turkish aga, I venture to think, has been punished
for his father's and mother's death.'

Insarov had not had time to say all he wanted to say, when the door
opened and Shubin made his appearance.

He came into the room with an almost exaggerated air of ease and
good-humour; Bersenyev, who knew him well, could see at once that
something had been jarring on him.

'I will introduce myself without ceremony,' he began with a bright and
open expression on his face. 'My name is Shubin; I'm a friend of
this young man here' (he indicated Bersenyev). 'You are Mr. Insarov,
of course, aren't you?'

'I am Insarov.'

'Then give me your hand and let us be friends. I don't know if
Bersenyev has talked to you about me, but he has told me a great deal
about you. You are staying here? Capital! Don't be offended at my
staring at you so. I'm a sculptor by trade, and I foresee I shall in
a little time be begging your permission to model your head.'

'My head's at your service,' said Insarov.

'What shall we do to-day, eh?' began Shubin, sitting down suddenly
on a low chair, with his knees apart and his elbows propped on them.
'Andrei Petrovitch, has your honour any kind of plan for to-day? It's
glorious weather; there's a scent of hay and dried strawberries as if
one were drinking strawberry-tea for a cold. We ought to get up some
kind of a spree. Let us show the new inhabitant of Kuntsov all its
numerous beauties.' (Something has certainly upset him, Bersenyev kept
thinking to himself.) 'Well, why art thou silent, friend Horatio?
Open your prophetic lips. Shall we go off on a spree, or not?'

'I don't know how Insarov feels,' observed Bersenyev. 'He is just
getting to work, I fancy.'

Shubin turned round on his chair.

'You want to work?' he inquired, in a somewhat condescending voice.

'No,' answered Insarov; 'to-day I could give up to walking.'

'Ah!' commented Shubin. 'Well, that's delightful. Run along, my
friend, Andrei Petrovitch, put a hat on your learned head, and let us
go where our eyes lead us. Our eyes are young--they may lead us far.
I know a very repulsive little restaurant, where they will give us a
very beastly little dinner; but we shall be very jolly. Come along.'

Half an hour later they were all three walking along the bank of the
Moskva. Insarov had a rather queer cap with flaps, over which Shubin
fell into not very spontaneous raptures. Insarov walked without haste,
and looked about, breathing, talking, and smiling with the same
tranquillity; he was giving this day up to pleasure, and enjoying it
to the utmost. 'Just as well-behaved boys walk out on Sundays,'
Shubin whispered in Bersenyev's ear. Shubin himself played the fool a
great deal, ran in front, threw himself into the attitudes of famous
statues, and turned somersaults on the grass; Insarov's tranquillity
did not exactly irritate him, but it spurred him on to playing antics.
'What a fidget you are, Frenchman!' Bersenyev said twice to him.
'Yes, I am French, half French,' Shubin answered, 'and you hold the
happy medium between jest and earnest, as a waiter once said to me.'
The young men turned away from the river and went along a deep and
narrow ravine between two walls of tall golden rye; a bluish shadow
was cast on them from the rye on one side; the flashing sunlight
seemed to glide over the tops of the ears; the larks were singing, the
quails were calling: on all sides was the brilliant green of the
grass; a warm breeze stirred and lifted the leaves and shook the heads
of the flowers. After prolonged wanderings, with rest and chat between
(Shubin had even tried to play leap-frog with a toothless peasant they
met, who did nothing but laugh, whatever the gentlemen might do to
him), the young men reached the 'repulsive little' restaurant: the
waiter almost knocked each of them over, and did really provide them
with a very bad dinner with a sort of Balkan wine, which did not,
however, prevent them from being very jolly, as Shubin had foretold;
he himself was the loudest and the least jolly. He drank to the
health of the incomprehensible but great _Venelin_, the health of the
Bulgarian king Kuma, Huma, or Hroma, who lived somewhere about the
time of Adam.

'In the ninth century,' Insarov corrected him.

'In the ninth century?' cried Shubin. 'Oh, how delightful!'

Bersenyev noticed that among all his pranks, and jests and gaiety,
Shubin was constantly, as it were, examining Insarov; he was sounding
him and was in inward excitement, but Insarov remained as before, calm
and straightforward.

At last they returned home, changed their dress, and resolved to
finish the day as they had begun it, by going that evening to the
Stahovs. Shubin ran on before them to announce their arrival.

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