On the Eve: Chapter 14

Chapter 14

The next day, at two o'clock, Elena was standing in the garden before
a small kennel, where she was rearing two puppies. (A gardener had
found them deserted under a hedge, and brought them to the young
mistress, being told by the laundry-maids that she took pity on beasts
of all sorts. He was not wrong in his reckoning. Elena had given him
a quarter-rouble.) She looked into the kennel, assured herself that
the puppies were alive and well, and that they had been provided with
fresh straw, turned round, and almost uttered a cry; down an alley
straight towards her was walking Insarov, alone.

'Good-morning,' he said, coming up to her and taking off his cap. She
noticed that he certainly had got much sunburnt during the last three
days. 'I meant to have come here with Andrei Petrovitch, but he was
rather slow in starting; so here I am without him. There is no one in
your house; they are all asleep or out of doors, so I came on here.'

'You seem to be apologising,' replied Elena. 'There's no need to do
that. We are always very glad to see you. Let us sit here on the bench
in the shade.'

She seated herself. Insarov sat down near her.

'You have not been at home these last days, I think?' she began.

'No,' he answered. 'I went away. Did Andrei Petrovitch tell you?'

Insarov looked at her, smiled, and began playing with his cap. When he
smiled, his eyes blinked, and his lips puckered up, which gave him a
very good-humoured appearance.

'Andrei Petrovitch most likely told you too that I went away with
some--unattractive people,' he said, still smiling.

Elena was a little confused, but she felt at once that Insarov must
always be told the truth.

'Yes,' she said decisively.

'What did you think of me?' he asked her suddenly.

Elena raised her eyes to him.

'I thought,' she said, 'I thought that you always know what you're
doing, and you are incapable of doing anything wrong.'

'Well--thanks for that. You see, Elena Nikolaevna,' he began, coming
closer to her in a confidential way, 'there is a little family of our
people here; among us there are men of little culture; but all are
warmly devoted to the common cause. Unluckily, one can never get on
without dissensions, and they all know me, and trust me; so they sent
for me to settle a dispute. I went.'

'Was it far from here?'

'I went about fifty miles, to the Troitsky district. There, near the
monastery, there are some of our people. At any rate, my trouble was
not thrown away; I settled the matter.'

'And had you much difficulty?'

'Yes. One was obstinate through everything. He did not want to give
back the money.'

'What? Was the dispute over money?'

'Yes; and a small sum of money too. What did you suppose?'

'And you travelled over fifty miles for such trifling matters? Wasted
three days?'

'They are not trifling matters, Elena Nikolaevna, when my countrymen
are involved. It would be wicked to refuse in such cases. I see here
that you don't refuse help even to puppies, and I think well of you
for it. And as for the time I have lost, that's no great harm; I will
make it up later. Our time does not belong to us.'

'To whom does it belong then?'

'Why, to all who need us. I have told you all this on the spur of the
moment, because I value your good opinion. I can fancy how Andrei
Petrovitch must have made you wonder!'

'You value my good opinion,' said Elena, in an undertone, 'why?'

Insarov smiled again.

'Because you are a good young lady, not an aristocrat . . . that's
all.'

A short silence followed.

'Dmitri Nikanorovitch,' said Elena, 'do you know that this is the first
time you have been so unreserved with me?'

'How's that? I think I have always said everything I thought to you.'

'No, this is the first time, and I am very glad, and I too want to be
open with you. May I?'

Insarov began to laugh and said: 'You may.'

'I warn you I am very inquisitive.'

'Never mind, tell me.'

'Andrei Petrovitch has told me a great deal of your life, of your
youth. I know of one event, one awful event. . . . I know you
travelled afterwards in your own country. . . . Don't answer me for
goodness sake, if you think my question indiscreet, but I am fretted
by one idea. . . . Tell me, did you meet that man?'

Elena caught her breath. She felt both shame and dismay at her own
audacity. Insarov looked at her intently, slightly knitting his
brows, and stroking his chin with his fingers.

'Elena Nikolaevna,' he began at last, and his voice was much lower
than usual, which almost frightened Elena, 'I understand what man you
are referring to. No, I did not meet him, and thank God I did not! I
did not try to find him. I did not try to find him: not because I did
not think I had a right to kill him--I would kill him with a very easy
conscience--but because now is not the time for private revenge, when
we are concerned with the general national vengeance--or no, that is
not the right word--when we are concerned with the liberation of a
people. The one would be a hindrance to the other. In its own time
that, too, will come . . . that too will come,' he repeated, and he
shook his head.

Elena looked at him from the side.

'You love your country very dearly?' she articulated timidly.

'That remains to be shown,' he answered. 'When one of us dies for
her, then one can say he loved his country.'

'So that, if you were cut off all chance of returning to Bulgaria,'
continued Elena, 'would you be very unhappy in Russia?'

Insarov looked down.

'I think I could not bear that,' he said.

'Tell me,' Elena began again, 'is it difficult to learn Bulgarian?'

'Not at all. It's a disgrace to a Russian not to know Bulgarian. A
Russian ought to know all the Slavonic dialects. Would you like me to
bring you some Bulgarian books? You will see how easy it is. What
ballads we have! equal to the Servian. But stop a minute, I will
translate to you one of them. It is about . . . But you know a little
of our history at least, don't you?'

'No, I know nothing of it,' answered

Elena.

'Wait a little and I will bring you a book. You will learn the
principal facts at least from it. Listen to the ballad then. . . . But
I had better bring you a written translation, though. I am sure you
will love us, you love all the oppressed. If you knew what a land of
plenty ours is! And, meanwhile, it has been downtrodden, it has been
ravaged,' he went on, with an involuntary movement of his arm, and his
face darkened; 'we have been robbed of everything; everything, our
churches, our laws, our lands; the unclean Turks drive us like cattle,
butcher us----'

'Dmitri Nikanorovitch!' cried Elena.

He stopped.

'I beg your pardon. I can't speak of this coolly. But you asked me
just now whether I love my country. What else can one love on earth?
What is the one thing unchanging, what is above all doubts, what is
it--next to God--one must believe in? And when that country needs.
. . . Think; the poorest peasant, the poorest beggar in Bulgaria, and I
have the same desire. All of us have one aim. You can understand what
strength, what confidence that gives!'

Insarov was silent for an instant; then he began again to talk of
Bulgaria. Elena listened to him with absorbed, profound, and mournful
attention. When he had finished, she asked him once more:

'Then you would not stay in Russia for anything?'

And when he went away, for a long time she gazed after him. On that
day he had become a different man for her. When she walked back with
him through the garden, he was no longer the man she had met two hours
before.

From that day he began to come more and more often, and Bersenyev less
and less often. A strange feeling began to grow up between the two
friends, of which they were both conscious, but to which they could
not give a name, and which they feared to analyse. In this way a month
passed.

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