On the Eve: Chapter 22

Chapter 22

No one in the house of the retired lieutenant of guards, Stahov, had
ever seen him so sour, and at the same time so self-confident and
important as on that day. He walked into the drawing-room in his
overcoat and hat, with long deliberate stride, stamping with his
heels; he approached the looking-glass and took a long look at himself,
shaking his head and biting his lips with imperturbable severity. Anna
Vassilyevna met him with obvious agitation and secret delight (she
never met him otherwise); he did not even take off his hat, nor greet
her, and in silence gave Elena his doe-skin glove to kiss. Anna
Vassilyevna began questioning him about the progress of his cure; he
made her no reply. Uvar Ivanovitch made his appearance; he glanced at
him and said, 'bah!' He usually behaved coldly and haughtily to
Uvar Ivanovitch, though he acknowledged in him 'traces of the true
Stahov blood.' Almost all Russian families of the nobility are
convinced, as is well known, of the existence of exceptional
hereditary characteristics, peculiar to them alone; we have more than
once heard discussions 'among ourselves' of the Podsalaskinsky
'noses,' and the 'Perepreyevsky' necks. Zoya came in and sat down
facing Nikolai Artemyevitch. He grunted, sank into an armchair, asked
for coffee, and only then took off his hat. Coffee was brought him; he
drank a cup, and looking at everybody in turn, he growled between his
teeth, '_Sortes, s'il vous plait_,' and turning to his wife he added,
'_et vous, madame, restez, je vous prie_.'

They all left the room, except Anna Vassilyevna. Her head was
trembling with agitation. The solemnity of Nikolai Artemyevitch's
preparations impressed her. She was expecting something extraordinary.

'What is it?' she cried, directly the door was closed.

Nikolai Artemyevitch flung an indifferent glance at Anna Vassilyevna.

'Nothing special; what a way you have of assuming the air of a victim
at once!' he began, quite needlessly dropping the corners of his
mouth at every word. 'I only want to forewarn you that we shall have
a new guest dining here to-day.'

'Who is it?'

'Kurnatovsky, Yegor Andreyevitch. You don't know him. The head
secretary in the senate.'

'He is to dine with us to-day?'

'Yes.'

'And was it only to tell me this that you made every one go away?'

Nikolai Artemyevitch again flung a glance--this time one of irony--at
Anna Vassilyevna.

'Does that surprise you? Defer your surprise a little.'

He ceased speaking. Anna Vassilyevna too was silent for a little time.

'I could have wished----' she was beginning.

'I know you have always looked on me as an "immoral" man,' began
Nikolai Artemyevitch suddenly.

'I!' muttered Anna Vassilyevna, astounded.

'And very likely you are right. I don't wish to deny that I have in
fact sometimes given you just grounds for dissatisfaction' ("my
greys!" flashed through Anna Vassilyevna's head), 'though you must
yourself allow, that in the condition, as you are aware, of your
constitution----'

'And I make no complaint against you, Nikolai Artemyevitch.'

'_C'est possible_. In any case, I have no intention of justifying
myself. Time will justify me. But I regard it as my duty to prove to
you that I understand my duties, and know how to care for--for the
welfare of the family entrusted--entrusted to me.'

'What's the meaning of all this?' Anna Vassilyevna was thinking. (She
could not guess that the preceding evening at the English club a
discussion had arisen in a corner of the smoking-room as to the
incapacity of Russians to make speeches. 'Which of us can speak?
Mention any one!' one of the disputants had exclaimed. 'Well,
Stahov, for instance,' had answered the other, pointing to Nikolai
Artemyevitch, who stood up on the spot almost squealing with delight.)

'For instance,' pursued Nikolai Artemyevitch, 'my daughter Elena.
Don't you consider that the time has come for her to take a decisive
step along the path--to be married, I mean to say. All these
intellectual and philanthropic pursuits are all very well, but only up
to a certain point, up to a certain age. It's time for her to drop her
mistiness, to get out of the society of all these artists, scholars,
and Montenegrins, and do like everybody else.'

'How am I to understand you?' asked Anna Vassilyevna.

'Well, if you will kindly listen,' answered Nikolai Artemyevitch,
still with the same dropping of the corners of his lips, 'I will tell
you plainly, without beating about the bush. I have made acquaintance,
I have become intimate with this young man, Mr. Kurnatovsky, in the
hope of having him for a son-in-law. I venture to think that when you
see him, you will not accuse me of partiality or precipitate
judgment.' (Nikolai Artemyevitch was admiring his own eloquence as he
talked.) 'Of excellent education--educated in the highest legal
college--excellent manners, thirty-three years old, and
upper-secretary, a councillor, and a Stanislas cross on his neck. You,
I hope, will do me the justice to allow that I do not belong to the
number of those _peres de famille_ who are mad for position; but you
yourself told me that Elena Nikolaevna likes practical business men;
Yegor Andreyevitch is in the first place a business man; now on the
other side, my daughter has a weakness for generous actions; so let me
tell you that Yegor Andreyevitch, directly he had attained the
possibility--you understand me--the possibility of living without
privation on his salary, at once gave up the yearly income assigned
him by his father, for the benefit of his brothers.'

'Who is his father?' inquired Anna Vassilyevna.

'His father? His father is a man well-known in his own line, of the
highest moral character, _un vrai stoicien_, a retired major, I think,
overseer of all the estates of the Count B----'

'Ah!' observed Anna Vassilyevna.

'Ah! why ah?' interposed Nikolai Artemyevitch. 'Can you be infected
with prejudice?'

'Why, I said nothing----' Anna Vassilyevna was beginning.

'No, you said, ah!--However that may be, I have thought it well to
acquaint you with my way of thinking; and I venture to think--I
venture to hope Mr. Kurnatovsky will be received _a bras ouverts_. He
is no Montenegrin vagrant.'

'Of course; I need only call Vanka the cook and order a few extra
dishes.'

'You are aware that I will not enter into that,' said Nikolai
Artemyevitch; and he got up, put on his hat, and whistling (he had
heard some one say that whistling was only permissible in a country
villa and a riding court) went out for a stroll in the garden. Shubin
watched him out of the little window of his lodge, and in silence put
out his tongue at him.

At ten minutes to four, a hackney-carriage drove up to the steps of
the Stahovs's villa, and a man, still young, of prepossessing
appearance, simply and elegantly dressed, stepped out of it
and sent up his name. This was Yegor Andreyevitch Kurnatovsky.

This was what, among other things, Elena wrote next day to Insarov:

'Congratulate me, dear Dmitri, I have a suitor. He dined with us
yesterday: papa made his acquaintance at the English club, I fancy,
and invited him. Of course he did not come yesterday as a suitor. But
good mamma, to whom papa had made known his hopes, whispered in my ear
what this guest was. His name is Yegor Andreyevitch Kurnatovsky; he
is upper-secretary to the Senate. I will first describe to you his
appearance. He is of medium height, shorter than you, and a good
figure; his features are regular, he is close-cropped, and wears large
whiskers. His eyes are rather small (like yours), brown, and quick;
he has a flat wide mouth; in his eyes and on his lips there is a
perpetual sort of official smile; it seems to be always on duty
there. He behaves very simply and speaks precisely, and everything
about him is precise; he moves, laughs, and eats as though he were
doing a duty. "How carefully she has studied him!" you are thinking,
perhaps, at this minute. Yes; so as to be able to describe him to
you. And besides, who wouldn't study her suitor! There's something of
iron in him--and dull and empty at the same time--and honest; they say
he is really very honest. You, too, are made of iron; but not like
this man. At dinner he sat next me, and facing us sat Shubin. At first
the conversation turned on commercial undertakings; they say he is
very clever in business matters, and was almost throwing up his
government post to take charge of a large manufacturing business. Pity
he didn't do it! Then Shubin began to talk about the theatre; Mr.
Kurnatovsky declared and--I must confess--without false modesty, that
he has no ideas about art. That reminded me of you--but I thought;
no, Dmitri and I are ignorant of art in a very different way though.
This man seemed to mean, "I know nothing of it, and it's quite
superfluous, still it may be admitted in a well-ordered state." He
seems, however, to think very little about Petersburg and _comme il
faut_: he once even called himself one of the proletariat. 'We are
working people,' he said; I thought if Dmitri had said that, I
shouldn't have liked it; but he may talk about himself, he may boast
if he likes. With me he is very attentive; but I kept feeling that a
very, very condescending superior was talking with me. When he means
to praise any one, he says So-and-so is a man of principle--that's his
favourite word. He seems to be self-confident, hardworking, capable of
self-sacrifice (you see, I am impartial), that's to say, of
sacrificing his own interest; but he is a great despot. It would be
woeful to fall into his power! At dinner they began talking about
bribes.

'"I know," he said, "that in many cases the man who accepts a bribe
is not to blame; he cannot do otherwise. Still, if he is found out,
he must be punished without mercy."' I cried, "Punish an innocent
man!" '"Yes; for the sake of principle." '"What principle?" asked
Shubin. Kurnatovsky seemed annoyed or surprised, and said, "That
needs no explanation."

'Papa, who seems to worship him, put in "of course not"; and to my
vexation the conversation stopped there. In the evening Bersenyev came
and got into a terrific argument with him. I have never seen our good
Andrei Petrovitch so excited. Mr. Kurnatovsky did not at all deny the
utility of science, universities, and so on, but still I understood
Andrei Petrovitch's indignation. The man looks at it all as a sort of
gymnastics. Shubin came up to me after dinner, and said, "This fellow
here and some one else (he can never bring himself to utter your name)
are both practical men, but see what a difference; there's the real
living ideal given to life; and here there's not even a feeling of
duty, simply official honesty and activity without anything inside
it." Shubin is clever, and I remembered his words to tell you; but to
my mind there is nothing in common between you. You have _faith_, and
he has not; for a man cannot _have faith_ in himself only.

'He did not go away till late; but mamma had time to inform me that
he was pleased with me, and papa is in ecstasies. Did he say, I
wonder, that I was a woman of principle? I was almost telling mamma
that I was very sorry, but I had a husband already. Why is it papa
dislikes you so? Mamma, we could soon manage to bring round.

'Oh, my dear one! I have described this gentleman in such detail to
deaden my heartache. I don't live without you; I am constantly seeing
you, hearing you. I look forward to seeing you--only not at our
house, as you intended--fancy how wretched and ill at ease we should
be!--but you know where I wrote to you--in that wood. Oh, my dear
one! How I love you!'

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