On the Eve: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Anna Vassilyevna Stahov--her maiden name was Shubin--had been left, at
seven years old, an orphan and heiress of a pretty considerable
property. She had very rich and also very poor relations; the poor
relations were on her father's, the rich on her mother's side; the
latter including the senator Volgin and the Princes Tchikurasov.
Prince Ardalion Tchikurasov, who had been appointed her guardian,
placed her in the best Moscow boarding-school, and when she left
school, took her into his own home. He kept open house, and gave balls
in the winter. Anna Vassilyevna's future husband, Nikolai Artemyevitch
Stahov, captured her heart at one of these balls when she was arrayed
in a charming rose-coloured gown, with a wreath of tiny roses. She had
treasured that wreath all her life. Nikolai Artemyevitch Stahov was
the son of a retired captain, who had been wounded in 1812, and had
received a lucrative post in Petersburg. Nikolai Artemyevitch entered
the School of Cadets at sixteen, and left to go into the Guards. He
was a handsome, well-made fellow, and reckoned almost the most dashing
beau at evening parties of the middling sort, which were those he
frequented for the most part; he had not gained a footing in the best
society. From his youth he had been absorbed by two ideals: to get
into the Imperial adjutants, and to make a good marriage; the first
ideal he soon discarded, but he clung all the more closely to the
second, and it was with that object that he went every winter to
Moscow. Nikolai Artemyevitch spoke French fairly, and passed for being
a philosopher, because he was not a rake. Even while he was no more
than an ensign, he was given to discussing, persistently, such
questions as whether it is possible for a man to visit the whole of
the globe in the course of his whole lifetime, whether it is possible
for a man to know what is happening at the bottom of the sea; and he
always maintained the view that these things were impossible.

Nikolai Artemyevitch was twenty-five years old when he 'hooked' Anna
Vassilyevna; he retired from the service and went into the country to
manage the property. He was soon tired of country life, and as the
peasants' labour was all commuted for rent he could easily leave the
estate; he settled in Moscow in his wife's house. In his youth he had
played no games of any kind, but now he developed a passion for loto,
and, when loto was prohibited, for whist. At home he was bored; he
formed a connection with a widow of German extraction, and spent
almost all his time with her. In the year 1853 he had not moved to
Kuntsovo; he stopped at Moscow, ostensibly to take advantage of the
mineral waters; in reality, he did not want to part from his widow.
He did not, however, have much conversation with her, but argued more
than ever as to whether one can foretell the weather and such
questions. Some one had once called him a _frondeur_; he was greatly
delighted with that name. 'Yes,' he thought, letting the corners of
his mouth drop complacently and shaking his head, 'I am not easily
satisfied; you won't take me in.' Nikolai Artemyevitch's _frondeurism_
consisted in saying, for instance, when he heard the word nerves: 'And
what do you mean by nerves?' or if some one alluded in his presence to
the discoveries of astronomy, asking: 'And do you believe in
astronomy?' When he wanted to overwhelm his opponent completely, he
said: 'All that is nothing but words.' It must be admitted that to
many persons remarks of that kind seemed (and still seem) irrefutable
arguments. But Nikolai Artemyevitch never suspected that Augustina
Christianovna, in letters to her cousin, Theodolina Peterzelius,
called him _Mein Pinselchen_.

Nikolai Artemyevitch's wife, Anna Vassilyevna, was a thin, little
woman with delicate features, and a tendency to be emotional and
melancholy. At school, she had devoted herself to music and reading
novels; afterwards she abandoned all that. She began to be absorbed
in dress, and that, too, she gave up. She did, for a time, undertake
her daughter's education, but she got tired of that too, and handed
her over to a governess. She ended by spending her whole time in
sentimental brooding and tender melancholy. The birth of Elena
Nikolaevna had ruined her health, and she could never have another
child. Nikolai Artemyevitch used to hint at this fact in justification
of his intimacy with Augustina Christianovna. Her husband's infidelity
wounded Anna Vassilyevna deeply; she had been specially hurt by his
once giving his German woman, on the sly, a pair of grey horses out of
her (Anna Vassilyevna's) own stable. She had never reproached him to
his face, but she complained of him secretly to every one in the house
in turn, even to her daughter. Anna Vassilyevna did not care for going
out, she liked visitors to come and sit with her and talk to her; she
collapsed at once when she was left alone. She had a very tender and
loving heart; life had soon crushed her.

Pavel Yakovlitch Shubin happened to be a distant cousin of hers. His
father had been a government official in Moscow. His brothers had
entered cadets' corps; he was the youngest, his mother's darling, and
of delicate constitution; he stopped at home. They intended him for
the university, and strained every effort to keep him at the
gymnasium. From his early years he began to show an inclination for
sculpture. The ponderous senator, Volgin, saw a statuette of his one
day at his aunt's--he was then sixteen--and declared that he intended
to protect this youthful genius. The sudden death of Shubin's father
very nearly effected a complete transformation in the young man's
future. The senator, the patron of genius, made him a present of a
bust of Homer in plaster, and did nothing more. But Anna Vassilyevna
helped him with money, and at nineteen he scraped through into the
university in the faculty of medicine. Pavel felt no inclination for
medical science, but, as the university was then constituted, it was
impossible for him to enter in any other faculty. Besides, he looked
forward to studying anatomy. But he did not complete his anatomical
studies; at the end of the first year, and before the examination, he
left the university to devote himself exclusively to his vocation. He
worked zealously, but by fits and starts; he used to stroll about the
country round Moscow sketching and modelling portraits of peasant
girls, and striking up acquaintance with all sorts of people, young
and old, of high and low degree, Italian models and Russian artists.
He would not hear of the Academy, and recognised no one as a teacher.
He was possessed of unmistakeable talent; it began to be talked about
in Moscow. His mother, who came of a good Parisian family, a
kind-hearted and clever woman, had taught him French thoroughly and
had toiled and thought for him day and night. She was proud of him,
and when, while still young in years, she died of consumption, she
entreated Anna Vassilyevna to take him under her care. He was at that
time twenty-one. Anna Vassilyevna carried out her last wish; a small
room in the lodge of the country villa was given up to him.

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