On the Eve: Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Meanwhile, Elena had gone to her room, and sat down at the open
window, her head resting on her hands. To spend about a quarter of an
hour every evening at her bedroom window had become a habit with her.
At this time she held converse with herself, and passed in review the
preceding day. She had not long reached her twentieth year. She was
tall, and had a pale and dark face, large grey eyes under arching
brows, covered with tiny freckles, a perfectly regular forehead and
nose, tightly compressed lips, and a rather sharp chin. Her hair, of a
chestnut shade, fell low on her slender neck. In her whole
personality, in the expression of her face, intent and a little
timorous, in her clear but changing glance, in her smile, which was,
as it were, intense, in her soft and uneven voice, there was something
nervous, electric, something impulsive and hurried, something, in
fact, which could never be attractive to every one, which even
repelled some.

Her hands were slender and rosy, with long fingers; her feet were
slender; she walked swiftly, almost impetuously, her figure bent a
little forward. She had grown up very strangely; first she idolised
her father, then she became passionately devoted to her mother, and
had grown cold to both of them, especially to her father. Of late
years she had behaved to her mother as to a sick grandmother; while
her father, who had been proud of her while she had been regarded as
an exceptional child, had come to be afraid of her when she was grown
up, and said of her that she was a sort of enthusiastic republican--no
one could say where she got it from. Weakness revolted her, stupidity
made her angry, and deceit she could never, never pardon. She was
exacting beyond all bounds, even her prayers had more than once been
mingled with reproaches. When once a person had lost her respect--and
she passed judgment quickly, often too quickly--he ceased to exist for
her. All impressions cut deeply into her heart; life was bitter
earnest for her.

The governess to whom Anna Vassilyevna had entrusted the finishing of
her daughter's education--an education, we may remark in parenthesis,
which had not even been begun by the languid lady--was a Russian, the
daughter of a ruined official, educated at a government boarding
school, a very emotional, soft-hearted, and deceitful creature; she
was for ever falling in love, and ended in her fiftieth year (when
Elena was seventeen) by marrying an officer of some sort, who deserted
her without loss of time. This governess was very fond of literature,
and wrote verses herself; she inspired Elena with a love of reading,
but reading alone did not satisfy the girl; from childhood she
thirsted for action, for active well-doing--the poor, the hungry, and
the sick absorbed her thoughts, tormented her, and made her heart
heavy; she used to dream of them, and to ply all her friends with
questions about them; she gave alms carefully, with unconscious
solemnity, almost with a thrill of emotion. All ill-used creatures,
starved dogs, cats condemned to death, sparrows fallen out of the
nest, even insects and reptiles found a champion and protector in
Elena; she fed them herself, and felt no repugnance for them. Her
mother did not interfere with her; but her father used to be very
indignant with his daughter, for her--as he called it--vulgar
soft-heartedness, and declared there was not room to move for the cats
and dogs in the house. 'Lenotchka,' he would shout to her, 'come
quickly, here's a spider eating a fly; come and save the poor wretch!'
And Lenotchka, all excitement, would run up, set the fly free, and
disentangle its legs. 'Well, now let it bite you a little, since you
are so kind,' her father would say ironically; but she did not hear
him. At ten years old Elena made friends with a little beggar-girl,
Katya, and used to go secretly to meet her in the garden, took her
nice things to eat, and presented her with handkerchiefs and pennies;
playthings Katya would not take. She would sit beside her on the dry
earth among the bushes behind a thick growth of nettles; with a
feeling of delicious humility she ate her stale bread and listened to
her stories. Katya had an aunt, an ill-natured old woman, who often
beat her; Katya hated her, and was always talking of how she would run
away from her aunt and live in '_God's full freedom_'; with secret
respect and awe Elena drank in these new unknown words, stared
intently at Katya and everything about her--her quick black, almost
animal eyes, her sun-burnt hands, her hoarse voice, even her ragged
clothes--seemed to Elena at such times something particular and
distinguished, almost holy. Elena went back home, and for long after
dreamed of beggars and God's freedom; she would dream over plans of
how she would cut herself a hazel stick, and put on a wallet and run
away with Katya; how she would wander about the roads in a wreath of
corn-flowers; she had seen Katya one day in just such a wreath. If, at
such times, any one of her family came into the room, she would shun
them and look shy. One day she ran out in the rain to meet Katya, and
made her frock muddy; her father saw her, and called her a slut and a
peasant-wench. She grew hot all over, and there was something of
terror and rapture in her heart Katya often sang some half-brutal
soldier's song. Elena learnt this song from her. . . . Anna
Vassilyevna overheard her singing it, and was very indignant.

'Where did you pick up such horrors?' she asked her daughter.

Elena only looked at her mother, and would not say a word; she felt
that she would let them tear her to pieces sooner than betray her
secret, and again there was a terror and sweetness in her heart. Her
friendship with Katya, however, did not last long; the poor little
girl fell sick of fever, and in a few days she was dead.

Elena was greatly distressed, and spent sleepless nights for long
after she heard of Katya's death. The last words of the little
beggar-girl were constantly ringing in her ears, and she fancied that
she was being called. . . .

The years passed and passed; swiftly and noiselessly, like waters
running under the snow, Elena's youth glided by, outwardly uneventful,
inwardly in conflict and emotion. She had no friend; she did not get
on with any one of all the girls who visited the Stahovs' house. Her
parents' authority had never weighed heavily on Elena, and from her
sixteenth year she became absolutely independent; she began to live a
life of her own, but it was a life of solitude. Her soul glowed, and
the fire died away again in solitude; she struggled like a bird in a
cage, and cage there was none; no one oppressed her, no one restrained
her, while she was torn, and fretted within. Sometimes she did not
understand herself, was even frightened of herself. Everything that
surrounded her seemed to her half-senseless, half-incomprehensible.
'How live without love? and there's no one to love!' she thought; and
she felt terror again at these thoughts, these sensations. At
eighteen, she nearly died of malignant fever; her whole
constitution--naturally healthy and vigorous--was seriously affected,
and it was long before it could perfectly recover; the last traces of
the illness disappeared at last, but Elena Nikolaevna's father was
never tired of talking with some spitefulness of her 'nerves.'
Sometimes she fancied that she wanted something which no one wanted,
of which no one in all Russia dreamed. Then she would grow calmer, and
even laugh at herself, and pass day after day unconcernedly; but
suddenly some over-mastering, nameless force would surge up within
her, and seem to clamour for an outlet. The storm passed over, and the
wings of her soul drooped without flight; but these tempests of
feeling cost her much. However she might strive not to betray what was
passing within her, the suffering of the tormented spirit was
expressed in her even external tranquillity, and her parents were
often justified in shrugging their shoulders in astonishment, and
failing to understand her 'queer ways.'

On the day with which our story began, Elena did not leave the window
till later than usual. She thought much of Bersenyev, and of her
conversation with him. She liked him; she believed in the warmth of
his feelings, and the purity of his aims. He had never before talked
to her as on that evening. She recalled the expression of his timid
eyes, his smiles--and she smiled herself and fell to musing, but not
of him. She began to look out into the night from the open window.
For a long time she gazed at the dark, low-hanging sky; then she got
up, flung back her hair from her face with a shake of her head, and,
herself not knowing why, she stretched out to it--to that sky--her
bare chilled arms; then she dropped them, fell on her knees beside her
bed, pressed her face into the pillow, and, in spite of all her
efforts not to yield to the passion overwhelming her, she burst into
strange, uncomprehending, burning tears.

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