Virgin Soil (Volume 1)/Chapter 10
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Nezhdanov rose from his place to meet him, while Markelov went straight up to him, and, without a bow or a smile, asked him, 'Was he Alexey Dmitriev Nezhdanov, student of the Petersburg University?'
'Yes . . . certainly,' answered Nezhdanov.
Markelov pulled an open letter out of his side pocket. 'In that case, read this. From Vassily Nikolaevitch,' he added, dropping his voice significantly.
Nezhdanov unfolded and read the letter. It was something of the nature of a half-official circular, in which the bearer, Sergei Markelov, was recommended as one of 'us', fully deserving of confidence; there followed, further, an exhortation concerning the urgent necessity of concerted action, and the propaganda of certain principles. The circular was addressed to Nezhdanov among others, also as being a trustworthy person.
Nezhdanov held out his hand to Markelov, asked him to sit down, and himself dropped into a chair. Markelov began, without a word, by lighting a cigarette. Nezhdanov followed his example.
'Have you had time yet to make friends with the peasants here?' Markelov asked at last.
'No; I've not had time yet.'
'You've not been here long, then?'
'I shall soon have been here a fortnight.'
'Been very busy?'
'Not very.'
Markelov coughed grimly.
'H'm! The peasants here are rather a wretched lot,' he resumed; 'an ignorant lot. They want teaching. There's great poverty, but no one to explain to them what their poverty comes from.'
'Those who were your brother-in-law's serfs, as far as I can judge, aren't poor,' remarked Nezhdanov.
'My brother-in-law's a humbug; he knows how to hoodwink people. The peasants about here are no good, certainly; but he has a factory. That's where one must make an effort. One need only stick the spade in there and the whole ant-heap will be on the move directly. Have you any books with you?'
'Yes . . . but not many.'
'I'll let you have some. But how is it you haven't?'
Nezhdanov made no answer. Markelov, too, was silent, and only blew the smoke out of his nostrils.
'What a beast that Kallomyetsev is, though!' he observed suddenly. 'At dinner I was thinking of getting up, going up to that worthy, and pounding that impudent face of his to atoms, for an example to others. But no! There's business of more importance just now than slaying kammerjunkers. Now's not the time to lose one's temper with fools for saying stupid things; it's time to prevent them doing stupid things.'
Nezhdanov nodded his head in confirmation, while Markelov again puffed away at his cigarette.
'Here, among all the servants, there's one sensible fellow,' he began again; 'not your servant Ivan . . . he's a dull fish, but another one . . . his name's Kirill, he waits at the sideboard'─(this Kirill had the character of being a sad drunkard)─'you notice him. A drunken brute . . . but we can't afford to be squeamish, you know. And what have you to say of my sister?' he added suddenly, raising his head and fixing his yellow eyes on Nezhdanov. 'She's even more of a humbug than my brother-in-law. What do you think of her?'
'I think she's a very agreeable and amiable lady . . . and, moreover, she 's very beautiful.'
'H'm! With what delicate precision you gentlemen from Petersburg express yourselves! . . . I can only admire it! Well . . . and as regards . . .' he began, but suddenly he scowled, his face darkened, and he did not complete his sentence. 'I see we must talk things over thoroughly', he began again. 'We can't do it here. Who the devil can tell? They 're listening at the door, I dare say. Do you know what I would suggest? To-day's Saturday; to-morrow, I suppose, you won't give my nephew any lessons? Will you?'
'I have a rehearsal of the week's work with him at three to-morrow.'
'A rehearsal! As if you were on the stage! It must be my sister who invents those expressions. Well, it's all the same. Would you care to come to me at once? My place is only eight miles from here. I have good horses: they fly like the wind─you shall stay the night, and spend the morning─and I'll bring you back to-morrow by three o'clock. Do you agree?'
'By all means,' said Nezhdanov. Ever since Markelov's entrance he had been in a state of excitement and embarrassment. His sudden intimacy with him confused him; at the same time he felt drawn to him. He felt, he realised, that there was before him a person, dull, very likely, but unmistakably honest and strong. And then that strange meeting in the copse, Marianna's unexpected explanation.. . .
'Well, that's capital!' cried Markelov. 'You get ready meanwhile, and I'll go and order the coach to be put to. You needn't ask any questions of the heads of the house here, I hope?'
'I will mention it to them. I imagine I couldn't absent myself without.'
'I'll tell them', said Markelov. 'Don't you be uneasy. They'll be frowning over their cards now; they won't notice your absence. My brother-in-law aims at becoming a political personage, but all he has to back him is that he plays cards splendidly. After all, though, men have made their fortunes that way! . . . So you get ready. I will make arrangements at once.'
Markelov went away; and an hour later Nezhdanov was sitting beside him on a broad leather cushion, in a wide, roomy, very old, and very comfortable coach; the squat little coachman on the box-seat whistled incessantly a wonderfully sweet bird's note; the three piebald horses, with black plaited manes and tails, galloped swiftly along the even road; and, already swathed in the first shadows of night (it struck ten just as they started), trees, bushes, fields, plains, and ravines, advancing and retreating again, glided smoothly by.
Markelov's small property (it consisted of not more than six hundred acres, and yielded about seven hundred roubles of revenue─it was called Borzyonkovo) was two miles from the provincial town, while Sipyagin's property was six miles from it. To reach Borzyonkovo they had to drive through the town. The new friends had not had time to exchange half a hundred words before they caught glimpses of the wretched little artisans' huts in the outskirts, with tumble-down, wooden roofs, with dim patches of light in the warped windows, and then under their wheels they heard the rumble of the stone pavements of the town; the coach rocked, swaying from side to side, and, shaken at every jolt, they were carried past the dull stone houses of merchants, with two storeys and façades, churches with columns, taverns.. . . It was Saturday night; there were no people in the streets, but the taverns were still crowded. Hoarse voices broke from them, drunken songs, and the nasal notes of the concertina; from doors suddenly opened streamed the filthy warmth, the acrid smell of alcohol, the red glare of lights. Before almost every tavern were standing little peasant carts, harnessed to shaggy, pot-bellied nags; they stood with their unkempt heads hanging down submissively, and seemed asleep; a ragged, unbelted peasant in a big winter cap, which hung in a bag over his neck, would come out of a tavern, and, his breast propped against the shafts, stay motionless, feebly fumbling and moving his hands as though looking for something; or a wasted factory-hand, his cap awry, and his cotton shirt flying open, would take a few irresolute steps, barefoot─his boots having remained in the tavern─stop short, scratch his spine, and, with a sudden groan, go back again.
'The Russian's a slave to drink! ' observed Markelov gloomily.
'It's sorrow drives him to it, Sergei Mihalovitch!' pronounced the coachman without turning round. Before each tavern he ceased whistling, and seemed to sink into deep thought.
'Get on! get on!' responded Markelov, with a savage tug at his own coat collar. The coach crossed a wide market-place, positively stinking of rush-mats and cabbage, passed the governor's house with striped sentry-boxes at the gates, a private house with a turret, a promenade set with trees, recently planted and already dying, a bazaar, filled with the barking of dogs and the clanking of chains, and, gradually reaching the boundaries of the town, and overtaking a long, long train of wagons, which had set off so late for the sake of the cool of the night, again emerged into the fresh air of the open country, on to the highroad planted with willows, and again moved on more smoothly and swiftly.
Markelov─a few words must be said about him─was six years older than his sister, Madame Sipyagin. He had been educated in an artillery school, which he left as an ensign; but just after attaining the rank of a lieutenant he had to retire, through a misunderstanding with the commander─a German. From that time forth he hated Germans, particularly Russian Germans. His resignation embroiled him with his father, whom he scarcely saw again till the day of his death; he inherited the little property from him, and settled in it. In Petersburg he had associated frequently with various intellectual and advanced people, whom he had positively adored; they completely formed his way of thinking. Markelov had read little─and chiefly books relating to the cause─Herzen in especial. He had retained his military habits; he lived like a Spartan and a monk. A few years before he had fallen passionately in love with a girl; but she had jilted him in the most unceremonious fashion, and had married an adjutant─also a German Markelov began hating adjutants too. He used to try to write articles on the defects of our artillery, but he had not the slightest faculty of exposition; not a single article could he ever work out to the end, and yet he continued to cover large sheets of grey paper with his sprawling, illegible, childish handwriting. Markelov was a man, obstinate and dauntless to desperation, who could neither forgive nor forget, for ever resenting his own wrongs and the wrongs of all the oppressed, and ready for anything. His limited intellect went for one point only; what he did not understand, for him did not exist; but he scorned and hated treachery and falseness. With people of the higher class, with the 'reacs', as he expressed it, he was short, and even rude; with the poor he was simple; with a peasant as friendly as with a brother. He managed his estate fairly well; his head was in a whirl of socialistic plans, which he could no more carry out than he could finish his articles on the defects of the artillery. As a rule, he did not succeed─at any time, or in anything; in the regiment he had been nicknamed 'the unsuccessful.' Sincere, upright, a passionate and unhappy nature, he was capable at any moment of appearing merciless, bloodthirsty, of deserving to be called a monster, and was equally capable of sacrificing himself without hesitation and without return.
The coach, at the second mile from the town, suddenly plunged into the soft gloom of an aspen wood, with the whisper and rustle of unseen leaves, with the fresh, keen forest fragrance, with vague patches of light overhead and tangled shadows below. The moon had already risen on the horizon, red and broad, like a copper shield. Darting out from under the trees, the coach faced a small manor-house. Three lighted-up windows stood out like shining squares on the face of the low-pitched house, which hid the moon's disc. The gates stood wide open and seemed as though they were never shut. In the courtyard in the half-dark could be seen a high trap with two white, hired horses fastened on behind. Two puppies, also white, ran out from somewhere and gave vent to piercing but not savage barks. People were moving about in the house. The coach rolled up to the steps, and with some difficulty getting out, and feeling with his foot for the iron carriage-step, put, as is usually the case, by the local blacksmith in the most inconvenient position, Markelov said to Nezhdanov: 'Here we are at home; and you will find guests here whom you know very well but don't at all expect to meet Please come in.'