Virgin Soil (Volume 1)/Chapter 5
V
In the drawing-room of a large stone house, with columns and a Greek façade, built in the twenties of the present century by a landowner noted for devotion to agriculture and for the free use of his fists, the father of Sipyagin, his wife, Valentina Mihalovna, a very handsome woman, was from hour to hour expecting her husband's arrival, for which she had been prepared by a telegram. The decoration of the drawing-room bore the stamp of a modern, refined taste; everything in it was charming and attractive─everything, from the agreeably varied tints of the cretonne upholstery and draperies to the different lines of the china, bronze, and glass knick-knacks, scattered about on the tables and étagères,─all fell into subdued harmony and blended together in the bright May sunshine which streamed freely in at the high, wide-open windows. The air of the room, heavy with the scent of lilies-of-the-valley (great nosegays of these exquisite spring flowers made patches of white here and there) was stirred from time to time by an inrush of the light breeze which was softly fluttering over the luxuriant leafage of the garden.
A charming picture! And the lady of the house, Valentina Mihalovna, completed the picture─lent it life and meaning. She was a tall woman of thirty, with dark brown hair, a dark but fresh face of one uniform tint, recalling the features of the Sistine Madonna, with marvellous deep, velvety eyes. Her lips were rather wide and colourless, her shoulders rather high, her hands rather large. . . . But, for all that, any one who had seen how freely and gracefully she moved about the drawing-room, at one time bending her slender, somewhat constricted figure over her flowers and sniffing them with a smile; at another moving some Chinese vase, then rapidly readjusting her glossy hair and half-closing her divine eyes before the glass─any one, we say, would certainly have exclaimed, to himself or aloud, that he had never met a more fascinating creature!
A pretty, curly-headed boy of nine, in a Scotch kilt, with bare legs, much pomaded and befrizzed, ran impetuously into the drawing-room, and stopped suddenly on seeing Valentina Mihalovna.
'What is it, Kolya?' she asked. Her voice was as soft and velvety as her eyes.
'Well, mamma', the boy began in confusion, 'auntie sent me here. . . . She told me to bring her some lilies-of-the-valley . . . for her room. . . . She has none.'
Valentina Mihalovna took her little son by the chin and lifted his little pomaded head.
'Tell your auntie to send to the gardener for lilies; those lilies are mine. . . . I don't want them touched. Tell her I don't like my arrangements disarranged. Can you repeat my words?'
'Yes, I can . . .' muttered the boy.
'Well, then, . . . say them.'
'I will say . . . I will say . . . you won't let her have them.'
Valentina Mihalovna laughed. Her laugh, too, was soft.
'I see it's no use giving you messages. Well, never mind; tell her anything you think of.'
The boy hurriedly kissed his mother's hand, which was completely covered with rings, and rushed headlong away.
Valentina Mihalovna followed him with her eyes, sighed, and went up to a cage of gold wire, on the walls of which a green parrot was clambering, warily hooking on by his beak and his claws; she teased him with her finger-tip; then sank into a low lounge, and, taking from a carved round table the last number of the Revue des Deux Mondes, she began to skim its pages.
A respectful cough made her look round. In the doorway stood a handsome footman in livery and a white cravat.
'What is it, Agafon?' inquired Valentina Mihalovna, still in the same soft voice.
'Semyon Petrovitch Kallomyetsev is here. Shall I show him up?'
'Ask him up, of course. And send word to Marianna Vikentyevna to come down to the drawing-room.'
Valentina Mihalovna flung the Revue des Deux Mondes on a little table, and, leaning back on the lounge, she turned her eyes upwards and looked thoughtful, which suited her extremely.
From the very way Semyon Petrovitch Kallomyetsev, a young man of two-and-thirty, entered the room, easily, carelessly, and languidly, from the way he suddenly beamed politely, bowed a little on one side, and drew himself up like elastic afterwards, from the way he spoke, half-condescendingly, half-affectedly, respectfully took Valentina Mihalovna's hand, and effusively kissed it─from all this one might judge that the visitor was not an inhabitant of the province, a mere casual country neighbour, even one of the richest, but a real Petersburg swell of the highest fashion. He was dressed, too, in the best English style: the coloured border of his white cambric handkerchief peeped in a tiny triangle out of the flat side-pocket of his tweed jacket; a single eyeglass dangled on a rather wide black ribbon; the pale dull tint of his Suede gloves corresponded with the pale grey of his check trousers. Close shorn was Mr. Kallomyetsev, and smoothly shaven; his rather feminine face with its small eyes set close together, its thin depressed nose, and its full red lips, was expressive of the agreeable ease of a well-bred nobleman. It was all affability . . . and it very easily turned vindictive, even coarse; some one or something had but to vex Semyon Petrovitch, to jar on his conservative, patriotic, and religious principles─oh! then he became pitiless! All his elegance evaporated instantly; his soft eyes glowed with an evil light; his little pretty mouth gave forth ugly words and appealed, with piteous whines appealed, to the strong arm of the government!
Semyon Petrovitch's family had sprung from simple market-gardeners, His great grandfather had been known in the parts from which he came as Kolomentsov. . . . But his grandfather even had changed his name to Kollometsov; his father wrote it Kallometsev, finally Semyon Petrovitch had inserted the y, and quite seriously regarded himself as an aristocrat of the purest blood; he even hinted at his family's being descended from the Barons von Gallenmeier, one of whom had been the Austrian field-marshal in the Thirty Years' War. Semyon Petrovitch was in the ministry of the Court, he had the title of a kammeryunker. He was prevented by his patriotism from entering the diplomatic service, for which he seemed destined by everything, his education, his knowledge of the world, his popularity with women, and his very appearance . . . mais quitter la Russie! jamais! Kallomyetsev had a fine property, and had connections; he had the reputation of a trustworthy and devoted man─un peu trop féodal dans ses opinions─as the distinguished Prince B———, one of the leading lights of the Petersburg official world, had said of him. Kallomyetsev had come to S———province on a two months' leave to look after his property, that is to say, 'to scare some and squeeze others.' Of course, there's no doing anything without that.
'I expected to find Boris Andreitch here by now,' he began, politely swaying from one foot to the other, and with a sudden sidelong look in imitation of a very important personage.
Valentina Mihilovna made a faint grimace.
'Or you would not have come?'
Kallomyetsev all but fell backwards, so unjust, so inconsistent with the facts did Valentina Mihalovna's question seem to him.
'Valentina Mihalovna!' he cried, 'heavens! could you suppose . . .'
'Well, well, sit down. Boris Andreitch will be here directly. I have sent the carriage to the station for him. Wait a little. . . . You will see him. What time is it now?'
'Half-past two,' replied Kallomyetsev, pulling out of his waistcoat pocket a big gold watch decorated with enamel. He showed it to Madame Sipyagin. 'Have you seen my watch? It was a present from Mihail, you know, the Servian prince . . . Obrenovitch. Here's his crest, look. We are great friends. We used to go hunting together. A capital fellow! And a hand of iron, as a ruler should have! Oh, he won't stand any nonsense! No-o-o!'
Kallomyetsev sank into an easy chair, crossed his legs, and began in a leisurely way to draw off his left glove.
'If only we had some one like Mihail here in our province!'
'Why? Are you discontented with anything?'
Kallomyetsev puckered up his nose.
'Yes, always that provincial council! That provincial council! What good is it? It simply weakens the administration and arouses . . . superfluous ideas. . .' (Kallomyetsev waved his bare left hand, freed from the compression of the glove) '. . . and impossible expectations.' (Kallomyetsev breathed on his hand.) 'I have talked of this at Petersburg . . . mais bah! The wind's not in that quarter now. Even your husband . . . imagine! But of course he's a well-known liberal!'
Madame Sipyagin drew herself up on the little lounge.
'What? You, M'sieu Kallomyetsev, you in opposition to the government!'
'I? In opposition? Never! On no account! Mais j'ai mon franc parler, I sometimes criticise, but I always submit!'
'And I do just the opposite; I don't criticise and I don't submit.'
'Ah! mais c'est un mot! I will, if you will allow me, repeat your remark to my friend, Ladislas─vous savez─he is writing a society novel, and has already read me some chapters. It will be magnificent! Nous aurons enfin le grand monde russe peint par lui-même.'
'Where is it to appear?'
'In the Russian Messenger, of course. It is our Revue des Deux Mondes. I see you are reading that.'
'Yes; but do you know it is getting very dull?'
'Perhaps . . . perhaps. . . . And the Russian Messenger, perhaps, for some time past to speak in the language of the day─has been just a wee bit groggy.'
Kallomyetsev laughed heartily; he thought it very amusing to say 'groggy,' and even 'a wee bit.'
'Mais c'est un journal qui se respecte,' he went on. 'And that's the chief thing. I, I must admit, take very little interest in Russian literature; such plebeians are always figuring in it nowadays. It's positively come to the heroine of a novel being a cook, a plain cook, parole d'honneur! But Ladislas's novel I shall certainly read. Il y aura le petit mot pour rire . . . and the tendency! the tendency! The nihilists will be exposed. I can answer for Ladislas's way of thinking on that subject, qui est très correct!'
'More than one can say for his past,' remarked Madame Sipyagin.
'Ah! jetons un voile sur les erreurs de sa jeunesse!' cried Kallomyetsev, and he pulled off his right glove.
Again Valentina Mihilovna faintly fluttered her eyelids. She was in the habit of making rather free use of her marvellous eyes.
'Semyon Petrovitch,' she observed, 'may I ask you why it is that in speaking Russian you use so many French words? I fancy . . . excuse my saying so . . . that's gone out of fashion.'
'Why? why? Every one has not such a perfect mastery of our mother-tongue as you, for instance. As for me, I recognise the Russian language as the language of imperial decrees, of government regulations; I prize its purity. I do homage to Karamzin! . . . But the Russian, so to say, everyday language . . . does it really exist? How, for instance, could you translate my exclamation de tout a l'heure? C'est un mot! It's a word! . . . Fancy!'
'I should say: that's a clever saying.'
Kallomyetsev laughed.
'A clever saying! Valentina Mihalovna! But don't you feel there's . . . something scholastic directly. . . . All the raciness has gone. . ..'
'Well, you won't convince me. But what is Marianna doing?' She rang the bell; a page appeared.
'I gave orders to ask Marianna Vikentyevna to come down to the drawing-room. Hasn't my message been taken to her?'
Before the page had time to answer, there was seen in the doorway behind him a young girl in a loose dark blouse, with her hair cropped short, Marianna Vikentyevna, Sipyagin's niece.