Virgin Soil (Volume 2)/Chapter 8

by Ivan Turgenev

XXVIII

First they clasped each other's hands again; then Marianna cried, 'Come, I'll help you arrange your room,' and she began unpacking his things from the trunk and the bag. Nezhdanov would have helped her, but she declared she was going to do it all alone.

'Because I must get used to making myself useful' And she did in fact hang up his coat on nails which she found in the table drawer, and knocked into the wall, unaided, with the back of a brush for want of a hammer; the linen she laid in a little old chest which stood between the windows.

'What's this?' she asked suddenly; 'a revolver? Is it loaded? What do you want with it?'

'It's not loaded . . . but give it here, though. You ask what I want with it? How is one to get on without a revolver in our calling?'

She laughed and went on with her task, shaking out each thing separately and beating it with her hand; she even set two pairs of boots under the sofa; while the few books, a bundle of papers, and the little manuscript book of verses she arranged in triumph on a three-legged corner-table, saying it was to be the writing- and work-table, while the other round table she called the dinner- and tea-table. Then taking the book of verses in both hands, she raised it to a level with her face, and looking over its edge at Nezhdanov, she said with a smile, 'We'll read all this through together some time when we're not busy, won't we?—eh?'

'Give me that book! I'll burn it!' cried Nezhdanov. 'It's worth nothing better.'

'Why did you bring it with you, if so? No, no, I'm not going to give it you to be burnt. Though they say authors always make that threat, but never do burn their things. But any way, I 'd better carry it off!'

Nezhdanov tried to protest, but Marianna ran into the next room with the manuscript book and returned without it.

She sat down close to Nezhdanov, and instantly got up again. 'You haven't been . . . in my room yet. Would you like to see it? It's as nice as yours. Come, I'll show you.'

Nezhdanov got up too and followed Marianna. Her room, as she called it, was a little smaller than his room; but the furniture in it seemed rather newer and cleaner; in the window stood a glass vase of flowers, and in the corner a little iron bedstead.

'See how sweet of Solomin!' cried Marianna; 'only one mustn't let oneself be too much spoilt; we shan't often meet with such quarters. And what I think is, what would be nice would be to arrange things so that whatever place we have to go to we could go both together, without parting. It will be difficult,' she added after a short pause; 'well, we'll think of it. Any way, I suppose you won't go back to Petersburg?'

'What should I do in Petersburg? Go to the university and give lessons? That would be of no use now.'

'We'll see what Solomin says,' observed Marianna; 'he'll best decide how and what to do.'

They went back to the first room and again sat down beside each other. They spoke with praise of Solomin, Tatyana, and Pavel; they mentioned Sipyagin, and said how their old life seemed suddenly so far away from them, it seemed lost in a cloud; then they pressed each other's hands again, and exchanged glances of delight; then they talked of what sort of people they ought to try to do propaganda among, and how they must behave not to be suspected.

Nezhdanov maintained that the less they thought about that, the more simply they behaved, the better.

'Of course!' cried Marianna. 'Why, we want to be simplified, as Tatyana says.'

'I didn't mean in that sense,' Nezhdanov was beginning. 'I meant to say that we ought not to be constrained———'

Suddenly Marianna laughed.

'I remembered, Alyosha, how I called us both "simplified creatures"!'

Nezhdanov smiled too, repeated 'simplified,' and then sank into thought.

Marianna, too, was thoughtful.

'Alyosha!' she said.

'What?'

'I think we both feel a little awkward. Young people, des nouveaux mariés!' she explained, 'the first day of their honeymoon must feel something of the sort. They are happy . . . they are very content, and a little awkward.'

Nezhdanov smiled—a forced smile.

'You know very well, Marianna, that we are not a young couple in that sense.'

Marianna got up and stood directly facing Nezhdanov.

'That depends on you.'

'How?' 'Alyosha, you know that when you tell me as an honest man—and I shall believe you, for you really are an honest man—when you tell me that you love me with that love . . . well, that love that gives one a right to another person's life,—when you tell me that, I am yours.'

Nezhdanov blushed and turned a little away.

'When I tell you that. . .'

'Yes, then! But you see yourself you do not tell me so now. . ., Oh, yes, Alyosha, you certainly are an honest man. There, let us talk of matters of more importance.'

'But you know I love you, Marianna!'

'I don't doubt that . . . and I shall wait. There, I've not quite put your writing-table to rights yet. Here's something still wrapped up, something stiff.'

Nezhdanov jumped up from his chair.

'Let that be, Marianna.. . . Please . . . leave that alone.'

Marianna turned her head over her shoulder to look at him, and raised her eyebrows in amazement.

'Is it a mystery? A secret? You have a secret?'

'Yes . . . yes,' said Nezhdanov, and greatly disconcerted he added, by way of explanation, 'It's . . . a portrait.'

This word fell from him unconsciously. In the paper Marianna held in her hands there was wrapped up, in reality, her portrait, given to Nezhdanov by Markelov.

'A portrait?' she articulated in a voice of surprise.. . . 'A woman's?'

She gave him the little parcel, but he took it awkwardly; it almost slipped out of his hands and fell open.

'Why, it's . . . my portrait!' cried Marianna quickly. 'Well, I've a right to take my own portrait.' She took it from Nezhdanov.

'Did you sketch this?'

'No . . . not I.'

'Who, then? Markelov?'

'You've guessed. . . . It was he.'

'How did you come by it?'

'He gave it to me.'

'When?'

Nezhdanov told her how and when it had been given. Whilst he was speaking, Marianna glanced first at him and then at the portrait . . . and the same thought flashed through the heads of both: 'If he were in this room, he would have the right to ask.' . . . But neither Marianna nor Nezhdanov uttered this thought aloud . . . possibly because each of them was conscious of the thought in the other.

Marianna softly wrapped the portrait in the paper again, and laid it on the table.

'He's a good man!' she murmured.. . . 'Where is he now?'

'Where?. . . At home. I am going to see him to-morrow or next day to get books and pamphlets. He meant to give them to me, but I suppose he forgot it when I was leaving.'

'And do you think, Alyosha, that in giving you the portrait he renounced everything . . . absolutely everything?'

'I thought so.'

'And you hope to find him at home?'

'Of course.'

'Ah!'—Marianna lowered her eyes and dropped her hands. 'And here's Tatyana bringing us our dinner,' she cried suddenly. 'What a splendid woman she is!'

Tatyana appeared with knives and forks, table-napkins, and plates and dishes. While she was laying the table she told them what had been passing in the factory.

'The master came from Moscow by rail, and he set to running from floor to floor like one possessed; to be sure, he knows nothing about things, he only does like that for show, to keep up appearances. But Vassily Fedotitch treats him like a babe in arms. The master thought he'd say something nasty to him, so Vassily Fedotitsch suppressed him at once: 'I'll throw it all up directly,' says he, so our gentleman pretty soon changed his tune. Now they're dining together; and the master brought a companion with him.. . . And he does nought else but admire everything. And a moneyed man he must be, this companion, to judge from the way he holds his tongue and shakes his head. And he's stout too, very stout! A regular Moscow swell! Ah, it's a true saying: "It's downhill to Moscow from all parts of Russia; everything rolls down to her."'

'How you do notice everything!'cried Marianna.

'Yes, I'm pretty observant,' replied Tatyana. 'Come, your dinner's ready. And may it do you good. I'll sit here a little bit, and watch you.'

Marianna and Nezhdanov sat down to dinner; Tatyana leaned against the window-sill and rested her cheek in her hand.

'I watch you,' she repeated . . . 'and what poor young tender things you both are! . . . It's so pleasant to see you that it quite makes my heart ache! Ah, my dears! you're taking up a burden beyond your strength! It's such as you that the inspectors of the Tsar are ever eager to clap in custody!'

'Nonsense, my good soul, don't frighten us,' observed Nezhdanov. 'You know the saying. "If you choose to be a mushroom, you must go in the basket with the rest."'

'I know . . . I know; but the baskets nowadays are so narrow and hard to creep out of!'

'Have you any children?' Marianna asked, to change the conversation.

'Yes; a son. He begins to go to school. I had a little girl too; but she's no more, poor darling! She met with an accident; fell under a wheel. And if only it had killed her at once! But no, she lingered in suffering a long while. Since then I've grown tender-hearted; before then I was as hard as a tree!'

'Why, what of your man Pavel Yegoritch? didn't you love him?'

'Eh! that was a different matter; the feeling of a girl. And how about you, now—do you love your man?'

'Yes.'

'Very much?'

'Yes.'

'Yes?. . .' Tatyana looked at Nezhdanov, then at Marianna, and said no more.

It was again Marianna's lot to change the conversation. She told Tatyana she had given up smoking; the latter approved of her resolution. Then Marianna asked her again about clothes; and reminded her she had promised to show her how to cook.. . .

'Oh, and one thing more: could you get me some stout, coarse yarn? I'm going to knit myself some stockings . . . plain ones.'

Tatyana answered that everything should be done in due course, and, clearing the table, she went out of the room with her calm, resolute gait.

'Well, what shall we do now?' Marianna said, turning to Nezhdanov; and without letting him answer, 'What do you say? since our real work only begins to-morrow, shall we devote this evening to literature? Let's read your poems! I shall be a severe critic.'

For a long while Nezhdanov would not consent.. . . He ended, however, by giving in, and began to read out of his manuscript book. Marianna sat close beside him, and watched his face while he was reading. She had spoken truly; she turned out to be a severe critic. Few of the verses pleased her; she preferred the purely lyrical, short ones, that were, as she expressed it, non-didactic. Nezhdanov did not read quite well; he had not the courage to attempt elocution, and at the same time was unwilling to fall into quite a colourless tone; the result was neither one thing nor the other. Marianna suddenly interrupted him with the question, Did he know a wonderful poem of Dobrolyubov's beginning, 'Let me die—small cause for grief'?^[1] and thereupon read it to him—also not very well—in a rather childish manner.

Nezhdanov observed that it was bitter and painful to the last degree, and then added that he, Nezhdanov, could never have written such a poem, because he had no reason to be afraid of tears over his grave . . . there would be none.

'There will be, if I outlive you,' Marianna articulated slowly; and raising her eyes to the ceiling, after a brief silence, in an undertone as though speaking to herself, she queried, 'How ever did he draw a portrait of me? From memory?'

Nezhdanov turned quickly to her.. . .

'Yes, from memory.'

Marianna was amazed at his answering. It seemed to her that she had merely thought the question.

'It is astonishing . . .' she went on in the same subdued voice; 'why, he has no talent for drawing. What was I going to say?' she resumed aloud; 'oh, about Dobrolyubov's poem. One ought to write poems like Pushkin's, or such as that one of Dobrolyubov's: this is not poetry . . . though it's something as good.'

'And poems like mine,' said Nezhdanov, 'ought not to be written at all? Eh?'

'Poems like yours please your friends not because they are very fine, but because you are a fine person, and they are like you.'

Nezhdanov smiled.

'You have buried them, and me with them!'

Marianna gave him a slap on his hand and told him he was too bad.. . . Soon after she announced that she was tired and was going to bed.

'By the way, do you know,' she added, shaking her short, thick curls, 'I've got one hundred and thirty-seven roubles; what have you?'

'Ninety-eight.'

'Oh! but we're rich . . . for simplified creatures. Well, good-bye till to-morrow!'

She went out; but a few instants later her door was slightly opened, and through the narrow crack he heard first, 'Good-bye!' then more softly, 'Good-bye!' and the key clicked in the lock.

Nezhdanov sank on to the sofa and covered his eyes with his hand.. . . Then he got up quickly, went up to the door, and knocked.

'What is it?' came from within.

'Not till to-morrow, Marianna . . . but to-morrow!'

'To-morrow,' responded a gentle voice.

1. And let me die—small cause for grief;
   One thought alone frets my sick mind;
   That death may chance to play
   An unkind jest with me.
   
   

   I dread lest over my cold corpse
   The scalding tears should flow;
   And lest some one with stupid zeal
   Lay flowers upon my bier;
   
   

   Lest flocking round in unfeigned grief.
   My friends walk after it to the grave;
   Lest as I lie under the earth,
   I may become one loved and prized;
   
   

   Lest all so eagerly desired,
   And so in vain by me—in life,
   May smile on me consolingly
   Above the stone that marks my grave.
   Dobr., Works, vol. iv, p. 615,