Virgin Soil (Volume 2)/Chapter 9

by Ivan Turgenev

XXIX

The next day early in the morning Nezhdanov again knocked at Marianna's door.

'It's I,' he said in answer to her 'Who's there?' 'Can you come out to me?'

'Wait a minute . . . directly.'

She came out, and uttered a cry of astonishment. For the first minute she did not recognise him. He had on a long full-skirted coat of threadbare, yellowish nankin, with tiny buttons and a high waist; he had combed his hair in the Russian style, with a straight parting in the middle; his neck was wrapped in a blue kerchief; in his hand he held a cap with a broken peak; on his feet were unpolished high boots of calf leather.

'Good gracious!' cried Marianna; 'how . . . horrid you look!' and thereupon she gave him a rapid embrace, and a still more rapid kiss. 'But why are you dressed like that? You look like a poor sort of shopkeeper . . . or a pedlar, or a discharged house-serf. Why that coat with skirts, and not simply a peasant's smock?'

'That's just it,' began Nezhdanov, who in his get-up did really resemble a pedlar, and he was conscious of this himself, and was full of vexation and embarrassment at heart; he was so much embarrassed that he kept striking himself on the breast with the outspread fingers of both hands, as though he were brushing himself.

'In a smock I should have been recognised at once, so Pavel declared; and this costume . . . in his words . . . looked as though I'd never had any other dress cut for me in my life! Not very flattering to my vanity, I may remark in parenthesis.'

'Do you really mean to go out at once . . . to begin?' Marianna inquired with keen interest.

'Yes; I shall try, though . . . in reality . . .'

'Happy fellow!' interrupted Marianna.

'This Pavel is really a wonderful man,' Nezhdanov went on; 'he knows everything, directly he sets eyes on you; and then all of a sudden he purses up his face, as though he were outside it all,—and wouldn't meddle in anything! He serves the cause himself—and makes fun of it all the while. He brought me the pamphlets from Markelov; he knows him and speaks of him as Sergei Mihalovitch. But for Solomin he'd go through fire and water.'

'And so would Tatyana,' observed Marianna. 'Why is it people are so devoted to him?'

Nezhdanov did not answer.

'What sort of pamphlets did Pavel bring you?' asked Marianna.

'Oh! the usual things. "The Tale of Four Brothers," . . . and others too . . . the ordinary well-known things. However, those are best.'

Marianna looked round anxiously.

'But what of Tatyana? She promised to come so early.'

'Here she is,' said Tatyana, coming into the room with a small bundle in her hand. She was standing at the door, and had heard Marianna's exclamation.

'You need not be in a hurry; it's not such a treat as all that.'

Marianna fairly flew to meet her.

'You have brought it!'

Tatyana patted the bundle.

'Everything's here . . . fully prepared.. . . You've only got to put the things on . . . and go out in your finery for folks to admire you.'

'Ah, come along, come along, Tatyana Osipovna, dear.. . .'

Marianna drew her into her room.

Left alone, Nezhdanov paced twice up and down with a peculiar stealthy gait.. . . (he imagined for some reason that that was just how small shopkeepers walked); he sniffed cautiously at his own sleeve, and the lining of his cap—and frowned; he looked at himself in a little looking-glass hanging on the wall near the window, and shook his head; he certainly looked very unattractive. 'All the better, though,' he thought. Then he took up a few pamphlets, stuffed them in his skirt pocket, and murmured a few words to himself in the accent of a small shopkeeper. 'I fancy that's like it,' he thought again; 'but after all, what need of acting? my get-up will answer for me.' And at that point Nezhdanov recollected a German convict, who had had to run away right across Russia, and he spoke Russian badly, too; but thanks to a merchant's cap edged with cat's-skin, which he had bought in a provincial town, he was taken everywhere for a merchant, and had successfully made his way over the frontier.

At that instant Solomin came in.

'Aha! brother Alexey,' he cried; 'you're studying your part! Excuse me, brother; in that disguise one can't address you respectfully.'

'Oh, please do. . . . I'd meant to ask you to call me so.'

'Only it's awfully early yet; but, there, I suppose you want to get used to it. Well, then, all right. But you'll have to wait a bit; the master's not gone yet. He's asleep.'

'I'll go out later on,' answered Nezhdanov. 'I'm going to walk about the neighbourhood till I get instructions of some sort.'

'That's right! Only I tell you what, brother Alexey . . . I may call you Alexey, then?'

''Lexey, if you like,' said Nezhdanov, smiling.

'No; we mustn't overdo it. Listen! good counsel is better than money, as they say. I see you have pamphlets there; you can give them to whom you please—only not in the factory!'

'Why not?'

'Because, in the first place, it would be risky for you; secondly, I have pledged myself to the owner that there shall be nothing of the sort going on—after all, the factory's his, you know; and thirdly, we have something started there—schools and so on.. . . And—well—you might ruin all that. Act as you please, as best you may—I will not hinder you; but don't touch my factory-hands.'

'Caution never comes amiss . . . hey?' Nezhdanov remarked with a malignant half-smile.

Solomin smiled his own broad smile.

'Just so, brother Alexey; it never comes amiss. But who is this I see? Where are we?'

These last exclamations referred to Marianna, who appeared in the doorway of her room in a sprigged chintz gown, that had seen many washings, with a yellow 'kerchief on her shoulders and a red one on her head. Tatyana was peeping out from behind her back, in simple and kindly admiration of her. Marianna looked both fresher and younger in her simple costume; it suited her far better than the long full-skirted coat suited Nezhdanov.

'Vassily Fedotitch, please don't laugh,' Marianna entreated, and she flushed the colour of a poppy.

'What a pretty pair!' Tatyana was exclaiming, meanwhile clapping her hands. 'Only you, my dear laddie, don't be angry, you're nice, very nice—but beside my little lass here you cut no figure at all.'

'And, really, she's exquisite,' thought Nezhdanov; 'oh! how I love her!'

'And look-ee' went on Tatyana, 'she's changed rings with me. She's given me her gold one and taken my silver one.'

'Girls of the people don't wear gold rings,' said Marianna.

Tatyana sighed.

'I'll take care of it for you, dearie, never fear.'

'Well, sit down; sit down, both of you,' began Solomin, who had been all the time watching Marianna, with his head a little bent; 'in old days you remember folks always used to sit down together for a bit when they were setting off on their road. And you've both a long, hard road before you.'

Marianna, still rosy red, sat down; Nezhdanov too sat down; Solomin sat down; and last of all Tatyana too sat down on a thick log of wood standing on end.

Solomin looked at all of them in turn:

'Step back a bit
And look at it,
How nicely here we all do sit . . .'

he said, slightly screwing up his eyes; and all of a sudden he burst out laughing, but so nicely that, far from feeling offended, they were all delighted.

But Nezhdanov suddenly got up.

'I'm off,' he said,'this minute; though this is all very delightful—only a trifle like a farce with dressing-up in it. Don't be uneasy,' he turned to Solomin; 'I won't touch your factory-hands. I will do a little talking about the suburbs, and come back, and I'll tell you all my adventures, Marianna, if only there's anything to tell. Give me your hand for good luck!'

'A cup of tea'd be as well first,' observed Tatyana.

'No! tea-drinking indeed! If I want anything I'll go to a tavern or simply a gin-shop.'

Tatyana shook her head.

'Those taverns swarm along our highroads nowadays like fleas in a sheepskin. The villages are all so big—why, Balmasovo . . .'

'Good-bye, till we meet . . . may I leave good luck with you!' Nezhdanov added, correcting himself and entering into his part as a small shopkeeper. But before he had reached the door, Pavel poked his head in from the corridor under his very nose, and handing him a long thin staff, peeled, with a strip of bark running round it like a screw, he said: 'Please take it, Alexey Dmitritch; lean on it as you walk; and the further you hold the stick away from you the better effect it will have.'

Nezhdanov took the staff without speaking and went off; Pavel followed him. Tatyana was about to go away too; Marianna got up and stopped her.

'Wait a little, Tatyana Osipovna; I want you.'

'But I'll be back in a minute with the samovar. Your comrade went off without any tea, —he was in such a desperate hurry.. . . But why should you deny yourself? Later on things'll be clearer.'

Tatyana went out; Solomin too rose. Marianna was standing with her back to him, and when she did at last turn round to him—seeing that for a very long time he had not uttered a single word—she caught in his face, in his eyes which were fastened upon her, an expression she had never seen in him before, an expression of inquiry, of anxiety, almost of curiosity. She was disconcerted and blushed again. And Solomin seemed ashamed of what she had caught sight of in his face, and he began talking louder than usual:

'Well, well, Marianna . . . here you've made a beginning.'

'A fine beginning, Vassily Fedotitch! How can one call it a beginning? I feel somehow very stupid all of a sudden. Alexey was right; we are really acting a sort of farce.'

Solomin sat down again on his chair.

'But, Marianna, let me say . . . How did you picture it to yourself—the beginning? It's not a matter of building barricades with a flag over them, and shouting hurrah! for the republic! And that's not a woman's work either. But you now to-day will start training some Lukerya in something good, and it'll be a hard task for you, as Lukerya won't be over quick of understanding, and she'll be shy of you, and will fancy too that what you're trying to teach her won't be of the least use to her; and in a fortnight or three weeks you'll be struggling with some other Lukerya, and meanwhile you'll be washing a child or teaching him his A B C, or giving medicine to a sick man . . . that will be your beginning.'

'But the sisters of mercy do all that, you know, Vassily Fedotitch! What need, then . . . of all this?' Marianna pointed to herself and round about her with a vague gesture. 'I dreamt of something else.'

'You wanted to sacrifice yourself?'

Marianna's eyes glistened.

'Yes . . . yes . . . yes!'

'And Nezhdanov?'

Marianna shrugged her shoulders.

'What of Nezhdanov! We will go forward together . . . or I will go alone.'

Solomin looked intently at Marianna.

'Do you know what, Marianna . . . you will excuse the unpleasantness of the expression . . . but to my idea, combing the scurfy head of a dirty urchin is a sacrifice, and a great sacrifice, of which not many people are capable.'

'But I would not refuse to do that, Vassily Fedotitch.'

'I know you wouldn't! Yes, you are capable of that. And that's what you will be doing for a time; and afterwards, maybe—something else too.'

'But to do that I must learn from Tatyana!'

'By all means . . . get her to show you. You will scour pots, and pluck chickens.. . . And so, who knows, maybe you will save your country!'

'You are laughing at me, Vassily Fedotitch.'

Solomin shook his head slowly.

'O my sweet Marianna! believe me, I am not laughing at you; and my words are the simple truth. You now, all of you, Russian women, are more capable, and loftier too, than we men.'

Marianna raised her downcast eyes.

'I should like to justify your expectations, Solomin . . . and then—I'm ready to die!'

Solomin got up.

'No, live . . . live! That's the great thing. By the way, don't you want to find out what is taking place in your home now, as regards your flight? Won't they take steps of some sort? We need only drop a word to Pavel—he'll reconnoitre in no time.'

Marianna was surprised.

'What an extraordinary man he is!'

'Yes . . . he's rather a wonderful fellow. For instance, when you want to celebrate your marriage with Alexey—he'll arrange that too with Zosim.. . . You remember I told you there was a priest.. . . But I suppose there's no need of him for a while? No?'

'No.'

'No, then,' Solomin went up to the door that separated the two rooms—Nezhdanov's and Marianna's—and bent down over the lock.

'What are you looking at there?' asked Marianna.

'Does it lock?'

'Yes,' whispered Marianna.

Solomin turned to her. She did not raise her eyes.

'Then, there's no need to find out what are Sipyagin's intentions?' he observed cheerfully; 'no need, eh?'

Solomin was about to go away.

'Vassily Fedotitch . . .'

'What is it?'

'Tell me, please, why is it you, who are always so silent, are so talkative with me? You don't know how much it pleases me.'

'Why is it?'—Solomin took both her little soft hands in his big rough ones—'Why?—Well, it must be because I like you so much. Good-bye.'

He went out.. . . Marianna stood a little, looked after him, thought a little, and went off to Tatyana, who had not yet brought in the samovar, and with whom she did—it is true—drink tea, but she also scoured pots, and plucked chickens, and even combed out the tangled mane of a small boy.

About dinner-time she returned to her little apartments.. . . She had not long to wait for Nezhdanov.

He returned, weary and covered with dust, and almost fell on to the sofa. She at once sat down beside him. 'Well? well? Tell me!'

'You remember those two lines,' he answered in a weak voice:

 '"It would all have been so comic
 If it had not been so sad"?

Do you remember?'

'Of course I do.'

'Well, those lines apply precisely to my first expedition. But no! There was positively more of the comic in it. In the first place, I'm convinced that nothing's easier than to play a part; no one dreamt of suspecting me. But there was one thing I had not thought of—one wants to make up some sort of story beforehand . . . they keep asking one—where you're from, and what you're doing—and you have nothing ready. However, even that's hardly necessary. One's only to propose a dram of vodka at the gin-shop, and lie away as one pleases.'

'And you . . . did tell lies?' asked Marianna.

'I lied . . . the best I could. The second point is: all, absolutely all the people I talked to are discontented; and no one even cares to know how to remedy this discontent! But at propaganda I seem to be a very poor hand; two pamphlets I simply left secretly in a room—one I thrust into a cart.. . . What'll come of them the Lord only knows! I offered pamphlets to four men. One asked was it a religious book, and did not take it; another said he could not read, and took it for his children as there was a woodcut on the cover: a third began by agreeing with me. "To be sure, to be sure . . ." then all of a sudden fell to swearing at me in the most unexpected way, and he too did not take one; the fourth at last took one, and thanked me very much for it, but I fancy he couldn't make head or tail of what I said to him. Besides that, a dog bit my leg; a peasant woman brandished a fire-shovel at me from the door of her hut, shouting, "Ugh! you beast! You Moscow loafers! Will nothing drown you?" And a soldier on furlough, too, kept shouting after me, "Wait a minute, we'll put a bullet through you, my friend"; and he'd got drunk on my money!'

'Anything more?'

'Anything more? I've rubbed a blister on my heel; one of my boots is awfully big. And now I'm hungry, and my head's splitting from the vodka.'

'Have you drunk much, then?'

'No, not much—only to set the example; but I've been in five ginshops. But I can't stand that filth—vodka—a bit. And how our peasant can drink it passes my understanding! If one must drink vodka to be simplified, I'd rather be excused.'

'And so no one suspected you?'

'No one. An innkeeper, a stout, pale man with whitish eyes, was the only person who looked at me suspiciously. I heard him tell his wife to "keep an eye on that red-haired chap . . . with the squint." (I never knew till then that I squinted.) "He's a sharper. Do you see how ponderously he drinks?" What ponderously means in that context I didn't understand; but it could hardly be a compliment. Something after the style of Gogol's "movy-ton" in the Revising Inspector; do you remember? Perhaps because I tried to pour my vodka under the table on the sly. Ugh! it's hard, it's hard for an æsthetic creature to be brought into contact with real life!'

'Better luck next time,' Marianna consoled Nezhdanov. 'But I'm glad that you look at your first attempt from a humorous point of view.. . . You weren't bored really?'

'No, I wasn't bored; in fact, I was amused. But I know for a certainty I shall begin to think over it now, and I shall feel so sick and so sad.'

'No, no! I won't let you think. I'm going to tell you what I've been doing. Dinner'll be brought us in directly; by the way, I must tell you I've scoured out most thoroughly the pot Tatyana's cooked the soup in.. . . And I shall tell you . . . everything over every spoonful.'

And so she did. Nezhdanov listened to her chat, and looked and looked at her . . . so that several times she stopped to let him tell her why he was looking at her like that.. . . But he was silent.

After dinner she offered to read aloud to him some of Spielhagen. But before she had finished the first page, he got up impulsively, and, going up to her, fell at her feet. She stood up, he flung both his arms round her knees, and began to utter passionate words—disconnected and despairing words! 'He would

N. V. Gogol

N. V. Gogol.

like to die, he knew he would soon die.. . .' She did not stir, did not resist; she calmly submitted to his abrupt embrace, calmly, even caressingly, looked down at him. She laid both hands on his head, that was shaking convulsively in the folds of her dress. But her very calmness had a more powerful effect on him than if she had repulsed him. He got up, murmured: 'Forgive me, Marianna, for what has passed to-day and yesterday; tell me again that you are ready to wait till I am worthy of your love, and forgive me.'

'I have given you my word . . . and I can't change.'

'Thank you; good-bye.'

Nezhdanov went out; Marianna locked herself in her room.