VII
Out of doors it was really cold; but Albert did not feel it, he was so excited by the wine that he had taken and by the quarrel.
As he entered the street, he looked around him, and rubbed his hands with pleasure. The street was empty, but the long lines of lights were still brilliantly gleaming; the sky was clear and beautiful. "What!" he cried, addressing the lighted window in Delesof's apartments; and then thrusting his hands in his trousers pockets under his coat, and looking straight ahead, he walked with heavy and uncertain steps straight up the street.
He felt an absolute weight in his legs and abdomen, something hummed in his head, some invisible power seemed to hurl him from side to side; but he still plunged ahead in the direction of where Anna Ivánovna lived.
Strange, disconnected thoughts rushed through his head. Now he remembered his quarrel with Zakhár, now something recalled the sea and his first voyage in the steamboat to Russia; now the merry night that he had spent with some friend in the wine-shop by which he was passing; then suddenly there came to him a familiar air singing itself in his recollections, and he seemed to see the object of his passion and the terrible night in the theatre.
But notwithstanding their incoherence, all these recollections presented themselves before his imaginations with such distinctness that when he closed his eyes he could not tell which was nearer to the reality: what he was doing, or what he was thinking. He did not realize and he did not feel how his legs moved, how he staggered and hit against a wall, how he looked around him, and how he made his way from street to street.
As he went along the Little Morskaya, Albert tripped and fell. Collecting himself in a moment, he saw before him some huge and magnificent edifice, and he went toward it.
In the sky not a star was to be seen, nor sign of dawn, nor moon, neither were there any street-lights there; but all objects were perfectly distinguishable. The windows of the edifice, which loomed up at the corner of the street, were brilliantly lighted, but the lights wavered like reflections. The building kept coming nearer and nearer, clearer and clearer, to Albert.
But the lights vanished the moment that Albert entered the wide portals. Inside it was dark. He took a few steps under the vaulted ceiling, and something like shades glided by and fled at his approach.
"Why did I come here?" wondered Albert; but some irresistible power dragged him forward into the depths of the immense hall.
There stood some lofty platform, and around it in silence stood what seemed like little men. "Who is going to speak?" asked Albert. No one answered, but some one pointed to the platform. There stood now on the platform a tall, thin man, with bushy hair and dressed in a variegated gown. Albert immediately recognized his friend Petrof.
"How strange! what is he doing here?" said Albert to himself.
"No, brethren," said Petrof, pointing to something, "you did not appreciate the man while he was living among you; you did not appreciate him! He was not a cheap artist, not a merely mechanical performer, not a crazy, ruined man. He was a genius, a great musical genius, who perished among you unknown and unvalued."
Albert immediately understood of whom his friend was speaking; but not wishing to interrupt him, he hung his head modestly. "He, like a sheaf of straw, was wholly consumed by the sacred fire which we all serve," continued the voice. "But he has completely fulfilled all that God gave him; therefore he ought to be considered a great man. You may despise him, torture him, humiliate him," continued the voice, more and more energetically, "but he has been, is, and will be immeasurably higher than you all. He is happy, he is good. He loved you all alike, or cared for you, it is all the same; but he has served only that with which he was so highly endowed. He loved one thing, – beauty, the only infinite good in the world. Oh, yes, what a man he is! Fall all of you before him. On your knees!" cried Petrof in a thundering voice.
But another voice mildly answered from another corner of the hall. "I do not wish to bow my knee before him," said the voice.
Albert instantly recognized Delesof.
"Why is he great? And why should we bow before him? Has he conducted himself in an honorable and righteous manner? Has he brought society any advantage? Do we not know how he borrowed money, and never returned it; how he carried off a violin that belonged to a brother artist, and pawned it?"
"My God! how did he know all that?" said Albert to himself, drooping his head still lower.
"Do we not know," the voice went on, "how he pandered to the lowest of the low, pandered to them for money? Do we not know how he was driven out of the theatre? How Anna Ivánovna threatened to hand him over to the police?"
"My God! that is all true, but protect me," cried Albert. "You are the only one who knows why I did so."
"Stop, for shame!" cried Petrof's voice again. "What right have you to accuse him? Have you lived his life? Have you experienced his enthusiasms?"
"Right! right!" whispered Albert.
"Art is the highest manifestation of power in man. It is given only to the favored few, and it lifts the chosen to such an eminence that the head swims, and it is hard to preserve its integrity. In art, as in every struggle, there are heroes who bring all under subjection to them, and perish if they do not attain their ends."
Petrof ceased speaking; and Albert lifted his head, and tried to shout in a loud voice, "Right! right!" but his voice died without a sound.
"That is not the case with you. This does not concern you," sternly said the artist Petrof, addressing Delesof. "Yes, humble him, despise him," he continued, "for he is better and happier than all the rest of you."
Albert, with rapture in his heart at hearing these words, could not contain himself, but went up to his friend, and was about to kiss him.
"Get thee gone, I do not know you," replied Petrof. "Go your own way, you cannot come here."
"Here, you drunken fellow, you cannot come here," cried a policeman at the crossing.
Albert hesitated, then collected all his forces, and, endeavoring not to stumble, crossed over to the next street.
It was only a few steps to Anna Ivánovna's. From the hall of her house a stream of light fell on the snowy dvor, and at the gate stood sledges and carriages.
Clinging with both hands to the balustrade, he made his way up the steps, and rang the bell.
The maid's sleepy face appeared at the open door, and looked angrily at Albert.
"It is impossible," she cried; "I have been forbidden to let you in," and she slammed the door. The sounds of music and women's voices floated down to him.
Albert sat down on the ground, and leaned his head against the wall, and shut his eyes. At that very instant a throng of indistinct but correlated visions took possession of him with fresh force, mastered him, and carried him off into the beautiful and free domain of fancy.
"Yes! he is better and happier," involuntarily the voice repeated in his imagination.
From the door were heard the sounds of a polka. These sounds also told him that he was better and happier. In a neighboring church was heard the sound of a prayer-bell; and the prayer-bell also told him that he was better and happier.
"Now I will go back to that hall again," said Albert to himself. "Petrof must have many things still to tell me."
There seemed to be no one now in the hall; and in the place of the artist Petrof, Albert himself stood on the platform, and was playing on his violin all that the voice had said before.
But his violin was of strange make: it was composed of nothing but glass, and he had to hold it with both hands, and slowly rub it on his breast to make it give out sounds. The sounds were so sweet and delicious, that Albert felt he had never before heard any thing like them. The more tightly he pressed the violin to his breast, the more sweet and consoling they became. The louder the sounds, the more swiftly the shadows vanished, and the more brilliantly the walls of the hall were illuminated. But it was necessary to play very cautiously on the violin, lest it should break.
Albert played on the instrument of glass cautiously and well. He played things the like of which he felt no one would ever hear again.
He was growing tired, when a heavy distant sound began to annoy him. It was the sound of a bell, but this sound seemed to have a language.
"Yes," said the bell, with its notes coming from somewhere far off and high up, "yes, he seems to you wretched; you despise him, but he is better and happier than you. No one ever will play more on that instrument!"
These words which he understood seemed suddenly so wise, so novel, and so true, to Albert, that he stopped playing, and, while trying not to move, lifted his eyes and his arms toward heaven. He felt that he was beautiful and happy. Although no one was in the hall, Albert expanded his chest, and proudly lifted his head, and stood on the platform so that all might see him.
Suddenly some one's hand was gently laid on his shoulder; he turned around, and in the half light saw a woman. She looked pityingly at him, and shook her head. He immediately became conscious that what he was doing was wrong, and a sense of shame came over him.
"Where shall I go?" he asked her. Once more she gazed long and fixedly at him, and bent her head pityingly. She was the one, the very one whom he loved, and her dress was the same; on her round white neck was the pearl necklace, and her lovely arms were bare above the elbows.
She took him in her arms, and bore him away through the hall. At the entrance of the hall, Albert saw the moon and water. But the water was not below as is usually the case, and the moon was not above; there was a white circle in one place as sometimes happens. The moon and the water were together, – everywhere, above and below, and on all sides and around them both. Albert and his love darted off toward the moon and the water, and he now realized that she whom he loved more than all in the world was in his arms: he embraced her, and felt inexpressible felicity.
"Is not this a dream?" he asked himself. But no, it was the reality, it was more than reality: it was reality and recollection combined.
Then he felt that the indescribable pleasure which he had felt during the last moment was gone, and would never be renewed.
"Why am I weeping?" he asked of her. She looked at him in silence, with pitying eyes. Albert understood what she desired to say in reply. "Just as when I was alive," he went on to say. She, without replying, looked straight forward.
"This is terrible! How can I explain to her that I am alive?" he asked himself in horror. "My God, I am alive! Do understand me," he whispered.
"He is better and happier," said a voice.
But something kept oppressing Albert ever more powerfully. Whether it was the moon or the water, or her embrace or his tears, he could not tell, but he was conscious that he could not say all that it was his duty to say, and that all would be quickly over.
Two guests coming out from Anna Ivánovna's rooms stumbled against Albert lying on the threshold. One of them went back to Anna Ivánovna, and called her. "That was heartless," he said. "You might let a man freeze to death that way."
"Akh! why, that is my Albert. See where he was lying!" exclaimed the hostess. "Annushka, have him brought into the room; find a place for him somewhere," she added, addressing the maid.
"Oh! I am alive, why do you bury me?" muttered Albert, as they brought him unconscious into the room.
TWO HUSSARS
A TALE
1856
Jomini, ay, Jomini,
But not a single word of vodka.56
D. Davuidof.
At the very beginning of this century, when there were no railways, no macadamized roads, no gas or stearine candles, no low and springy sofas, no unvarnished furniture, no disillusionized young men with eye-glasses, no women philosophers of liberal tendencies, no dear Camilles, such as our time has produced in abundance; in those naïve days when travellers made the journey from Moscow to Petersburg by stage or carriage, and took with them a whole kitchen of domestic preparations, and travelled for a week, night and day, over soft roads, muddy or dusty as the case might be, pinned their faith to Pozharsky cutlets, Valdaï bluebells, and pretzels; when during the long autumn evenings tallow candles burned till they had to be snuffed, and cast their rays on family circles of twenty or thirty people (at balls, wax or spermaceti candles were set up in candelabra); when furniture was placed with stiff precision; when our fathers were still young, not merely by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but fought duels for women, and were fain to rush from one end of a room to the other to pick up a handkerchief dropped accidentally or otherwise, and our mothers wore short waists and huge sleeves, and decided family affairs by the drawing of lots; when charming Camilles avoided the light of day; in the naïve period of Masonic lodges, of Martinists, and of the Tugendbund; at the time of the Miloradovitches, Davuidofs, and Pushkins, – a meeting of landed proprietors took place in the governmental city of K., and the election of the college of nobles was drawing to a close.
I
"Well, all right, it's all the same, be it in the hall," said a young officer dressed in a shuba, and wearing a hussar's helmet, as he dismounted from a travelling sledge in front of the best hotel of the city of K.
"A great meeting, little father, your excellency, – a tremendous crowd," said the hall-boy, who had already learned from the officer's man that it was Count Turbin, and therefore honored him with the address of "your excellency." "Madame Afrimova and her daughters have expressed the intention of going away this evening; you can be accommodated with their room as soon as it is vacated, – No. 11," the hall-boy went on to say, noiselessly showing the count the way, and constantly turning round to look at him.
In the sitting-room, at a small table under a blackened full-length portrait of the Emperor Alexander, sat a number of men, evidently belonging to the local aristocracy, drinking champagne; and on one side were some travelling merchants in blue shubas.
The count entered the room, and calling Blücher, a huge gray boarhound that accompanied him, he threw off his cloak, the collar of which was covered with frost, and, after ordering vodka, sat down at the table in a short blue-satin jacket, and entered into conversation with the gentlemen sitting there. The latter, attracted toward the new-comer by his handsome and frank exterior, offered him a glass of champagne.
The count had begun to drink his glass of vodka; but now he also ordered a bottle of champagne, in order to return the courtesy of his new companions.
The driver came in to ask for vodka-money.
"Sashka,"57 cried the count, "give it to him."
The driver went out with Sashka, but quickly returned, holding the money in his hands.
"What! little father, 'slency, is that right? I did my best for you. You promised me a half-ruble, and you have only given me a quarter!"
"Sashka, give him a ruble."
Sashka, hanging down his head, gazed at the driver's feet.
"He will have enough," said he in his deep voice. "Besides, I haven't any more money."
The count drew from his pocket-book the two solitary blue notes58 which were in it, and gave one to the driver, who kissed his hand, and went off. "I have come to the end," said the count, "my last five rubles."
"True hussar style, count," said one of the nobles, whose mustaches, voice, and a certain energetic freedom in the use of his legs, proclaimed him, beyond a peradventure, to be a retired cavalryman. "Are you going to spend some time here, count?"
"I must have some money if I stay, otherwise I should not be very likely to. Besides, there are no spare rooms, the Devil take it, in this cursed tavern."
"I beg of you, count," pursued the cavalryman, "wouldn't you like to come in with me? My room is No. 7. If you wouldn't object to sleep there for the present. We shall be here three days at least. To-day I was at the marshal's: how glad he would be to see you!"
"That's right, count, stay with us," urged another of the table companions, a handsome young man. "What is your hurry? And besides, this happens only once in three years, – these elections. We might get a glimpse of some of our girls, count!"
"Sashka, get me some clean linen. I am going to have a bath," said the count, rising. "And then we will see; perhaps I may decide to pay my respects to the marshal."
Then he called the waiter, and said something to him in an undertone. The waiter replied, with a laugh, "That is within human possibility," and went out.
"Well, then, little father, I have given orders to have my trunk taken to your room," cried the count, as he went out of the door.
"I shall consider it a favor: it delights me," replied the cavalryman as he hastened to the door, and cried, "No.7; don't forget!"
When the count was out of hearing, the cavalryman returned to his place, and drawing his chair nearer to the chinovnik, and looking him straight in his smiling eyes, said, —
"Well, he's the very one."
"What one?"
"I tell you that he's that very same hussar duellist, – let me see, the famous Turbin. He knew me. I'll wager he knew me. I assure you, at Lebedyan he and I were on a spree for three weeks, and were never sober once. That was when I lost my remount. There was one little affair at that time, – we were engaged in it together. Ah, he is a gay lad! isn't he, though?"
"Indeed he is. What pleasant manners he has! There's no fault to be found with him," replied the handsome young man. "How quickly we became acquainted!.. He isn't more than twenty-two, is he?"
"He certainly would not seem so, would he?.. But he's really more than that. Well, now you want to know who he is, don't you? Who carried off Megunova? He did. He killed Sablin. He kicked Matnyef out of the window. He 'did' Prince Nesterof out of three hundred thousand rubles. He's a regular madcap. You ought to know him, – a gambler, duellist, seducer, but a whole-souled fellow, a genuine hussar. We got talked about a good deal, but if any one really understood what it meant to be a genuine hussar! Those were great times."
And the cavalryman began to tell his comrade of a drinking-bout with the count, which had never taken place, nor could have taken place. It could not have taken place, first, because he had never seen the count before, and had retired from the service two years before the count had entered it; and secondly, because this cavalryman had never served in the cavalry, but had served four years as a very insignificant yunker in the Bielevsky regiment; and just as soon as he was promoted to be ensign, he retired.
But ten years before he had received an inheritance, and actually went to Lebedyan; and there he spent seven hundred rubles with the cavalry officers, and had had made for him an uhlan's uniform with orange lapels, with the intention of entering the uhlans. His thought of entering the cavalry, and his three weeks spent with the officers at Lebedyan, made the very happiest and most brilliant period of his life; so that he began to transfer his thought into a reality. Then, as he added remembrance to it, he began actually to believe in his military past, – which did not prevent him from being a worthy man through his kindness of heart and uprightness.
"Yes, any one who has never served in the cavalry," he went on to say, "will never understand us fellows."
He sat astride of his chair, and, thrusting out his lower lip, went on in a deep voice, "It happens you are riding along in front of the battalion. A devil is under you, not a horse, prancing along; thus you sit on this perfect devil. The battalion commander comes along. 'Lieutenant,' says he, 'I beg of you – your service is absolutely indispensable. You must lead the battalion for the parade.' Very well, and so it goes. You look around, you give a shout, you lead the brave fellows who are under your command. Ah! the deuce take it! 'twas a glorious time!"
The count came back from the bath, all ruddy, and with his hair wet, and went directly to No. 7, where the cavalryman was already sitting in his dressing-gown, with his pipe, and thinking with delight and some little anxiety of the good fortune that had befallen him in sharing his room with the famous Turbin. "Well, now," the thought came into his head, "suppose he should take me, and strip me naked, and carry me outside the town limits, and set me down in the snow, … or smear me with tar … or simply … But, no: he would not do such a thing to a comrade," he said, trying to comfort himself.
"Sashka, give Blücher something to eat," cried the count.
Sashka made his appearance. He had been drinking glasses of vodka ever since his arrival, and was beginning to be genuinely tipsy.
"You have not been able to control yourself. You have been getting drunk, canaillya!.. Feed Blücher."
"It won't kill him to fast… You see, … he's so plump," replied Sashka, caressing the dog.
"Now, none of your impudence. Go, and feed him."
"All you care for is to have your dog fat; but if a man drinks a little glass, then you pitch into him."
"Hey! I'll strike you," cried the count with a voice that made the window-panes rattle, and even scared the cavalryman somewhat.
"You would better ask if Sashka has had any thing to eat to-day. All right, strike away, if a dog is more to you than a man," continued Sashka.
But at that instant he received such a violent blow of the fist across the face that he staggered, struck his head against the partition, and, clutching his nose, leaped through the door, and threw himself down on a bench in the corridor.
"He has broken my teeth," he growled, wiping his bloody nose with one hand, and with the other scratching Blücher's back, as the dog licked him. "He has broken my teeth, Blüchka; and yet he is my count, and I would jump into the fire for him, that's a fact. Because he's my count, do you understand, Blüchka? And do you want something to eat?"
After lying there a while, he got up, gave the dog his dinner, and, almost sobered, went to serve his master, and get him his tea.
"You would simply offend me," said the cavalryman timidly, standing in front of the count, who was lying on the bed with his feet propped against the partition. "Now, you see, I am an old soldier and comrade, I may say; instead of letting you borrow of any one else, it would give me great pleasure to let you have two hundred rubles. I haven't them with me now, – only a hundred, – but I can get the rest to-day; don't refuse, you would simply offend me, count!"
"Thanks, little father," said Turbin, instantly perceiving what sort of relationship would exist between them, and slapping the cavalryman on the shoulder. "Thanks. Well, then, we'll go to the ball if you say so. But now what shall we do? Tell me whom you have in your city: any pretty girls? anybody ready for a spree? Who plays cards?"
The cavalryman explained that there would be a crowd of pretty girls at the ball; that the police commissioner,59 Kolkof, who had just been re-elected, was the greatest hand for sprees, only he lacked the spirit of a genuine hussar, but still was a first-rate fellow; that Ilyushka's chorus of gypsies had been singing at K. ever since the elections began; that Stioshka60 was the soloist, and that after the marshal's reception everybody went there nowadays. And the stakes were pretty high. "Lukhnof, a visitor here," he said, "is sweeping in the money; and Ilyin, a cornet of uhlans, who rooms in No. 8, has already lost a pile. The game has already begun there. They play there every evening; and he's a wonderfully fine young fellow, I tell you, count, this Ilyin is. There's nothing mean about him – he'd give you his last shirt."
"Then let us go to his room. We will see what sort of men you have," said the count.
"Come on! come on! they will be mighty glad."