A Lear of the Steppes, etc.

‘I’m not set against it; I have been used to not reading these invented works from a child. That was my mother’s wish, and the longer I live the more I am convinced that everything my mother did, everything she said, was right, sacredly right.’

‘Well, as you will, but I can’t agree with you; I am certain you are depriving yourself quite needlessly of the purest, the most legitimate pleasure. Why, you’re not opposed to music and painting, I suppose; why be opposed to poetry?’

‘I’m not opposed to it; I have never got to know anything of it – that’s all.’

‘Well, then, I will see to that! Your mother did not, I suppose, wish to prevent your knowing anything of the works of creative, poetic art all your life?’

‘No; when I was married, my mother removed every restriction; it never occurred to me to read – what did you call them?.. well, anyway, to read novels.’

I listened to Vera Nikolaevna in astonishment. I had not expected this.

She looked at me with her serene glance. Birds look so when they are not frightened.

‘I’ll bring you a book!’ I cried. (I thought of Faust, which I had just been reading.)

Vera Nikolaevna gave a gentle sigh.

‘It – it won’t be Georges – Sand?’ she questioned with some timidity.

‘Ah! then you’ve heard of her? Well, if it were, where’s the harm?.. No, I’ll bring you another author. You’ve not forgotten German, have you?’

‘No.’

‘She speaks it like a German,’ put in Priemkov.

‘Well, that’s splendid! I will bring you – but there, you shall see what a wonderful thing I will bring you.’

‘Very good, we shall see. But now let us go into the garden, or there’ll be no keeping Natasha still.’

She put on a round straw hat, a child’s hat, just such a one as her daughter was wearing, only a little larger, and we went into the garden. I walked beside her. In the fresh air, in the shade of the tall limes, I thought her face looked sweeter than ever, especially when she turned a little and threw back her head so as to look up at me from under the brim of her hat. If it had not been for Priemkov walking behind us, and the little girl skipping about in front of us, I could really have fancied I was three-and-twenty, instead of thirty-five; and that I was just on the point of starting for Berlin, especially as the garden we were walking in was very much like the garden in Madame Eltsov’s estate. I could not help expressing my feelings to Vera Nikolaevna.

‘Every one tells me that I am very little changed externally,’ she answered, ‘though indeed I have remained just the same inwardly too.’

We came up to a little Chinese summer-house.

‘We had no summer-house like this at Osinovka,’ she said; ‘but you mustn’t mind its being so tumbledown and discoloured: it’s very nice and cool inside.’

We went into the house. I looked round.

‘I tell you what, Vera Nikolaevna,’ I observed, ‘you let them bring a table and some chairs in here. Here it is really delicious. I will read you here Goethe’s Faust– that’s the thing I am going to read you.’

‘Yes, there are no flies here,’ she observed simply. ‘When will you come?’

‘The day after to-morrow.’

‘Very well,’ she answered. ‘I will arrange it.’

Natasha, who had come into the summer-house with us, suddenly gave a shriek and jumped back, quite pale.

‘What is it?’ inquired Vera Nikolaevna.

‘O mammy,’ said the little girl, pointing into the corner, ‘look, what a dreadful spider!’

Vera Nikolaevna looked into the corner: a fat mottled spider was crawling slowly along the wall.

‘What is there to fear in that?’ she said. ‘It won’t bite, look.’

And before I had time to stop her, she took up the hideous insect, let it run over her hand, and threw it away.

‘Well, you are brave!’ I cried.

‘Where is the bravery in that? It wasn’t a venomous spider.’

‘One can see you are as well up in Natural History as ever, but I couldn’t have held it in my hand.’

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of!’ repeated Vera Nikolaevna.

Natasha looked at us both in silence, and laughed.

‘How like your mother she is!’ I remarked.

‘Yes,’ rejoined Vera Nikolaevna with a smile of pleasure, ‘it is a great happiness to me. God grant she may be like her, not in face only!’

We were called in to dinner, and after dinner I went away.

N.B.– The dinner was very good and well-cooked, an observation in parenthesis for you, you gourmand!

To-morrow I shall take them Faust. I’m afraid old Goethe and I may not come off very well. I will write and tell you all about it most exactly.

Well, and what do you think of all these proceedings? No doubt, that she has made a great impression on me, that I’m on the point of falling in love, and all the rest of it? Rubbish, my dear boy! There’s a limit to everything. I’ve been fool enough. No more! One can’t begin life over again at my age. Besides, I never did care for women of that sort… Nice sort of women I did care for, if you come to that!!

‘I shudder – my heart is sick —
I am ashamed of my idols.’

Any way, I am very glad of such neighbours, glad of the opportunity of seeing something of an intelligent, simple, bright creature. And as to what comes of it later on, you shall hear in due time. – Yours, P. B.

FOURTH LETTER

From the SAME to the SAME

    M – Village, June 20, 1850.

The reading took place yesterday, dear friend, and here follows the manner thereof. First of all, I hasten to tell you: a success quite beyond all expectation – success, in fact, is not the word… Well, I’ll tell you. I arrived to dinner. We sat down a party of six to dinner: she, Priemkov, their little girl, the governess (an uninteresting colourless figure), I, and an old German in a short cinnamon-coloured frock-coat, very clean, well-shaved and brushed; he had the meekest, most honest face, and a toothless smile, and smelled of coffee mixed with chicory … all old Germans have that peculiar odour about them. I was introduced to him; he was one Schimmel, a German tutor, living with the princes H., neighbours of the Priemkovs. Vera Nikolaevna, it appeared, had a liking for him, and had invited him to be present at the reading. We dined late, and sat a long while at table, and afterwards went a walk. The weather was exquisite. In the morning there had been rain and a blustering wind, but towards evening all was calm again. We came out on to an open meadow. Directly over the meadow a great rosy cloud poised lightly, high up in the sky; streaks of grey stretched like smoke over it; on its very edge, continually peeping out and vanishing again, quivered a little star, while a little further off the crescent of the moon shone white upon a background of azure, faintly flushed with red. I drew Vera Nikolaevna’s attention to the cloud.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that is lovely; but look in this direction.’ I looked round. An immense dark-blue storm-cloud rose up, hiding the setting sun; it reared a crest like a thick sheaf flung upwards against the sky; it was surrounded by a bright rim of menacing purple, which in one place, in the very middle, broke right through its mighty mass, like fire from a burning crater…

‘There’ll be a storm,’ remarked Priemkov.

But I am wandering from the main point.