Virgin Soil Part 56

"Mariana? She's Solomin's wife now. They married over a year ago. It was merely for the sake of formality at first, but now they say she really is his wife."

Mashurina gave another impatient gesture. There was a time when she was jealous of Mariana, but now she was indignant with her for having been false to Nejdanov's memory.

"I suppose they have a baby by now," she said in an offhanded tone.

"I really don't know. But where are you off to?" Paklin asked, seeing that she had taken up her hat. "Do stay a little longer; my sister will bring us some tea directly."

It was not so much that he wanted Mashurina to stay, as that he could not let an opportunity slip by of giving utterance to what had acc.u.mulated and was boiling over in his breast. Since his return to St.

Petersburg he had seen very little of people, especially of the younger generation. The Nejdanov affair had scared him; he grew more cautious, avoided society, and the young generation on their side looked upon him with suspicion. Once someone had even called him a traitor to his face.

As he was not fond of a.s.sociating with the elder generation, it sometimes fell to his lot to be silent for weeks. To his sister he could not speak out freely, not because he considered her too stupid to understand him--oh, no! he had the highest opinion of her intelligence--but as soon as he began letting off some of his pet fireworks she would look at him with those sad reproachful eyes of hers, making him feel quite ashamed. And really, how is a man to go through life without letting off just a few squibs every now and again? So life in St. Petersburg became insupportable to Paklin and he longed to remove to Moscow. Speculations of all sorts--ideas, fancies, and sarcasms--were stored up in him like water in a closed mill. The floodgates could not be opened and the water grew stagnant. With the appearance of Mashurina the gates opened wide, and all his pent-up ideas came pouring out with a rush. He talked about St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg life, the whole of Russia. No one was spared! Mashurina was very little interested in all this, but she did not contradict or interrupt, and that was all he wanted of her.

"Yes," he began, "a fine time we are living in, I can a.s.sure you!

Society in a state of absolute stagnation; everyone bored to death! As for literature, it's been reduced to a complete vacuum swept clean! Take criticism for example. If a promising young critic has to say, 'It's natural for a hen to lay eggs,' it takes him at least twenty whole pages to expound this mighty truth, and even then he doesn't quite manage it! They're as puffed up as feather-beds, these fine gentlemen, as soft-soapy as can be, and are always in raptures over the merest commonplaces! As for science, ha, ha, ha! we too have our learned Kant!

[The word kant in Russian means a kind of braid or piping.] on the collars of our engineers! And it's no better in art! You go to a concert and listen to our national singer Agremantsky. Everyone is raving about him. But he has no more voice than a cat! Even Skoropikin, you know, our immortal Aristarchus, rings his praises. 'Here is something,'

he declares, 'quite unlike Western art!' Then he raves about our insignificant painters too! 'At one time, I bowed down before Europe and the Italians,' he says, 'but I've heard Rossini and seen Raphael and confess I was not at all impressed.' And our young men just go about repeating what he says and feel quite satisfied with themselves. And meanwhile the people are dying of hunger, crushed down by taxes. The only reform that has been accomplished is that the men have taken to wearing caps and the women have left off their head-dresses! And the poverty! the drunkenness! the usury!"

But at this point Mashurina yawned and Paklin saw that he must change the subject.

"You haven't told me yet," he said, turning to her, "where you've been these two years; when you came back, what you've been doing with yourself, and how you managed to turn into an Italian countess--"

"There is no need for you to know all that," she put in. "It can hardly have any interest for you now. You see, you are no longer of our camp."

Paklin felt a pang and gave a forced laugh to hide his confusion.

"As you please," he said; "I know I'm regarded as out-of-date by the present generation, and really I can hardly count myself.. . of those ranks--" He did not finish the sentence. "Here comes Snapotchka with the tea. Take a cup with us and stay a little longer. Perhaps I may tell you something of interest to you."

Mashurina took a cup of tea and began sipping it with a lump of sugar in her mouth.

Paklin laughed heartily.

"It's a good thing the police are not here to see an Italian countess--"

"Rocca di Santo Fiume," Mashurina put in solemnly, sipping the hot tea.

"Contessa Rocca di Santo Fiume!" Paklin repeated after her; "and drinking her tea in the typical Russian way! That's rather suspicious, you know! The police would be on the alert in an instant."

"Some fellow in uniform bothered me when I was abroad," Mashurina remarked. "He kept on asking so many questions until I couldn't stand it any longer. 'Leave me alone, for heaven's sake!' I said to him at last."

"In Italian?

"Oh no, in Russian."

"And what did he do?"

"Went away, of course."

"Bravo!" Paklin exclaimed. "Well, countess, have another cup. There is just one other thing I wanted to say to you. It seemed to me that you expressed yourself rather contemptuously of Solomin. But I tell you that people like him are the real men! It's difficult to understand them at first, but, believe me, they're the real men. The future is in their hands. They are not heroes, not even 'heroes of labour' as some crank of an American, or Englishman, called them in a book he wrote for the edification of us heathens, but they are robust, strong, dull men of the people. They are exactly what we want just now. You have only to look at Solomin. A head as clear as the day and a body as strong as an ox. Isn't that a wonder in itself? Why, any man with us in Russia who has had any brains, or feelings, or a conscience, has always been a physical wreck.

Solomin's heart aches just as ours does; he hates the same things that we hate, but his nerves are of iron and his body is under his full control. He's a splendid man, I tell you! Why, think of it! here is a man with ideals, and no nonsense about him; educated and from the people, simple, yet all there... What more do you want?

"It's of no consequence," Paklin continued, working himself up more and more, without noticing that Mashurina had long ago ceased listening to him and was looking away somewhere, "it's of no consequence that Russia is now full of all sorts of queer people, fanatics, officials, generals plain and decorated, Epicureans, imitators, all manner of cranks. I once knew a lady, a certain Havrona Prishtekov, who, one fine day, suddenly turned a legitimist and a.s.sured everybody that when she died they had only to open her body and the name of Henry V. would be found engraven on her heart! All these people do not count, my dear lady; our true salvation lies with the Solomins, the dull, plain, but wise Solomins!

Remember that I say this to you in the winter of 1870, when Germany is preparing to crush France--"

"Silishka," Snandulia's soft voice was heard from behind Paklin, "I think in your speculations about the future you have quite forgotten our religion and its influence. And besides," she added hastily, "Miss Mashurina is not listening to you. You had much better offer her some more tea."

Paklin pulled himself up.

"Why, of course... do have some more tea."

But Mashurina fixed her dark eyes upon him and said pensively:

"You don't happen to have any letter of Nejdanov s... or his photograph?"

"I have a photograph and quite a good one too. I believe it's in the table drawer. I'll get it in a minute."

He began rummaging about in the drawer, while Snandulia went up to Mashurina and with a long, intent look full of sympathy, clasped her hand like a comrade.

"Here it is!" Paklin exclaimed and handed her the photograph.

Mashurina thrust it into her pocket quickly, scarcely glancing at it, and without a word of thanks, flus.h.i.+ng bright red, she put on her hat and made for the door.

"Are you going?" Paklin asked. "Where do you live? You might tell me that at any rate."

"Wherever I happen to be."

"I understand. You don't want me to know. Tell me at least, are you still working under Va.s.sily Nikolaevitch?"

"What does it matter to you? Or someone else, perhaps Sidor Sidoritch?"

Mashurina did not reply.

"Or is your director some anonymous person?" Mashurina had already stepped across the threshold. "Perhaps it is someone anonymous!"

She slammed the door.

Paklin stood for a long time motionless before this closed door.

"Anonymous Russia!" he said at last.