can attain to anything practical; and so But what's
the good of arguing with you—you are delirious for the present? Ah! it's just on the hour. Not a word more, Alexandr; go away, I will not listen; dine with me tomorrow; there will be some few people."
" Friends of yours ? "
« Y es —KonerT, Smirnoff, Fedoroff—you know them, and some few besides."
"Koneff, Smirnoff, Fedoroff! But these are the very people you have to do with in business."
" Why, yes; these are all indispensable people."
"So these are your friends? Certainly I have never observed that you received any one with special warmth."
" I have told you before that I consider as friends those whom I associate with oftenest, from whom I gain either profit or pleasure. I dare say ! Would you have me feed them for nothing ? "
"But I thought before your marriage you would take leave of your true friends, whom you love from your heart, with whom you would talk for the last time of your gay youth over the wine-cup, and whom, perhaps, you would press warmly to your heart on your separation."
" There, five of your words contain nothing that exists, or at least ought to exist, in life. With what transports your aunt would have thrown herself on your neck ! Of course there are ' true friends' wherever there is simply friendship and a * wine cup' whenever one is drinking out of bottles
F
and glasses, and embraces on separation when there is no separation at all. Oh, Alexandr!"
" Don't you feel regret at being separated, or at least seeing less of these friends ? " said Alexandr.
" No ! I never was so intimate with any one as to regret them, and I advise you to follow my example."
"So you will be here to-morrow?"
" To-morrow, uncle, I "
" What ? "
" I am invited to a country-house."
" The Lubetzkys, I suppose."
"Yes!"
" Ah! well, as you like. Don't forget your work, Alexandr; I shall tell the editor how you are spending your time."
" Oh, uncle, how can you! I will finish my abstract from the German economists without fail."
" First you had better read them. See, remember, don't come to me for ' contemptible money' as soon as you have quite given yourself up to ' soft emotions.'
i u
CHAPTER IV
Alexandr's life was divided into two halves. His official duties consumed the morning. He burrowed about in dusty deeds, pondered over facts in no way concerning himself, and reckoned on paper millions of money that did not belong to him. But at times his head refused to think for others, the pen dropped out of his hand and he was possessed by the "soft emotions" which made Piotr Ivanitch so angry.
Then Alexandr leant over the back of his chair and was carried in thought to a grassy peaceful place, where there were no papers, nor ink, nor strange faces, nor uniforms, where peace, sweetness, and freshness reigned, where in the luxurious drawing-room there was the sweet scent of flowers, and the sounds of a piano and a parrot hopping in his cage, and in the garden the waving branches of birch-trees and bushes of lilac. And the queen of all this— She.
In the morning, Alexandr, while he sat in his office, was present unseen in one of the islands, in the country villa of the Lubetzky's, but in the evening he was present visibly in his tangible person. Let us cast an indiscreet glance at his happiness.
It was a hot day, one of the few in Petersburg; the sun, which gave life to the fields, seemed to kill the streets in Petersburg, made the granite red-hot with its rays, and the rays, reflected from the stone, scorched the people. The people walked slowly, hanging their heads, the dogs with their tongues lolling out. The town was like one of those towns of story, in which everything has changed to stone at some magician's sign. No carriages rattled on the flags; the windows were covered with awnings like eyelids closed over eyes; the wooden pavement polished like paraquet; it burnt the foot to step on it. All around was weary, asleep.
The pedestrian wiping the sweat from his face made for the shade. Stage coaches with six passengers slowly crawled into the town, scarcely stirring up the dust after them. At four o'clock the government clerks came out from their offices and slowly plodded off to their homes.
Alexandr rushed out, as though the roof of the house was falling in, looked at his watch—it was late; he would not be in time for dinner. He flung himself into a restaurant
" What have you got, quick !"
" Soup julienne and k la reine; sauce k la provengale, k la maitre d'hotel; roast turkey, game, &c, sweet souffle."
"Well, soup h la provencale, sauce julienne, and roast souffle', only be quick! "
The waiter looked at him.
" Well, what is it ? " said Alexandr, impatiently.
The man hurried off and gave him what he thought fit Adouev) seemed very content. He did not wait for a quarter of the dishes and hurried off to a wharf of the Neva, and here a boat and two boatmen awaited him.
Within an hour he was in sight of the place of his hopes; hestood up in the boat and bent his gaze on the distance. Atfirst his eye was dimmed with anxiety and uneasiness, which passed into doubt. Then suddenly his face brightened with the light of happiness, like a beam of sunlight. He
distinguished a well-known dress at the garden fence; then he was recognised, a handkerchief was waved to him. He had been waited for perhaps a long time. His feet seemed burning with impatience.
" Ah! if only one could walk on the water!" thought Alexandr; " they invent all sorts of silly things, and they don't invent that!" The boatmen plied the oars slowly, evenly like a machine. The sweat stood in drops on their sunburnt faces; it was nothing to them that Alexandr's heart was leaping within him, that never taking his eyes from one point, he had already twice in his absorption moved first one leg and then the other up to the very edge of the boat; but they did not care; they went on rowing with the same phlegm, now and then wiping their faces with their sleeves.
" Quicker!" he said—" half a rouble for vodka!"
How they set to work, how they began to rise from their seats ! What had become of their fatigue ? how had they regained strength ? The oars seemed only to tremble in the water. The boat shot along, twenty yards in no time ! Ten strokes more, and the stern had already described an arc, the boat came up gracefully and turned into the very bank—Alexandr and Nadinka smiled from afar off and did not take their eyes off one another. Adouev leaped out with one foot in the water instead of on the bank, Nadinka laughed.
" Gently, sir, wait till I give you a hand," said one of the boatmen when Alexandr was already on the bank.
" Wait for me here," Adouev said to them, and ran to Nadinka.
She smiled tenderly at Alexandr from the distance. With every movement of the boat to the shore, her bosom heaved.
" Nadyezhda Alexandrovna!" said Adouev, almost breathless with delight.
" Alexandr Fedoritch I " she replied.
Involuntarily they rushed towards each other, then stopped short, and looked at one another with a smile and moist eyes, and could not say a word. A.few minutes passed thus.
Piotr Ivanitch could not be blamed for not having noticed Nadinka the first time of seeing her. She was not a beauty, and did not attract attention at once.
But if any one looked attentively at her features, he would not readily take his eyes off her. Her face rarely remained at rest for two minutes together. The thoughts and emotions of a nature impressionable and susceptible to excess, incessantly replaced one another, and the reflections of these emotions played, curiously mingled on her face, giving it every minute a fresh and unexpected expression. Her eyes, for instance, would flash like lightning, glow and suddenly be hidden under their delicate lids; her face would grow lifeless and motionless, and she would turn to a marble statue before your eyes. You would expect immediately after again the same piercing brillance—not at all! the eyelids would lift softly, and you would meet the mild light of eyes which seemed swimming in the splendour of moonlight. The heart could not but be stirred to a slight throb at such a gaze. In her gestures it was just the same. There was much grace in them, but a grace hardly sylph-like. There was much of the untamed impulsiveness in it which Nature gives. She sometimes sat in a picturesque pose, then suddenly, at the bidding of some inward impulse, this artistic pose would be broken in upon by some unexpected and equally bewitching gesture. In her conversation the same unlooked-for turns; now just criticism, now dreaminess and short answers, then a childish frolicsomeness, or subtle dissembling. Everything in her pointed to an ardent imagination, a wilful and inconstant heart. A much stronger man than Alexandr might have lost his heart over her, only a Piotr Ivanitch could have withstood her, but there are not many like him.