“From my childhood the smoke here has made me sneeze,” he said, shrugging his shoulders; “but I still do not understand how this smoke can protect the trees from frost.”
“The smoke takes the place of clouds, when they are absent . . .” Tania answered.
“Why are clouds necessary?”
“In dull and cloudy weather there is never night frost.”
“Really?”
He laughed and took her hand. Her broad, serious, cold face, with its finely marked black eyebrows, the high turned-up collar of her coat, which prevented her from moving her head with ease, her whole thin, svelte figure, with skirts well tucked up to protect them from the dew, affected him.
“Good Lord, she’s already grown up!” he said. “When I last drove away from here, five years ago, you were still quite a child. You were a thin, long-legged, bare-headed girl in short petticoats, and I teased you and called you the heron. . . . What time does!”
“Yes, five years!” Tania sighed. “Much water has flowed away since then. Tell me, Andryusha, quite candidly,” she said rapidly, looking into his face, “have we become strangers to you? But, why should I ask? You’re a man, you are now living your own interesting life, you are great. . . . Estrangement is so natural! But, however it may be, Andryusha, I want you to consider us as your own people. We have that right.”
“Of course you have, Tania!”
“Honour bright?”
“Yes, honour bright.”
“You were surprised to-day to see we had so many of your portraits. You know my father adores you. Sometimes I think that he loves you more than he does me. He is proud of you. You are a scholar, an extraordinary man, you have made a brilliant career, and he is convinced that you have become all that because he brought you up. I do not prevent him from thinking this. Let him.”
The day began to break; this was chiefly to be noticed by the distinctness with which the clouds of smoke were perceptible in the air, and the bark of the trees became visible. Nightingales were singing and the cry of the quail was borne from the fields.
“It’s time to go to bed now,” Tania said. “How cold it is!” She took his arm. “Thank you, Andryusha, for coming. We have but few acquaintances here, and they are not interesting. We have nothing but the garden, the garden, the garden—nothing but that. Standard, half-standard,” she laughed. “pippins, rennets, codlins, grafting, budding. . . . All, all our life has gone into the garden—I never dream of anything but apples and pears. Of course, all this is good and useful, but sometimes I wish for something else for variety. I remember when you used to come for the holidays or simply on a visit the house seemed to grow fresher and lighter; it was as if the covers had been taken off the lustres and the chairs. I was a child then, still I understood.”
She talked for a long time and with great feeling. Suddenly the idea entered his head that in the course of the summer he might become attached to this little, weak, loquacious creature, he might be carried away and fall in love—in their position it was so possible and so natural! This thought amused and moved him; he bent over her charming troubled face and began to sing in a low voice:
“Onegin, I’ll not hide from you
I love Tatiana madly . . .”
When they reached the house, Egor Semenych was already up. Kovrin did not want to sleep; he began to talk with the old man and he returned with him to the garden. Egor Semenych was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a large stomach; he suffered from breathlessness, but he always walked so fast that it was difficult to keep up with him. He always had an extremely worried look, and he was always hurrying somewhere, with an expression that seemed to say if he were too late by one minute even, all would be lost!
“Here’s a strange thing, my dear fellow,” he said, stopping to take breath. “It’s freezing on the ground, as you see, but if you raise the thermometer on a stick about fourteen feet above earth it’s warm there. . . . Why is it?”
“I really don’t know,” Kovrin said, laughing.
“Hm. . . . Of course, one can’t know everything. . . . However vast a man’s understanding may be it can’t comprehend everything. You’ve chiefly gone in for philosophy?”
“Yes. I lecture on psychology, but I study philosophy in general.”
“And it does not bore you?”
“On the contrary, it’s my very existence.”
“Well, may God prosper your work . . .” Egor Semenych exclaimed, and he stroked his grey whiskers reflectively. “God prosper you! . . . I’m very glad for you. . . . Very glad, indeed, my boy. . . .”
Suddenly he seemed to listen, an expression of anger passed over his face and he ran off to one side and was soon lost to sight among the trees in the clouds of smoke.
“Who has tethered a horse to an apple tree?” his despairing, heartrending cry could be heard. “What villain and scoundrel has dared to tie a horse to an apple-tree? Good God, good God! They have dirtied, spoilt, damaged, ruined it. The orchard is lost! The orchard is destroyed! My God!”
When he returned to Kovrin he looked worn out and insulted.
“What can you do with this accursed people?” he said in a plaintive voice, clasping his hands. “Stepka was carting manure during the night and has tied his horse to an apple tree! The villain tied the reins so tight round it that the bark has been rubbed in three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him, and he only stood open-mouthed, blinking his eyes! He ought to be hanged.”
When he was somewhat calmer he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek.
“Well, God help you. . . . God help you . . .” he mumbled. “I’m very glad you’ve come. Delighted beyond words. . . . Thank you.”
Then he went round the whole garden at the same rapid pace and with the same troubled expression, and showed his former ward all the hot-houses, conservatories and fruit-sheds, also his two apiaries, which he called the wonder of the century.
While they were walking round the sun rose and shed its brilliant rays over the garden. It became warm. Foreseeing a bright, joyous and long day, Kovrin remembered it was only the beginning of May, and that the whole summer lay before them, also bright, joyous and long, and suddenly a gladsome, youthful feeling was aroused in his breast, like he used to have when running about that garden in his childhood. He embraced the old man and kissed him tenderly. They were both much affected as they went into the house, where they drank tea with cream out of old china cups, and ate rich satisfying cracknels—these trifles again reminded Kovrin of his childhood and youth. The beautiful present and the memories that were aroused in him of the past were blended together; his soul was full and rejoiced.
He waited for Tania to get up and had coffee with her and then a walk, after which he went into his own room and sat down to work. He read with attention, made notes, only raising his eyes from time to time to look out of the open window, or at the fresh flowers, still wet with dew that were in a vase on his table, and then he again lowered his eyes to his book, and it appeared to him that every nerve in his system vibrated with satisfaction.
CHAPTER II A Pale Face!
IN THE COUNTRY he continued to lead the same nervous and restless life as in town. He read and wrote very much, he learned Italian, and when he was walking he thought all the time of the pleasure he would have in sitting down to work again. Everybody was astonished how little he slept; if he happened to doze for half an hour during the day he would afterwards not sleep all night, and after a sleepless night he felt himself active and gay, as if nothing had happened.