Dream Tales and Prose Poems Read online

  She was a girl of nineteen, tall, rather broad-shouldered, but well-built. A dark face, of a half-Jewish half-gipsy type, small black eyes under thick brows almost meeting in the middle, a straight, slightly turned-up nose, delicate lips with a beautiful but decided curve, an immense mass of black hair, heavy even in appearance, a low brow still as marble, tiny ears … the whole face dreamy, almost sullen. A nature passionate, wilful—hardly good-tempered, hardly very clever, but gifted—was expressed in every feature.

  For some time she did not raise her eyes; but suddenly she started, and passed over the rows of spectators a glance intent, but not attentive, absorbed, it seemed, in herself…. 'What tragic eyes she has!' observed a man sitting behind Aratov, a grey-headed dandy with the face of a Revel harlot, well known in Moscow as a prying gossip and writer for the papers. The dandy was an idiot, and meant to say something idiotic … but he spoke the truth. Aratov, who from the very moment of Clara's entrance had never taken his eyes off her, only at that instant recollected that he really had seen her at the princess's; and not only that he had seen her, but that he had even noticed that she had several times, with a peculiar insistency, gazed at him with her dark intent eyes. And now too—or was it his fancy?—on seeing him in the front row she seemed delighted, seemed to flush, and again gazed intently at him. Then, without turning round, she stepped away a couple of paces in the direction of the piano, at which her accompanist, a long-haired foreigner, was sitting. She had to render Glinka's ballad: 'As soon as I knew you …' She began at once to sing, without changing the attitude of her hands or glancing at the music. Her voice was soft and resonant, a contralto; she uttered the words distinctly and with emphasis, and sang monotonously, with little light and shade, but with intense expression. 'The girl sings with conviction,' said the same dandy sitting behind Aratov, and again he spoke the truth. Shouts of 'Bis!' 'Bravo!' resounded over the room; but she flung a rapid glance on Aratov, who neither shouted nor clapped—he did not particularly care for her singing—gave a slight bow, and walked out without taking the hooked arm proffered her by the long-haired pianist. She was called back … not very soon, she reappeared, with the same hesitating steps approached the piano, and whispering a couple of words to the accompanist, who picked out and put before him another piece of music, began Tchaykovsky's song: 'No, only he who knows the thirst to see.'… This song she sang differently from the first—in a low voice, as though she were tired … and only at the line next the last, 'He knows what I have suffered,' broke from her in a ringing, passionate cry. The last line, 'And how I suffer' … she almost whispered, with a mournful prolongation of the last word. This song produced less impression on the audience than the Glinka ballad; there was much applause, however…. Kupfer was particularly conspicuous; folding his hands in a peculiar way, in the shape of a barrel, at each clap he produced an extraordinarily resounding report. The princess handed him a large, straggling nosegay for him to take it to the singer; but she, seeming not to observe Kupfer's bowing figure, and outstretched hand with the nosegay, turned and went away, again without waiting for the pianist, who skipped forward to escort her more hurriedly than before, and when he found himself so unjustifiably deserted, tossed his hair as certainly Liszt himself had never tossed his!

  During the whole time of the singing, Aratov had been watching Clara's face. It seemed to him that her eyes, through the drooping eyelashes, were again turned upon him; but he was especially struck by the immobility of the face, the forehead, the eyebrows; and only at her outburst of passion he caught through the hardly-parted lips the warm gleam of a close row of white teeth. Kupfer came up to him.

  'Well, my dear boy, what do you think of her?' he asked, beaming all over with satisfaction.

  'It's a fine voice,' replied Aratov; 'but she doesn't know how to sing yet; she's no real musical knowledge.' (Why he said this, and what conception he had himself of 'musical knowledge,' the Lord only knows!)

  Kupfer was surprised. 'No musical knowledge,' he repeated slowly…. 'Well, as to that … she can acquire that. But what soul! Wait a bit, though; you shall hear her in Tatiana's letter.'

  He hurried away from Aratov, while the latter said to himself, 'Soul! with that immovable face!' He thought that she moved and held herself like one hypnotised, like a somnambulist. And at the same time she was unmistakably … yes! unmistakably looking at him.

  Meanwhile the matinée went on. The fat man in spectacles appeared again; in spite of his serious exterior, he fancied himself a comic actor, and recited a scene from Gogol, this time without eliciting a single token of approbation. There was another glimpse of the flute-player; another thunder-clap from the pianist; a boy of twelve, frizzed and pomaded, but with tear-stains on his cheeks, thrummed some variations on a fiddle. What seemed strange was that in the intervals of the reading and music, from the performers' room, sounds were heard from time to time of a French horn; and yet this instrument never was brought into requisition. In the sequel it appeared that the amateur, who had been invited to perform on it, had lost courage at the moment of facing the public. At last Clara Militch made her appearance again.

  She held a volume of Pushkin in her hand; she did not, however, glance at it once during her recitation…. She was obviously nervous, the little book shook slightly in her fingers. Aratov observed also the expression of weariness which now overspread all her stern features. The first line, 'I write to you … what more?' she uttered exceedingly simply, almost naïvely, and with a naïve, genuine, helpless gesture held both hands out before her. Then she began to hurry a little; but from the beginning of the lines: 'Another! no! To no one in the whole world I have given my heart!' she mastered her powers, gained fire; and when she came to the words, 'My whole life has but been a pledge of a meeting true with thee,' her hitherto thick voice rang out boldly and enthusiastically, while her eyes just as boldly and directly fastened upon Aratov. She went on with the same fervour, and only towards the end her voice dropped again; and in it, and in her face, the same weariness was reflected again. The last four lines she completely 'murdered,' as it is called; the volume of Pushkin suddenly slid out of her hand, and she hastily withdrew.

  The audience fell to applauding desperately, encoring…. One Little-Russian divinity student bellowed in so deep a bass, 'Mill-itch! Mill-itch!' that his neighbour civilly and sympathetically advised him, 'to take care of his voice, it would be the making of a protodeacon.' But Aratov at once rose and made for the door. Kupfer overtook him…. 'I say, where are you off to?' he called; 'would you like me to present you to Clara?' 'No, thanks,' Aratov returned hurriedly, and he went homewards almost at a run.

  V

  He was agitated by strange sensations, incomprehensible to himself. In reality, Clara's recitation, too, had not been quite to his taste … though he could not quite tell why. It disturbed him, this recitation; it struck him as crude and inharmonious…. It was as though it broke something within him, forced itself with a certain violence upon him. And those fixed, insistent, almost importunate looks—what were they for? what did they mean?

  Aratov's modesty did not for one instant admit of the idea that he might have made an impression on this strange girl, that he might have inspired in her a sentiment akin to love, to passion!… And indeed, he himself had formed a totally different conception of the still unknown woman, the girl to whom he was to give himself wholly, who would love him, be his bride, his wife…. He seldom dwelt on this dream—in spirit as in body he was virginal; but the pure image that arose at such times in his fancy was inspired by a very different figure, the figure of his dead mother, whom he scarcely remembered, but whose portrait he treasured as a sacred relic. The portrait was a water-colour, painted rather unskilfully by a lady who had been a neighbour of hers; but the likeness, as every one declared, was a striking one. Just such a tender profile, just such kind, clear eyes and silken hair, just such a smile and pure expression, was the woman, the girl, to have, for whom as yet he scarcely dared to hope….
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  But this swarthy, dark-skinned creature, with coarse hair, dark eyebrows, and a tiny moustache on her upper lip, she was certainly a wicked, giddy … 'gipsy' (Aratov could not imagine a harsher appellation)—what was she to him?

  And yet Aratov could not succeed in getting out of his head this dark-skinned gipsy, whose singing and reading and very appearance were displeasing to him. He was puzzled, he was angry with himself. Not long before he had read Sir Walter Scott's novel, St. Ronan's Well (there was a complete edition of Sir Walter Scott's works in the library of his father, who had regarded the English novelist with esteem as a serious, almost a scientific, writer). The heroine of that novel is called Clara Mowbray. A poet who flourished somewhere about 1840, Krasov, wrote a poem on her, ending with the words:

  'Unhappy Clara! poor frantic Clara!

  Unhappy Clara Mowbray!'

  Aratov knew this poem also…. And now these words were incessantly haunting his memory…. 'Unhappy Clara! Poor, frantic Clara!' … (This was why he had been so surprised when Kupfer told him the name of Clara Militch.)

  Platosha herself noticed, not a change exactly in Yasha's temper—no change in reality took place in it—but something unsatisfactory in his looks and in his words. She cautiously questioned him about the literary matinée at which he had been present; muttered, sighed, looked at him from in front, from the side, from behind; and suddenly clapping her hands on her thighs, she exclaimed: 'To be sure, Yasha; I see what it is!'

  'Why? what?' Aratov queried.

  'You've met for certain at that matinée one of those long-tailed creatures'—this was how Platonida Ivanovna always spoke of all fashionably-dressed ladies of the period—'with a pretty dolly face; and she goes prinking this way … and pluming that way'—Platonida presented these fancied manoeuvres in mimicry—'and making saucers like this with her eyes'—and she drew big, round circles in the air with her forefinger—'You're not used to that sort of thing. So you fancied … but that means nothing, Yasha … no-o-thing at all! Drink a cup of posset at night … it'll pass off!… Lord, succour us!'

  Platosha ceased speaking, and left the room…. She had hardly ever uttered such a long and animated speech in her life…. While Aratov thought, 'Auntie's right, I dare say…. I'm not used to it; that's all …'—it actually was the first time his attention had ever happened to be drawn to a person of the female sex … at least he had never noticed it before—'I mustn't give way to it.'

  And he set to work on his books, and at night drank some lime-flower tea; and positively slept well that night, and had no dreams. The next morning he took up his photography again as though nothing had happened….

  But towards evening his spiritual repose was again disturbed.

  VI

  And this is what happened. A messenger brought him a note, written in a large irregular woman's hand, and containing the following lines:

  'If you guess who it is writes to you, and if it is not a bore to you, come to-morrow after dinner to the Tversky boulevard—about five o'clock—and wait. You shall not be kept long. But it is very important. Do come.'

  There was no signature. Aratov at once guessed who was his correspondent, and this was just what disturbed him. 'What folly,' he said, almost aloud; 'this is too much. Of course I shan't go.' He sent, however, for the messenger, and from him learnt nothing but that the note had been handed him by a maid-servant in the street. Dismissing him, Aratov read the letter through and flung it on the ground…. But, after a little while, he picked it up and read it again: a second time he cried, 'Folly!'—he did not, however, throw the note on the floor again, but put it in a drawer. Aratov took up his ordinary occupations, first one and then another; but nothing he did was successful or satisfactory. He suddenly realised that he was eagerly expecting Kupfer! Did he want to question him, or perhaps even to confide in him?… But Kupfer did not make his appearance. Then Aratov took down Pushkin, read Tatiana's letter, and convinced himself again that the 'gipsy girl' had not in the least understood the real force of the letter. And that donkey Kupfer shouts: Rachel! Viardot! Then he went to his piano, as it seemed, unconsciously opened it, and tried to pick out by ear the melody of Tchaykovsky's song; but he slammed it to again directly in vexation, and went up to his aunt to her special room, which was for ever baking hot, smelled of mint, sage, and other medicinal herbs, and was littered up with such a multitude of rugs, side-tables, stools, cushions, and padded furniture of all sorts, that any one unused to it would have found it difficult to turn round and oppressive to breathe in it. Platonida Ivanovna was sitting at the window, her knitting in her hands (she was knitting her darling Yasha a comforter, the thirty-eighth she had made him in the course of his life!), and was much astonished to see him. Aratov rarely went up to her, and if he wanted anything, used always to call, in his delicate voice, from his study: 'Aunt Platosha!' However, she made him sit down, and sat all alert, in expectation of his first words, watching him through her spectacles with one eye, over them with the other. She did not inquire after his health nor offer him tea, as she saw he had not come for that. Aratov was a little disconcerted … then he began to talk … talked of his mother, of how she had lived with his father and how his father had got to know her. All this he knew very well … but it was just what he wanted to talk about. Unluckily for him, Platosha did not know how to keep up a conversation at all; she gave him very brief replies, as though she suspected that was not what Yasha had come for.

  'Eh!' she repeated, hurriedly, almost irritably plying her knitting-needles. 'We all know: your mother was a darling … a darling that she was…. And your father loved her as a husband should, truly and faithfully even in her grave; and he never loved any other woman': she added, raising her voice and taking off her spectacles.

  'And was she of a retiring disposition?' Aratov inquired, after a short silence.

  'Retiring! to be sure she was. As a woman should be. Bold ones have sprung up nowadays.'

  'And were there no bold ones in your time?'

  'There were in our time too … to be sure there were! But who were they? A pack of strumpets, shameless hussies. Draggle-tails—for ever gadding about after no good…. What do they care? It's little they take to heart. If some poor fool comes in their way, they pounce on him. But sensible folk looked down on them. Did you ever see, pray, the like of such in our house?'

  Aratov made no reply, and went back to his study. Platonida Ivanovna looked after him, shook her head, put on her spectacles again, and again took up her comforter … but more than once sank into thought, and let her knitting-needles fall on her knees.

  Aratov up till very night kept telling himself, no! no! but with the same irritation, the same exasperation, he fell again into musing on the note, on the 'gipsy girl,' on the appointed meeting, to which he would certainly not go! And at night she gave him no rest. He was continually haunted by her eyes—at one time half-closed, at another wide open—and their persistent gaze fixed straight upon him, and those motionless features with their dominating expression….

  The next morning he again, for some reason, kept expecting Kupfer; he was on the point of writing a note to him … but did nothing, however,… and spent most of the time walking up and down his room. He never for one instant admitted to himself even the idea of going to this idiotic rendezvous … and at half-past three, after a hastily swallowed dinner, suddenly throwing on his cloak and thrusting his cap on his head, he dashed out into the street, unseen by his aunt, and turned towards the Tversky boulevard.

  VII

  Aratov found few people walking in it. The weather was damp and rather cold. He tried not to reflect on what he was doing, to force himself to turn his attention to every object that presented itself, and, as it were, persuaded himself that he had simply come out for a walk like the other people passing to and fro…. The letter of the day before was in his breast-pocket, and he was conscious all the while of its presence there. He walked twice up and down the boulevard, scrutinised sharply every femin
ine figure that came near him—and his heart throbbed…. He felt tired and sat down on a bench. And suddenly the thought struck him: 'What if that letter was not written by her, but to some one else by some other woman?' In reality this should have been a matter of indifference to him … and yet he had to admit to himself that he did not want this to be so. 'That would be too silly,' he thought, 'even sillier than this!' A nervous unrest began to gain possession of him; he began to shiver—not outwardly, but inwardly. He several times took his watch out of his waistcoat pocket, looked at the face, put it back, and each time forgot how many minutes it was to five. He fancied that every passer-by looked at him in a peculiar way, with a sort of sarcastic astonishment and curiosity. A wretched little dog ran up, sniffed at his legs, and began wagging its tail. He threatened it angrily. He was particularly annoyed by a factory lad in a greasy smock, who seated himself on a seat on the other side of the boulevard, and by turns whistling, scratching himself, and swinging his feet in enormous tattered boots, persistently stared at him. 'And his master,' thought Aratov, 'is waiting for him, no doubt, while he, lazy scamp, is kicking up his heels here….'