Part 39

“Stop a minute!” Nejdanov exclaimed. “What are you saying? What do you imply by the words ‘gave herself’? I don’t know what your sister told you, but I assure you—”

“I didn’t mean physically, but morally, that is, with the heart and soul,” Markelov interrupted him. He was obviously displeased with Nejdanov’s exclamation. “She couldn’t have done better. As for my sister, she didn’t, of course, wish to hurt me. It can make no difference to her, but she no doubt hates you and Mariana too. She did not tell me anything untrue... but enough of her!”

“Yes,” Nejdanov thought to himself, “she does hate us.”

“It’s all for the best,” Markelov continued, still sitting in the same position. “The last fetters have been broken; there is nothing to hinder me now! It doesn’t matter that Golushkin is an ass, and as for Kisliakov’s letters, they may perhaps be absurd, but we must consider the most important thing. Kisliakov says that everything is ready. Perhaps you don’t believe that too.”

Nejdanov did not reply.

“You may be right, but if we’ve to wait until everything, absolutely everything, is ready, we shall never make a beginning. If we weigh all the consequences beforehand we’re sure to find some bad ones among them. For instance, when our forefathers emancipated the serfs, do you think they could foresee that a whole class of money-lending landlords would spring up as a result of the emancipation? Landlords who sell a peasant eight bushels of rotten rye for six roubles and in return for it get labour for the whole six roubles, then the same quantity of good sound rye and interest on top of that! Which means that they drain the peasants to the last drop of blood! You’ll agree that our emancipators could hardly have foreseen that. Even if they had foreseen it, they would still have been quite right in freeing the serfs without weighing all the consequences beforehand! That is why I have decided!”

Nejdanov looked at Markelov with amazement, but the latter turned to one side and directed his gaze into a corner of the room. He sat with his eyes closed, biting his lips and chewing his moustache.

“Yes, I’ve decided!” he repeated, striking his knee with his brown hairy hand. “I’m very obstinate.... It’s not for nothing that I’m half a Little Russian.”

He got up, dragged himself into his bedroom, and came back with a small portrait of Mariana in a glazed frame.

“Take this,” he said in a sad, though steady voice. “I drew it some time ago. I don’t draw well, but I think it’s like her.” (It was a pencil sketch in profile and was certainly like Mariana.) “Take it, Alexai; it is my bequest, and with this portrait I give you all my rights.... I know I never had any... but you know what I mean! I give you up everything, and her.... She is very good, Alexai—”

Markelov ceased; his chest heaved visibly.

“Take it. You are not angry with me, are you? Well, take it then. It’s no use to me... now.”

Nejdanov took the portrait, but a strange sensation oppressed his heart. It seemed to him that he had no right to take this gift; that if Markelov knew what was in his, Nejdanov’s, heart, he would not have given it him. He stood holding the round piece of cardboard, carefully set in a black frame with a mount of gold paper, not knowing what to do with it. “Why, this is a man’s whole life I’m holding in my hand,” he thought. He fully realised the sacrifice Markelov was making, but why, why especially to him? Should he give back the portrait? No! that would be the grossest insult. And after all, was not the face dear to him? Did he not love her?

Nejdanov turned his gaze on Markelov not without some inward misgiving. “Was he not looking at him, trying to guess his thoughts?” But Markelov was standing in a corner biting his moustache.

The old servant came into the room carrying a candle. Markelov started.

“It’s time we were in bed, Alexai,” he said. “Morning is wiser than evening. You shall have the horses tomorrow. Goodbye.”

“And goodbye to you too, old fellow,” he added turning to the servant and slapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t be angry with me!”

The old man was so astonished that he nearly dropped the candle, and as he fixed his eyes on his master there was an expression in them of something other, something more, than his habitual dejection.

Nejdanov retired to his room. He was feeling wretched. His head was aching from the wine he had drunk, there were ringing noises in his ears, and stars jumping about in front of his eyes, even though he shut them. Golushkin, Vasia the clerk, Fomishka and Fimishka, were dancing about before him, with Mariana’s form in the distance, as if distrustful and afraid to come near. Everything that he had said or done during the day now seemed to him so utterly false, such useless nonsense, and the thing that ought to be done, ought to be striven for, was nowhere to be found; unattainable, under lock and key, in the depths of a bottomless pit.

He was filled with a desire to go to Markelov and say to him, “Here, take back your gift, take it back!”

“Ugh! What a miserable thing life is!” he exclaimed.

He departed early on the following morning. Markelov was already standing at the door surrounded by peasants, but whether he had asked them to come, or they had come of their own accord, Nejdanov did not know. Markelov said very little and parted with him coldly, but it seemed to Nejdanov that he had something of importance to communicate to him.

The old servant made his appearance with his usual melancholy expression.

The carriage soon left the town behind it, and coming out into the open country began flying at a furious rate. The horses were the same, but the driver counted on a good tip, as Nejdanov lived in a rich house. And as is usually the case, when the driver has either had a drink, or expects to get one, the horses go at a good pace.

It was an ordinary June day, though the air was rather keen. A steady, high wind was blowing, but raising no dust in the road, owing to last night’s rain. The laburnums glistened, rustling to and fro in the breeze; a ripple ran over everything. From afar the cry of the quail was carried over the hills, over the grassy ravines, as if the very cry was possessed of wings; the rooks were bathing in the sunshine; along the straight, bare line of the horizon little specks no bigger than flies could be distinguished moving about. These were some peasants re-ploughing a fallow field.

Nejdanov was so lost in thought that he did not see all this. He went on and on and did not even notice when they drove through Sipiagin’s village.

He trembled suddenly as he caught sight of the house, the first story and Mariana’s window. “Yes,” he said to himself, a warm glow entering his heart, “Markelov was right. She is a good girl and I love her.”

XXII