Part 48

“The people are asleep.”

“And would you like to wake them?”

“That would not be a bad thing to do.”

“Aha! aha! So that’s what—”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” Sipiagin exclaimed imperatively. He felt that the moment had come to put an end to the discussion, and he did put an end to it. With a slight gesture of his right hand, while the elbow remained propped on the table, he delivered a long and detailed speech. He praised the conservatives on the one hand and approved of the liberals on the other, giving the preference to the latter as he counted himself of their numbers. He spoke highly of the people, but drew attention to some of their weaknesses; expressed his full confidence in the government, but asked himself whether all its officials were faithfully fulfilling its benevolent designs. He acknowledged the importance of literature, but declared that without the utmost caution it was dangerous. He turned to the West with hope, then became doubtful; he turned to the East, first sighed, then became enthusiastic. Finally he proposed a toast in honour of the trinity: Religion, Agriculture, and Industry!

“Under the wing of authority!” Kollomietzev added sternly.

“Under the wing of wise and benevolent authority,” Sipiagin corrected him.

The toast was drunk in silence. The empty space on Sipiagin’s left, in the form of Nejdanov, did certainly make several sounds of disapproval; but arousing not the least attention became quiet again, and the dinner, without any further controversy, reached a happy conclusion.

Valentina Mihailovna, with a most charming smile, handed Solomin a cup of coffee; he drank it and was already looking round for his hat when Sipiagin took him gently by the arm and led him into his study. There he first gave him an excellent cigar and then made him a proposal to enter his factory on the most advantageous terms. “You will be absolute master there, Vassily Fedotitch, I assure you!” Solomin accepted the cigar and declined the offer about the factory. He stuck to his refusal, however much Sipiagin insisted.

“Please don’t say ‘no’ at once, my dear Vassily Fedotitch! Say, at least, that you’ll think it over until tomorrow!”

“It would make no difference. I wouldn’t accept your proposal.”

“Do think it over till tomorrow, Vassily Fedotitch! It won’t cost you anything.”

Solomin agreed, came out of the study, and began looking for his hat again. But Nejdanov, who until that moment had had no opportunity of exchanging a word with him, came up to him and whispered hurriedly:

“For heaven’s sake don’t go yet, or else we won’t be able to have a talk!”

Solomin left his hat alone, the more readily as Sipiagin, who had observed his irresoluteness, exclaimed:

“Won’t you stay the night with us?”

“As you wish.”

The grateful glance Mariana fixed on him as she stood at the drawing-room window set him thinking.

XXV

Until his visit Mariana had pictured Solomin to herself as quite different. At first sight he had struck her as undefined, characterless. She had seen many such fair, lean, sinewy men in her day, but the more she watched him, the longer she listened to him, the stronger grew her feeling of confidence in him—for it was confidence he inspired her with. This calm, not exactly clumsy, but heavy man, was not only incapable of lying or bragging, but one could rely on him as on a stone wall. He would not betray one; more than that, he would understand and help one. It seemed to Mariana that he aroused such a feeling, not only in herself alone, but in everyone present. The things he spoke about had no particular interest for her. She attached very little significance to all this talk about factories and merchants, but the way in which he spoke, the manner in which he looked round and smiled, pleased her immensely.

A straightforward man... at any rate! this was what appealed to her. It is a well-known fact, though not very easy to understand, that Russians are the greatest liars on the face of the earth, yet there is nothing they respect more than truth, nothing they sympathise with more. And then Solomin, in Mariana’s eyes, was surrounded by a particular halo, as a man who had been recommended by Vassily Nikolaevitch himself. During dinner she had exchanged glances with Nejdanov several times on his account, and in the end found herself involuntarily comparing the two, not to Nejdanov’s advantage. Nejdanov’s face was, it is true, handsomer and pleasanter to look at than Solomin’s, but the very face expressed a medley of troubled sensations: embarrassment, annoyance, impatience, and even dejection.

He seemed to be sitting on hot coals; tried to speak, but did not, and laughed nervously. Solomin, on the other hand, seemed a little bored, but looked quite at home and utterly independent of what was going on around him. “We must certainly ask advice of this man,” Mariana thought, “he is sure to tell us something useful.” It was she who had sent Nejdanov to him after dinner.

The evening went very slowly; fortunately dinner was not over until late and not very long remained before bedtime. Kollomietzev was sulky and said nothing.

“What is the matter with you?” Madame Sipiagina asked half-jestingly. “Have you lost anything?”

“Yes, I have,” Kollomietzev replied. “There is a story about a certain officer in the lifeguards who was very much grieved that his soldiers had lost a sock of his. ‘Find me my sock!’ he would say to them, and I say, find me the word ‘sir!’ The word ‘sir’ is lost, and with it every sense of respect towards rank!”

Madame Sipiagina informed Kollomietzev that she would not help him in the search.

Emboldened by the success of his speech at dinner, Sipiagin delivered two others, in which he let fly various statesmanlike reflections about indispensable measures and various words—des mots—not so much witty as weighty, which he had especially prepared for St. Petersburg. He even repeated one of these words, saying beforehand, “If you will allow the expression.” Above all, he declared that a certain minister had an “idle, unconcentrated mind,” and was given “to dreaming.” And not forgetting that one of his listener’s was a man of the people, he lost no opportunity in trying to show that he too was a Russian through and through, and steeped in the very root of the national life! For instance, to Kollomietzev’s remark that the rain might interfere with the haymaking, he replied, “If the hay is black, then the buckwheat will be white;” then he made use of various proverbs like: “A store without a master is an orphan,” “Look before you leap,” “When there’s bread then there’s economy,” “If the birch leaves are as big as farthings by St. Yegor’s day, the dough can be put into tubs by the feast of Our Lady of Kazan.” He sometimes went wrong, however, and would get his proverbs very much mixed; but the society in which these little slips occurred did not even suspect that notre bon Russe had made a mistake, and, thanks to Prince Kovrishkin, it had got used to such little blunders. Sipiagin pronounced all these proverbs in a peculiarly powerful, gruff voice—d’une voix rustique. Similar sayings let loose at the proper time and place in St. Petersburg would cause influential high-society ladies to exclaim, “Comme il connait bien les moeurs de notre people!” and great statesmen would add, “Les moeurs et les besoins!”

Valentina Mihailovna fussed about Solomin as much as she could, but her failure to arouse him disheartened her. On passing Kollomietzev she said involuntarily, in an undertone: “Mon Dieu, que je me sens fatiguée!” to which he replied with an ironical bow: “Tu l’as voulu, George Daudin!”