On the Eve

On one of the hottest days of the summer of 1853, in the shade of a tall lime-tree on the bank of the river Moskva, not far from Kuntsovo, two young men were lying on the grass. One, who looked about twenty-three, tall and swarthy, with a sharp and rather crooked nose, a high forehead, and a restrained smile on his wide mouth, was lying on his back and gazing meditatively into the distance, his small grey eyes half closed. The other was lying on his chest, his curly, fair head propped on his two hands; he, too, was looking away into the distance. He was three years older than his companion, but seemed much younger. His moustache was only just growing, and his chin was covered with a light curly down. There was something childishly pretty, something attractively delicate, in the small features of his fresh round face, in his soft brown eyes, lovely pouting lips, and little white hands. Everything about him was suggestive of the happy lightheartedness of perfect health and youth⁠—the carelessness, conceit, self-indulgence, and charm of youth. He used his eyes, and smiled and leaned his head as boys do who know that people look at them admiringly. He wore a loose white coat, made like a blouse, a blue kerchief wrapped his slender throat, and a battered straw hat had been flung on the grass beside him.

His companion seemed elderly in comparison with him; and no one would have supposed, from his angular figure, that he too was happy and enjoying himself. He lay in an awkward attitude; his large head⁠—wide at the crown and narrower at the base⁠—hung awkwardly on his long neck; awkwardness was expressed in the very pose

“He came here to study. And do you know with what aim he is studying? He has a single idea: the liberation of his country. And his story is an exceptional one. His father was a fairly well-to-do merchant; he came from Tirnova. Tirnova is now a small town, but it was the capital of Bulgaria in the old days when Bulgaria was still an independent state. He traded with Sophia, and had relations with Russia; his sister, Insarov’s aunt, is still living in Kiev, married to a senior history teacher in the gymnasium there. In 1835, that is to say eighteen years ago, a terrible crime was committed; Insarov’s mother suddenly disappeared without leaving a trace behind; a week later she was found murdered.”

Elena shuddered. Bersenyev stopped.

“Go on, go on,” she said.

“There were rumours that she had been outraged and murdered by a Turkish aga; her husband, Insarov’s father, found out the truth, tried to avenge her, but only succeeded in wounding the aga with his poniard.⁠ ⁠… He was shot.”

“Shot, and without a trial?”

“Yes. Insarov was just eight years old at the time. He remained in the hands of neighbours. The sister heard of the fate of her brother’s family, and wanted to take the nephew to live with her. They got him to Odessa, and from there to Kiev. At Kiev he lived twelve whole years. That’s how it is he speaks Russian so well.”

“He speaks Russian?”

The officer lifted his fists and moved forward, but suddenly something extraordinary happened. He uttered an exclamation, his whole bulky person staggered, rose from the ground, his legs kicking in the air, and before the ladies had time to shriek, before anyone had time to realise how it had happened, the officer’s massive figure went plop with a heavy splash, and at once disappeared under the eddying water.

“Oh!” screamed the ladies with one voice.

“Mein Gott!” was heard from the other side.

An instant passed⁠ ⁠… and a round head, all plastered over with wet hair, showed above water, it was blowing bubbles, this head; and floundering with two hands just at its very lips. “He will be drowned, save him! save him!” cried Anna Vassilyevna to Insarov, who was standing with his legs apart on the bank, breathing heavily.

“He will swim out,” he answered with contemptuous and unsympathetic indifference. “Let us go on,” he added, taking Anna Vassilyevna by the arm. “Come, Uvar Ivanovitch, Elena Nikolaevna.”

“To me?”

Elena hid her face. “You mean to force me to say that I love you,” she whispered. “There, I have said it.”

“Elena!” cried Insarov.

She took his hands, looked at him, and fell on his breast.

He held her close to him, and said nothing. There was no need for him to tell her he loved her. From that cry alone, from the instant transformation of the whole man, from the heaving of the breast to which she clung so confidingly, from the touch of his finger tips in her hair, Elena could feel that she was loved. He did not speak, and she needed no words. “He is here, he loves me⁠ ⁠… what need of more?” The peace of perfect bliss, the peace of the harbour reached after storm, of the end attained, that heavenly peace which gives significance and beauty even to death, filled her with its divine flood. She desired nothing, for she had gained all. “O my brother, my friend, my dear one!” her lips were whispering, while she did not know whose was this heart, his or her own, which beat so blissfully, and melted against her bosom.

He stood motionless, folding in his strong embrace the young life surrendered to him; he felt against his heart this new, infinitely precious burden; a passion of tenderness, of gratitude unutterable, was crumbling his hard will to dust, and tears unknown till now stood in his eyes.

She did not weep; she could only repeat, “O my friend, my brother!”

Nikolai Artemyevitch was walking up and down in his study with a scowl on his face. Shubin was sitting at the window with his legs crossed, tranquilly smoking a cigar.

“Leave off tramping from corner to corner, please,” he observed, knocking the ash off his cigar. “I keep expecting you to speak; there’s a rick in my neck from watching you. Besides, there’s something artificial, melodramatic in your striding.”

“You can never do anything but joke,” responded Nikolai Artemyevitch. “You won’t enter into my position, you refuse to realise that I am used to that woman, that I am attached to her in fact, that her absence is bound to distress me. Here it’s October, winter is upon us.⁠ ⁠… What can she be doing in Revel?”

“She must be knitting stockings⁠—for herself; for herself⁠—not for you.”

“You may laugh, you may laugh; but I tell you I know no woman like her. Such honesty; such disinterestedness.”

“Has she cashed that bill yet?” inquired Shubin.

“Such disinterestedness,” repeated Nikolai Artemyevitch; “it’s astonishing. They tell me there are a million other women in the world, but I say, show me the million; show me the million, I say; ces femmes, qu’on me les montre! And she doesn’t write⁠—that’s what’s killing me!”