Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – First Love – Contents
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VIII
On the following morning, when I went down-stairs to tea, my mother scolded me,—although less than I had anticipated,—and made me narrate how I had spent the preceding evening. I answered her in few words, omitting many particulars and endeavouring to impart to my narrative the most innocent of aspects.
“Nevertheless, they are not people comme il faut,”—remarked my mother;—“and I do not wish thee to run after them, instead of preparing thyself for the examination, and occupying thyself.”
As I knew that my mother’s anxiety was confined to these few words, I did not consider it necessary to make her any reply; but after tea my father linked his arm in mine, and betaking himself to the garden with me, made me tell him everything I had done and seen at the Zasyékins’.
My father possessed a strange influence over me, and our relations were strange. He paid hardly any attention to my education, but he never wounded me; he respected my liberty—he was even, if I may so express it, courteous to me … only, he did not allow me to get close to him. I loved him, I admired him; he seemed to me a model man; and great heavens! how passionately attached to him I should have been, had I not constantly felt his hand warding me off! On the other hand, when he wished, he understood how to evoke in me, instantaneously, with one word, one movement, unbounded confidence in him. My soul opened, I chatted with him as with an intelligent friend, as with an indulgent preceptor … then, with equal suddenness, he abandoned me, and again his hand repulsed me, caressingly and softly, but repulsed nevertheless.
Sometimes a fit of mirth came over him, and then he was ready to frolic and play with me like a boy (he was fond of every sort of energetic bodily exercise); once—only once—did he caress me with so much tenderness that I came near bursting into tears…. But his mirth and tenderness also vanished without leaving a trace, and what had taken place between us gave me no hopes for the future; it was just as though I had seen it all in a dream. I used to stand and scrutinise his clever, handsome, brilliant face … and my heart would begin to quiver, and my whole being would yearn toward him, … and he would seem to feel what was going on within me, and would pat me on the cheek in passing—and either go away, or begin to occupy himself with something, or suddenly freeze all over,—as he alone knew how to freeze,—and I would immediately shrivel up and grow frigid also. His rare fits of affection for me were never called forth by my speechless but intelligible entreaties; they always came upon him without warning. When meditating, in after years, upon my father’s character, I came to the conclusion that he did not care for me or for family life; he loved something different, and enjoyed that other thing to the full. “Seize what thou canst thyself, and do not give thyself into any one’s power; the whole art of life consists in belonging to one’s self,”—he said to me once. On another occasion I, in my capacity of a young democrat, launched out in his presence into arguments about liberty (he was what I called “kind” that day; at such times one could say whatever one liked to him).—“Liberty,”—he repeated,—“but dost thou know what can give a man liberty?”
“What?”
“Will, his own will, and the power which it gives is better than liberty. Learn to will, and thou wilt be free, and wilt command.”
My father wished, first of all and most of all, to enjoy life—and he did enjoy life…. Perhaps he had a presentiment that he was not fated long to take advantage of the “art” of living: he died at the age of forty-two.
I described to my father in detail my visit to the Zasyékins. He listened to me half-attentively, half-abstractedly, as he sat on the bench and drew figures on the sand with the tip of his riding-whip. Now and then he laughed, glanced at me in a brilliant, amused sort of way, and spurred me on by brief questions and exclamations. At first I could not bring myself even to utter Zinaída’s name, but I could not hold out, and began to laud her. My father still continued to laugh. Then he became thoughtful, dropped his eyes and rose to his feet.
I recalled the fact that, as he came out of the house, he had given orders that his horse should be saddled. He was a capital rider, and knew much better how to tame the wildest horses than did Mr. Rarey.
“Shall I ride with thee, papa?”—I asked him.
“No,”—he replied, and his face assumed its habitual indifferently-caressing expression.—“Go alone, if thou wishest; but tell the coachman that I shall not go.”
He turned his back on me and walked swiftly away. I followed him with my eyes, until he disappeared beyond the gate. I saw his hat moving along the fence; he went into the Zasyékins’ house.
He remained with them no more than an hour, but immediately thereafter went off to town and did not return home until evening.
After dinner I went to the Zasyékins’ myself. I found no one in the drawing-room but the old Princess. When she saw me, she scratched her head under her cap with the end of her knitting-needle, and suddenly asked me: would I copy a petition for her?
“With pleasure,”—I replied, and sat down on the edge of a chair.
“Only look out, and see that you make the letters as large as possible,”—said the Princess, handing me a sheet of paper scrawled over in a slovenly manner:—“and couldn’t you do it to-day, my dear fellow?”
“I will copy it this very day, madam.”
The door of the adjoining room opened a mere crack and Zinaída’s face showed itself in the aperture,—pale, thoughtful, with hair thrown carelessly back. She stared at me with her large, cold eyes, and softly shut the door.
“Zína,—hey there, Zína!”—said the old woman. Zinaída did not answer. I carried away the old woman’s petition, and sat over it the whole evening.
< < < Chapter VII
Chapter IX > > >
Russian Literature – Children Books – Russian Poetry – Ivan Turgenev – First Love – Contents
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