The World’s Greatest Books Vol 8 (page 5)

Bold had often expressed his indignation at the misappropriation of church funds in general, in the hearing of his friend the precentor, but the conversation had never referred to anything at Barchester.

He heard from different quarters that Hiram’s bedesmen were treated as paupers, whereas the property to which they were, in effect, heirs, was very large, and being looked on as the upholder of the rights of the poor of Barchester, he was instigated by a lawyer, whom he had previously employed, to call upon Mr. Chadwick, the steward of the episcopal estates, for a statement as to the funds of the estate.

It was against Chadwick that his efforts were to be directed, but Bold soon found that if he interfered with Mr. Chadwick as steward, he must interfere with Mr. Harding as warden; and though he regretted the situation in which this would place him, he was not the man to flinch from his undertaking from personal motives.

Having got a copy of John Hiram’s will, and mastered it, Bold next ascertained the extent and value of the property, and then made out a schedule of what he was informed was the present distribution of its income. Armed with these particulars, he called on Mr. Chadwick, who naturally declined to answer any questions and referred him to his attorneys in London.

Bold at once repaired to the hospital. The day was now far advanced, but he knew that Mr. Harding dined in the summer at four, that Eleanor was accustomed to drive in the evening, and that he might therefore probably find Mr. Harding alone. It was between seven and eight when he reached the precentor’s garden, and as he raised the latch he heard the notes of Mr. Harding’s violoncello; advancing before the house and across the lawn, he found him playing, and not without an audience. The musician was seated in a garden chair, and around sat, and lay, ten of the twelve old men who dwelt with him beneath John Hiram’s roof. Bold sat down on the soft turf to listen, or rather to think how, after such harmony, he might best introduce a theme of so much discord. He felt that he had a somewhat difficult task, and he almost regretted the final leave-taking of the last of the old men, slow as they were in going through their adieus.

The precentor remarked on the friendliness of the visit. “One evening call,” said he, “is worth ten in the morning. It’s all formality in the morning; real social talk never begins till after dinner. That’s why I dine early, so as to get as much as I can of it.”

“Quite true, Mr. Harding,” said the other; “but I fear I’ve reversed the order of things, and I owe you much apology for troubling you on business at such an hour. I wish to speak to you about the hospital.”

Mr. Harding looked blank and annoyed. But he only said, “Well, well, anything I can tell you I shall be most happy–“

“It’s about the accounts.”

“Then, my dear fellow, I can tell you nothing, for I’m as ignorant as a child. All I know is that they pay me L800 a year. Go t Chadwick; he knows all about the accounts.”

“But, Mr. Harding, I hope you won’t object to discuss with me what I have to say about the hospital.”

Mr. Harding gave a deep, long-drawn sigh. He did object, very strongly object, to discuss any such subject with John Bold, but he had not the business tact of Mr. Chadwick, and did not know how to relieve himself from the coming evil.

“I fear there is reason to think that John Hiram’s will is not carried out to the letter, Mr. Harding, and I have been asked to see into it.”

“Very well, I’ve no objection on earth; and now we need not say another word about it.”

“Only one word more, Mr. Harding. Chadwick has referred me to lawyers. In what I do I may appear to be interfering with you, and I hope you will forgive me for doing so.”

“Mr. Bold,” said the other, speaking with some solemnity, “if you act justly, say nothing in this matter but the truth, and use no unfair weapons in carrying out your purposes, I shall have nothing to forgive. I presume you think I am not entitled to the income I receive from the hospital, and that others are entitled to it. Whatever some may do, I shall never attribute to you base motives because you hold an opinion opposed to my own and adverse to my interests; pray do what you consider to be your duty; I can give you no assistance, neither will I offer you any obstacle. Let me, however, suggest to you that you can in no wise forward your views, nor I mine, by any discussion between us. Here comes Eleanor and the ponies, and we’ll go in to tea.”

Bold felt that he could not sit down at ease with Mr. Harding and his daughter after what had passed, and therefore excused himself with much awkward apology; and, merely raising his hat and bowing as he passed Eleanor and the pony chair, left her in disappointed amazement at his departure.

_III.–Iphigenia_

The bedesmen heard a whisper that they were entitled to one hundred pounds a year, and signed a petition, which Abel Handy drew up, to the bishop as visitor, praying his lordship to see justice done to the legal recipients of John Hiram’s charity. John Bold was advised to institute formal proceedings against Mr. Harding and Mr. Chadwick. Archdeacon Grantly took up the cause of the warden, and obtained a legal opinion from the attorney general, Sir Abraham Haphazard, that Mr. Harding and Mr. Chadwick being only paid servants, the action should not have been brought against them, but that the defendants should have been either the corporation of Barchester, or possibly the dean and chapter, or the bishop. That all-powerful organ of the press, the daily _Jupiter_, launched a leading thunderbolt against the administration of Hiram’s Hospital, which made out the warden to be a man unjust, grasping–and the responsibility for this attack rested upon John Bold’s friend Tom Towers, of the Temple.

Bold kept away from the warden’s house, but he met Miss Harding one day in the cathedral close. He tried to explain and apologised.

“Mr. Bold,” said she, “you may be sure of one thing: I shall always judge my father to be right, and those who oppose him I shall judge to be wrong.” And then, curtsying low, she sailed on, leaving her lover in anything but a happy state of mind.

To her father Eleanor owned that she had loved John Bold once, but would not, could not do so now, when he proved himself the enemy of her father.

But the warden, wretched as he was at the attacks of the _Jupiter_, declared that Bold was no enemy of his, and encouraged her love, and then he spoke to her of happier days when their trials would all be over.

That night Eleanor decided that she would extricate her father from his misery; she would sacrifice herself as Iphigenia did for Agamemnon. She would herself personally implore John Bold to desist from his undertaking and stop the lawsuit; she would explain to him her father’s sorrows, and tell him how her father would die if he were thus dragged before the public and exposed to such unmerited ignominy; she would appeal to his old friendship, and, if need were, kneel to him for the favour she would ask; but before she did this the idea of love must be banished. There must be no bargain in the matter. She could not appeal to his love, nor allow him to do so. Should he declare his passion he must be rejected.

She rose refreshed in the morning, and after breakfast started out, and arrived at Bold’s door; where John’s sister Mary greeted her warmly.

“John’s out now, and will be for the next two hours, and he returns to London by the mail train to-night.”

“Mary, I must see your brother before he goes back, and beg from him a great favour.” Miss Harding spoke with a solemn air, and then went on and opened to her friend all her plan for saving her father from a sorrow which would, if it lasted, bring him to his grave.

While they were yet discussing the matter, Bold returned, and Eleanor was forced into sudden action.

“Mr. Bold,” said she, “I have come here to implore you to abandon this proceeding, to implore you to spare my father.”

“Eleanor, I will do anything; only let me tell you how I love you!”

“No, no, no,” she almost screamed. “This is unmanly of you, Mr. Bold. Will you leave my father to die in peace in his quiet home?” And seizing him by his arm, she clung to him with fixed tenacity, and reiterated her appeal with hysterical passion.

“Promise me, promise me!” said Eleanor; “say that my father is safe–one word will do. I know how true you are; say one word, and I will let you go.”

“I will,” said he, at length; “I do. All I can do I will do.”

“Then may God Almighty bless you for ever and ever!” said Eleanor; and, with her face in Mary Bold’s lap, she wept and sobbed like a child.

In a while she was recovered, and got up to go; and Mary, under a pretence of fetching her bonnet, left the two together in the room.

And now, with a volley of impassioned love, John Bold poured forth the feelings of his heart; and Eleanor repeated with every shade of vehemence, “No, no, no!” But let her be never so vehement, her vehemence was not respected now; all her “No, no, noes” were met with counter asseverations, and at last were overpowered. Her defences were demolished, all her maiden barriers swept away, and Eleanor capitulated, or rather marched out with the honours of war, vanquished evidently, but still not reduced to the necessity of confessing it. Certainly she had been victorious, certainly she had achieved her object, certainly she was not unhappy. Eleanor as she returned home felt that she had now nothing further to do but to add to the budget of news for her father that John Bold was her accepted lover.

_IV.–The Warden Resigns_

When Eleanor informed her father of the end of the lawsuit the warden did not express himself peculiarly gratified at the intelligence. His own mind was already made up. A third article had appeared in the _Jupiter_, calling on Mr. Harding to give an account of his stewardship, and how it was that he consumed three-fifths of Hiram’s charity. “I tell you what, my dear,” he said, while Eleanor stared at him as though she scarcely understood the words he was speaking, “I can’t dispute the truth of these words. I do believe I have no right to be here. No right to be warden with L800 a year; no right to spend in luxury money that was intended for charity. I will go up to London, my dear, and see these lawyers myself. There are some things which a man cannot bear–” and he put his hand upon the newspaper.

And to London Mr. Harding went, stealing a march upon the archdeacon, who with Mrs. Grantly pursued him twenty-four hours later. By that time the warden had obtained an interview with the great Sir Abraham Haphazard. “What I want you, Sir Abraham, to tell me is this,” said Mr. Harding. “Am I, as warden, legally and distinctly entitled to the proceeds of the property after the due maintenance of the twelve bedesmen?”

Sir Abraham declared that he couldn’t exactly say in so many words that Mr. Harding was legally entitled to, etc., etc., and ended in expressing a strong opinion that, as the other side had given notice of withdrawing the suit, it would be madness to raise any further question on the matter.

“I can resign,” said Mr. Harding, slowly.

“What! throw it up altogether?” said the attorney general. “Believe me, it is sheer Quixotism.”

But Mr. Harding’s mind was made up. He knew that the attorney general regarded him as a fool, but Eleanor, he was sure, would exult in what he had done, and his old friend, the bishop, he trusted, would sympathise with him. Back at his hotel in St. Paul’s Churchyard Mr. Harding had to face the archdeacon. In vain Dr. Grantly argued. “I shall certainly resign this wardenship,” said Mr. Harding. The letter of resignation was posted to the bishop, and the warden returned home. The bishop at once wrote to him full of affection, condolence, and praise, and besought him to come and live at the palace.

It was hard for Mr. Harding to make the bishop understand that this would not suit him, and that the only real favour he could confer was the continuation of his independent friendship; but at last even this was done. “At any rate,” thought the bishop, “he will come and dine with me from time to time, and if he be absolutely starving I shall see it.” It was settled that Mr. Harding should still be the precentor of the cathedral, and a small living within the walls of the city was given to him. It was the smallest possible parish, containing a part of the cathedral close and a few old houses adjoining. The church was no bigger than an ordinary room–perhaps twenty-seven feet long by eighteen wide–but still it was a perfect church. Such was the living of St. Cuthbert’s at Barchester, of which Mr. Harding became rector, with a clear income of L75 a year.

Mr. Harding allowed himself no rest till everything was prepared for his departure from the hospital.

For his present use he took a lodging in Barchester, and thither were conveyed such articles as he wanted for daily use. Mrs. Grantly had much wished that her sister would reside at Plumstead, but Eleanor strongly resisted this proposal. She had not desired that her father should give up the hospital in order that she might live at Plumstead rectory and he alone in his Barchester lodgings. So she got a little bedroom for herself behind the sitting-room, and just over the little back parlour of the chemist, with whom they were to lodge. There was somewhat of a savour of senna softened by peppermint about the place; but, on the whole, the lodgings were clean and comfortable.

Nothing could induce the bishop to fill up the vacancy at Hiram’s Hospital caused by Mr. Harding’s retirement. It is now some years since Mr. Harding left it, and the warden’s house is tenantless and the warden’s garden a wretched wilderness.

Mr. Harding is neither a discontented nor an unhappy man; he still inhabits the lodgings to which he went on leaving the hospital, but he now has them to himself. Three months after that time Eleanor became Mrs. Bold, and of course removed to her husband’s house.

The archdeacon would not be persuaded to grace the marriage ceremony with his presence, but he allowed his wife and children to be there. The marriage took place at the palace, and the bishop himself officiated. It was the last occasion on which he ever did so, and it is not probable that he will ever do so again.

Mr. Harding’s time is spent chiefly at his daughter’s or at the palace, but he keeps his lodgings.

Every other day a message is brought to him from the bishop. “The bishop’s compliments, and his lordship is not very well to-day, and he hopes Mr. Harding will dine with him.” This bulletin as to the old man’s health is a myth; for, though he is over eighty, he is never ill. Mr. Harding does dine with him very often, which means going to the palace at three and remaining till ten.

* * * * *

Barchester Towers

“Barchester Towers” shares with “The Warden” the distinction of containing Trollope’s most original, freshest, and best work, and in the character of Mr. Proudie a new specimen was added to English fiction. It was written for the most part in pencil, while the author was travelling about the country prosecuting his duties as a Post-office Surveyor, what was done being afterwards copied by the novelist’s wife. The Barchester of the story has been identified as Winchester, and scattered at random throughout the work are many references to the neighbourhood of Hampshire’s ancient capital.

_I.–The New Bishop_

In the latter days of July in the year 1805, a most important question was hourly asked in the cathedral city of Barchester: Who was to be the new bishop?

The death of old Dr. Grantly, who had for many years filled that chair with meek authority, took place exactly as the ministry of Lord—-was going to give place to that of Lord—-. The illness of the good old man was long and lingering, and it became at last a matter of intense interest to those concerned whether the new appointment should be made by a Conservative or Liberal government.

It was pretty well understood that the outgoing premier had made his selection, and that, if the question rested with him, the mitre would descend on the head of Archdeacon Grantly, the old bishop’s son, who had long managed the affairs of the diocese.

A trying time was this for the archdeacon as he sat by his father’s dying bed. The ministry were to be out within five days: his father was to be dead within–no, he rejected that view of the subject.

Presently Mr. Harding entered noiselessly.

“God bless you, my dears”–said the bishop with feeble voice–“God bless you both.” And so he died.

“It’s a great relief, archdeacon,” said Mr. Harding, “a great relief. Dear, good, excellent old man. Oh, that our last moments may be as innocent and as peaceful as his!”

The archdeacon’s mind, however, had already travelled from the death chamber to the study of the prime minister. It was already evening, and nearly dark. It was most important that the prime minister should know that night that the diocese was vacant. Everything might depend on it. And so, in answer to Mr. Harding’s further consolation, the archdeacon suggested that a telegraph message should be immediately sent to London.

Mr. Harding got as far as the library door with the slip of paper containing the message to the prime minister, when he turned back.

“I forgot to tell you,” he said. “The ministry are out. Mr. Chadwick got the news by telegraph, and left word at the palace door.”

Thus terminated our unfortunate friend’s chance of possessing the glories of a bishopric.

The names of many divines were given in the papers as that of the bishop elect. And then the _Jupiter_ declared that Dr. Proudie was to be the man.

Dr. Proudie was the man. Just a month after the demise of the late bishop, Dr. Proudie kissed the queen’s hand as his successor elect, and was consecrated bishop of Barchester.

Dr. Proudie was one among those who early in life adapted himself to the views held by the Whigs on most theological and religious subjects. Toleration became the basis on which he fought his battles, and at this time he was found to be useful by the government. In person he was a good-looking man, and it was no fault of his own if he had not a commanding eye, for he studied hard for it.

Dr. Proudie may well be said to have been a fortunate man, for he had not been born to wealth, and he was now bishop of Barchester with L5000 a year; but nevertheless he had his cares. He had a large family, of whom the three eldest were daughters, now all grown up and all fitted for fashionable life; and he had a wife.

Now, Mrs. Proudie was not satisfied with home dominion, but stretched her power over all her husband’s movements, and would not even abstain from things spiritual. In fact, the bishop was henpecked. In her own way the bishop’s wife was a religious woman, and the form in which this tendency showed itself in her was by a strict observance of Sabbatarian rule. Dissipation and low dresses during the week were, under her control, atoned for by three services, an evening sermon read by herself, and a perfect abstinence from any cheering employment on the Sunday. In these matters Mrs. Proudie allowed herself to be guided by the Rev. Mr. Slope, the bishop’s chaplain; and as Dr. Proudie was guided by his wife, it necessarily followed that Mr. Slope had obtained a good deal of control over Dr. Proudie in matters concerning religion. Mr. Slope’s only preferment hitherto had been that of reader and preacher in a London district church; and on the consecration of his friend the new bishop he readily gave this up to become domestic chaplain to his lordship.

_II.–The Bishop’s Chaplain_

When Mr. Slope sat himself down in the railway carriage, confronting the bishop and Mrs. Proudie, as they started on their first journey to Barchester, he began to form in his own mind a plan of his future life. He knew well his patron’s strong points, but he knew the weak ones as well; and he rightly guessed that public life would better suit the great man’s taste than the small details of diocesan duty.

He, therefore–he, Mr. Slope–would in effect be bishop of Barchester. Such was his resolve; and, to give Mr. Slope his due, he had both courage and spirit to bear him out in his resolution. He knew that he should have a hard battle to fight, for Mr. Proudie would also choose to be bishop of Barchester. At first, doubtless, he must flatter and cajole, and perhaps yield in some things; but he did not doubt of ultimate triumph. If all other means failed, he could join the bishop against his wife, inspire courage into the unhappy man, and emancipate the husband.

Such were Mr. Slope’s thoughts as he sat looking at the sleeping pair in the railway carriage. He intended to lead, and to have followers; he intended to hold the purse-strings of the diocese, and draw round him a herd of his poor and hungry brethren. He had, however, a pawing, greasy way with him, and he was not a man to make himself at once popular in the circle of Barchester.

The second day after his arrival came Mr. Slope’s first introduction to the clergy of Barchester, when Archdeacon Grantly and Mr. Harding called together at the palace to pay their respects to the bishop.

Our friends found Dr. Proudie sitting in the old bishop’s chair, very nice in his new apron; they found, too, Mr. Slope standing on the hearth-rug, persuasive and eager; but on the sofa they found Mrs. Proudie, an innovation for which no precedent could be found in all the annals of Barchester. There she was, however, and they could only make the best of her.

The introductions were gone through in much form. The archdeacon shook hands with the bishop, and named Mr. Harding. His lordship then presented them to his lady wife. After this Mr. Slope presented himself. The bishop did mention his name, and so did Mrs. Proudie, too, in a louder tone; but Mr. Slope took upon himself the chief burden of his own introduction. He thrust out his hand, and, grasping that of the archdeacon, bedewed it unmercifully. Dr. Grantly in return bowed, looked stiff, contracted his eyebrows, and wiped his hand with his pocket handkerchief. Nothing abashed, Mr. Slope then noticed the precentor, and descended to the grade of the lower clergy.

There were four persons there, each of whom considered himself–or herself, as Mrs. Proudie was one of them–the most important personage in the diocese. The bishop himself actually wore the visible apron. The archdeacon knew his subject, and really understood the business of bishoping, which the others did not. Mrs. Proudie had her habit of command. Mr. Slope had only his own courage and tact to depend on.

“I fear there is a great deal of Sabbath travelling here,” said Mr. Slope. “On looking at the ‘Bradshaw,’ I see that there are three trains in and three out every Sabbath. Could nothing be done to induce the company to withdraw them?”

“Not being a director, I really can’t say. But if you can withdraw the passengers, the company, I dare say, will withdraw the trains,” said the archdeacon. “It’s merely a question of dividends.”

“But surely, Dr. Grantly,” said the lady, “surely we should look at it differently. Don’t you think so, Mr. Harding?”

Mr. Harding thought that all porters and stokers, guards and pointsmen ought to have an opportunity of going to church, and he hoped that they all had.

“But surely, surely!” continued Mrs. Proudie, “surely that is not enough.”

Come what might, Dr. Grantly was not to be forced into a dissertation on a point of doctrine with Mrs. Proudie, nor yet with Mr. Slope; so he turned his back upon the sofa, and hoped that Dr. Proudie had found the palace repairs had been such as to meet his wishes.

At once Mr. Slope sidled over to the bishop’s chair, and began a catalogue of grievances concerning the stables and the out-houses. Mrs. Proudie, while she lent her assistance in reciting the palatial short-comings in the matter of gas, hot-water pipes, and the locks on the doors of servants’ bedrooms, did not give up her hold of Mr. Harding. Over and over again she had thrown out her “Surely, surely!” at Mr. Harding’s devoted head, and ill had that gentleman been able to parry the attack.

He had never before found himself subjected to such a nuisance, or been so hard pressed in his life. Mrs. Proudie interrogated him, and then lectured. “Neither thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man servant, nor thy maid servant,” said she, impressively, and more than once, as though Mr. Harding had forgotten the words. She shook her fingers at him as she quoted the law, as though menacing him with punishment.

Mr. Harding felt that he ought to rebuke the lady for presuming so to talk to a gentleman and a clergyman many years her senior; but he recoiled from the idea of scolding the bishop’s wife, in the bishop’s presence, on his first visit to the palace; moreover, to tell the truth, he was somewhat afraid of her.

The archdeacon was now ready to depart, and he and the precentor, after bowing low to the lady and shaking hands with my lord, made their escape from Mr. Slope as best they could. It was not till they were well out of the palace and on the gravel walk of the close that the archdeacon allowed the wrath inspired by Mr. Slope to find expression.

“He is the most thoroughly bestial creature that ever I set my eyes upon,” said the archdeacon. “But what are we to do with him? Impudent scoundrel! To have to cross-examine me about out-houses, and Sunday travelling, too. I never in my life met his equal for sheer impudence. Why, he must have thought we were two candidates for ordination!”

“I declare I thought Mrs. Proudie was the worst of the two.” said Mr. Harding.

_III.–Mrs. Proudie Gets a Fall_

An act of Parliament had decided that in future the warden of Hiram’s Hospital should receive L450 a year, and no one thought for a moment that the new bishop would appoint any other than Mr. Harding.

Mr. Slope, however, had other plans. He saw from the first that he could not conciliate Dr. Grantly, and decided on open battle against the archdeacon and all his adherents. Only those came to call on Mr. Slope who, like Mr. Quiverful, the rector of Puddingdale, had large families and small incomes, and could not afford to neglect the loaves and fishes of the diocese, even if a Mr. Slope had charge of the baskets.

So Mr. Harding received a note begging him to call on Mr. Slope at the palace concerning the wardenship.

The result of this interview was so offensive to Mr. Harding that he said:

“You may tell the bishop, Mr. Slope, that as I altogether disagree with his views about the hospital, I shall decline the situation if I find that any such conditions are attached to it as those you have suggested.” And so saying, he took his hat and went his way.

Mr. Slope was contented. He considered himself at liberty to accept Mr. Harding’s last speech as an absolute refusal of the appointment. At least, he so represented it to the bishop and to Mrs. Proudie.

“I really am sorry for it,” said the bishop.

“I don’t know that there is much cause for sorrow,” said the lady. “Mr. Quiverful is a much more deserving man.”

“I suppose I had better see Quiverful,” said the chaplain.

“I suppose you had,” said the bishop.

But no sooner had Mr. Slope promised Quiverful the wardenship, Mrs. Proudie writing at the same time to her protegee, Mrs. Quiverful, than he repented of the step he had taken.

Eleanor Bold, Mr. Harding’s daughter, was a widow in prosperous circumstances, and when Mr. Slope had made her acquaintance, and learnt of her income, he decided that he would woo her. Mr. Harding at the hospital, and placed there by his means, would be more inclined to receive him as a son-in-law. Mr. Slope wanted a wife, and he wanted money, but he wanted power more than either. He had fully realised that sooner or later he must come to blows with Mrs. Proudie. He had no desire to remain in Barchester as her chaplain; he had higher views of his own destiny. Either he or Mrs. Proudie must go to the wall, and now had come the time when he would try which it should be.

To that end, he rode over to Puddingdale and persuaded Mr. Quiverful to give up all hope of the wardenship. Mrs. Quiverful, however, with fourteen children, refused to yield without a struggle, and went off there and then to Mrs. Proudie at the palace.

She told her tale, and Mrs. Proudie walked quickly into her husband’s room, and found him seated at his office table, with Mr. Slope opposite to him.

“What is this, bishop, about Mr. Quiverful?” said she, coming to the end of the table and standing there.

“I have been out to Puddingdale this morning, ma’am,” replied Mr. Slope, “and have seen Mr. Quiverful; and he has abandoned all claim to the hospital. Under these circumstances I have strongly advised his lordship to nominate Mr. Harding.”

“Who desired you to go to Mr. Quiverful?” said Mrs. Proudie, now at the top of her wrath–for it was plain to her the chaplain was taking too much upon himself. “Did anyone send you, sir?”

There was a dead pause in the room. The bishop sat twiddling his thumbs. How comfortable it would be, he thought, if they could fight it out between them; fight it out so that one should kill the other utterly, as far as diocesan life was concerned, so that he, the bishop, might know clearly by whom he ought to be led. If he had a wish as to which might prove victor, that wish was not antagonistic to Mr. Slope.

“Will you answer me, sir?” Mrs. Proudie repeated. “Who instructed you to call on Mr. Quiverful?”

“Mrs. Proudie,” said Mr. Slope, “I am quite aware how much I owe to your kindness. But my duty in this matter is to his lordship. He has approved of what I have done, and having that approval, and my own, I want none other.”

What horrid words were these which greeted the ear of Mrs. Proudie? Here was premeditated mutiny in the camp. The bishop had not yet been twelve months in the chair, and rebellion had already reared her hideous head in the palace.

“Mr. Slope,” said Mrs. Proudie, with slow and dignified voice, “I will trouble you, if you please, to leave the apartment. I wish to speak to my lord alone.”

Mr. Slope felt that everything depended on the present interview. Should the bishop now be repetticoated his thralldom would be complete and for ever. Now was the moment for victory or rout. It was now that Mr. Slope must make himself master of the diocese, or else resign his place and begin his search for fortune elsewhere.

“His lordship has summoned me on most important diocesan business,” said Mr. Slope, glancing with uneasy eye at Dr. Proudie; “my leaving him at the present moment is, I fear, impossible.”

“Do you bandy words with me, you ungrateful man?” said the lady. “My lord, is Mr. Slope to leave this room, or am I?”

His lordship twiddled his thumbs, and then proclaimed himself a Slopeite.

“Why, my dear,” said he, “Mr. Slope and I are very busy.”

That was all. There was nothing more necessary. Mr. Slope saw at once the full amount of his gain, and turned on the vanquished lady a look of triumph which she never forgot and never forgave.

Mrs. Proudie without further parley left the room; and then followed a close conference between the new allies. The chaplain told the bishop that the world gave him credit for being under the governance of his wife, and the bishop pledged himself with Mr. Slope’s assistance to change his courses.

_IV.–Mr. Slope Bids Farewell_

As it proved, however, Mr. Slope had not a chance against Mrs. Proudie. Not only could she stun the poor bishop by her midnight anger when the two were alone, but she could assuage him, if she so willed, by daily indulgences.

On the death of Dr. Trefoil, the dean of Barchester, Mr. Slope had not shrunk from urging the bishop to recommend his chaplain for the post.

“How could you think of making such a creature as that dean of Barchester?” said Mrs. Proudie to her now submissive husband.

“Why, my dear,” said he, “it appeared to me that you and Mr. Slope did not get on as well as you used to do, and therefore I thought that if he got this place, and so ceased to be my chaplain, you might be pleased at such an arrangement.”

Mrs. Proudie laughed aloud.

“Oh yes, my dear, of course he’ll cease to be your chaplain,” said she. “After what has passed, that must be a matter of course. I couldn’t for a moment think of living in the same house with such a man. Dean, indeed! The man has gone mad with arrogance.”

The bishop said nothing further to excuse either himself or his family, and having shown himself passive and docile was again taken into favour, and spent the pleasantest evening he had had in his own house for a long time.

Mr. Slope did not get the deanery, though for a week he was decidedly the favourite–owing to the backing he received from the _Jupiter_. And Mr. Quiverful was after all appointed to the hospital, with the complete acquiescence of Mr. Harding.

Mr. Harding might have had the deanery, but he declined the office on the ground of his age and his inability to fit himself into new duties. In vain the archdeacon threatened, and in vain he coaxed; his father-in-law could not be made to accept it.

To Mr. Harding’s infinite relief, Mrs. Bold regarded Mr. Slope’s proposal with horror, and refused him with indignation. She had never thought of him as a possible suitor, and when he addressed her as “beautiful woman,” and as “dearest Eleanor,” and as “sweetest angel,” and even contrived to pass his arm round her waist, it was more than she could bear. Mrs. Bold raised her little hand and just dealt him a box on the ear with such good will that it sounded among the trees–he had followed her into the garden–like a miniature thunderclap.

The news that the deanery was not for him ended Mr. Slope’s prospects in Barchester. He was aware that as regarded the diocese Mrs. Proudie had checkmated him. He had, for a moment, run her hard, but it was only for a moment, and Mrs. Proudie had come forth victorious in the struggle.

Having received a formal command to wait upon the bishop, he went into Dr. Proudie’s study. There, as he had anticipated, he found Mrs. Proudie together with her husband.

“Mr. Slope,” began the bishop, “I think you had better look for some other preferment. I do not think you are well suited for the situation you have lately held. I will enclose you a cheque for any balance that may be due to you; and under the present circumstances it will, of course, be better for all parties that you should leave the palace at the earliest possible moment.”

“If, however, you wish to remain in the neighbourhood,” said Mrs. Proudie, “the bishop will mention your name to Mr. Quiverful, who now wants a curate at Puddingdale, and the stipend is L50 a year, sufficient for your requirements.”

“May God forgive you, madam, for the manner in which you have treated me,” said Mr. Slope; “and remember this, madam, that you yourself may still have a fall. As to the bishop, I pity him!”

Thus ended the intimacy of the bishop of Barchester with his first confidential chaplain.

Mr. Slope returned to town, and promptly consoled the widow of a rich sugar-refiner. He soon was settled with much comfort in Baker Street, and is now possessed of a church in the New Road.

Mr. Harding is still precentor, and still pastor of the little church of St. Cuthbert’s. In spite of what he has often said, he is not even yet an old man.

* * * * *

IVAN TURGENEV

Fathers and Sons

Among the great critics and great artists of every period, Ivan Sergeyvitch Turgenev occupies a supreme position. He was born at Oriel in the Government of the same name, on November 9, 1818, and died on September 3, 1883. His father was a colonel in a cavalry regiment, and an ancestor was a James Turgenev who was one of Peter the Great’s jesters. Educated at Moscow, St Petersburg, and Berlin, Ivan Turgenev began life in a government office, but after a year retired into private life. His early attempts at literature consisted chiefly of poems and sketches, none of which attracted any degree of attention; and it was not until about 1847, upon the appearance of “A Sportsman’s Sketches”–a series of stories depicting with startling realism the condition of the Russian peasant, that his name became known. About 1860 Ivan Turgenev, in common with many of the Russian writers of the period, found himself being carried away towards the study of social reform. In 1861 he produced “Fathers and Sons” (“Otzi i Dieti”), a story that stirred up a storm the suddenness of which is difficult to imagine in the light of recent events. Yet, curiously enough, Turgenev, ardent Liberal though he was, had no political motive whatsoever in view in writing his novel, his purpose simply being the delineation of certain types which were then, for good or for bad, making themselves a force in his country. The figure of Bazaroff, in regard to whom Turgenev gave a new interpretation of the word “nihilist,” possesses few of the revolutionary ideas that are now generally associated with his kind. Young Russia greatly objected to the picture, and the author, who so far had been hailed as a champion of liberty, was now looked on as a reactionist. To the end, however, Turgenev persisted that Bazaroff represented a type as he saw it, and the portrait was neither a caricature nor entirely a product of the imagination.

_I.–The Old and the New_

Arkady had come home, a full-blown graduate from the University at Petersburg, and as his father, Nikolai Petrovitch pressed his lips to his beardless, dusky, sunburnt cheek, he was beside himself with delight. Even his uncle, Pavel Petrovitch–once a famous figure in Russian society, and now, in spite of his dandy habits and dandy dress, living with his brother on the latter’s estate in the heart of the country–showed some emotion. And Arkady, too, though he endeavoured to stifle his feelings as became a superior young man who had risen above the prejudices of the older generation, could not conceal the pleasure he felt.

Arkady had brought back with him his great friend, Bazaroff, a tall man, long and lean, with a broad forehead, a nose flat at the base and sharper at the end, large greenish eyes, and drooping whiskers of a sandy colour–a face which was lighted up by a tranquil smile and showed self-confidence and intelligence. Bazaroff alone seemed supremely indifferent to the atmosphere of pleasure which pervaded his friend’s home-coming. As the two young men left the room, Pavel Petrovitch turned to his brother with a slightly questioning look on his clear-cut, clean-shaved, refined face.

“Who is he?” he asked.

“A friend of Arkady’s; according to him, a very clever fellow.”

“Is he going to stay with us?”

“Yes.”

“That unkempt creature?”

“Why, yes.”

Pavel Petrovitch drummed with his finger-tips on the table. “I fancy Arkady _s’est degourde_,” he remarked. “I am glad he has come back.”

“Your uncle’s a queer fish,” Bazaroff remarked to Arkady, in the seclusion of their room; “only fancy such style in the country! His nails, his nails–you ought to send them to an exhibition! And as to his chin, it’s shaved simply to perfection. Now, come, Arkady, isn’t he rather ridiculous?”

“Perhaps he is,” replied Arkady; “but he’s a splendid man, really.”

“An antique survival! But your father’s a capital fellow. He wastes his time reading poetry, and doesn’t know much about farming, but he’s a good-hearted fellow.”

“My father’s a man in a thousand.”

“Did you notice how shy and nervous he is?”

Arkady shook his head, as though he himself were not shy and nervous.

“It’s something astonishing,” pursued Bazaroff, “these old idealists, they develop their nervous systems till they break down… so balance is lost…. In my room there’s an English wash-stand, but the door won’t fasten. Anyway, that ought to be encouraged–an English wash-stand stands for progress.”

The antipathy between Pavel Petrovitch and Bazaroff became more pronounced as the days went by. There were several passages of arms between them–the one taking the old-fashioned view of life, the other dismissing contemptuously his outlook as unprogressive. For himself, Nikolai Petrovitch was too delighted at having his son with him to feel any concern about Bazaroff.

“What is this Mr. Bazaroff–your friend?” Pavel asked one day, with a drawl.

“Would you like me to tell you, uncle?” Arkady replied with a smile. “He is a Nihilist, a man who accepts nothing, who regards everything from the critical point of view–who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in.”

“Well, and is that good?”

“That depends, uncle. Some people it would do good to, but some people would suffer for it.”

“Indeed! Well, I see it’s not in our line. We are old-fashioned people; we imagine that without principles, taken as you say on faith, there is no taking a step, no breathing. _Vous avez change tout cela_, God give you good health and the rank of a general, while we will be content to look on and admire worthy… what was it?”

“Nihilist,” Arkady said, speaking very distinctly.

So great was the silent, unvoiced antipathy between the two men that Nikolai Petrovitch, even, breathed more freely when Arkady and Bazaroff at the end of a fortnight announced their intention of visiting the neighbouring town of X——.

At X——, the two friends made the acquaintance of Madame Odintsov, a wealthy widow, who lived alone in her large, well-ordered establishment, with her one daughter, Katya Sergyevna. Bazaroff was contemptuously amused at the luxury and peace that pervaded the house. The excellent arrangements of the establishment he made a subject for laughter, but, none the less, he gladly prolonged his stay for a fortnight. The reason was not far to seek. In spite of his avowed disbelief in love and romance, the gracious charm, the refined intelligence and the beauty of Madame Odintsov had won his heart. And Arkady, too, willingly accepted his hostess’s urgent invitation that they should stay for as long as they pleased, because of his passion for Katya. Circumstances, however, brought their visit to an abrupt conclusion.

One morning Madame Odintsov, when she was alone with Bazaroff, commented upon his reticence and constraint. As she made this remark, Bazaroff got up and went to the window.

“And would you like to know the reason for this reticence?” he queried. “Would you like to know what is passing within me?”

“Yes,” rejoined Madame Odintsov, with a sort of dread she did not at the time understand.

“And you will not be angry?”

“No.”

“No?” Bazaroff was standing with his back to her. “Let me tell you, then, that I love you like a fool, like a madman…. There, you forced it out of me.”

He turned quickly, flung a searching look upon her, and, snatching both her hands, he drew her suddenly to his breast.

She did not at once free herself from his embrace, but an instant later she was in the seclusion of her own room, standing, her cheeks scarlet, meditating on what had occurred.

“I am to blame,” she decided, aloud, “that I could not have foreseen this…. No, no…. God knows what it would lead to; he couldn’t be played with. Peace is, anyway, the best thing in the world.”

She had come to a definite decision before she saw Bazaroff again. He found an opportunity of speaking to her alone and hoarsely apologised for what had taken place.

“I am sufficiently punished,” he said, without raising his eyes to hers. “My position, you will certainly agree, is most foolish. To-morrow I shall be gone. There is no recalling the past, consequently I must go. I can only conceive of one condition upon which I could remain; that condition will never be. Excuse my impertinence, but you don’t love me and you never will love me, I suppose?”

Bazaroff’s eyes glittered for an instant under their dark brows. Madame Odintsov did not answer him. “I am afraid of this man,” flashed through her brain.

“Good-bye, then,” said Bazaroff, as though he guessed her thought, and he went back into the house.

_II–Bazaroff’s Home-Coming_

From the scene of his discomfiture Bazaroff fled to his own house, taking Arkady with him. Vassily Ivanovitch, his father, an old retired army doctor, who had not seen his son for three years, was standing on the steps of the little manor house as the coach in which they travelled rolled up. He was a tall, thinnish man, with, dishevelled hair and a thin hawk nose, dressed in an old military coat not buttoned up. He was smoking a long pipe and screwing up his eyes to keep the sun out of them. The horses stopped.

“Arrived at last,” said Bazaroff’s father, still going on smoking, though the pipe was fairly dancing up and down between his fingers.

“Enyusha, Enyusha,” was heard a trembling woman’s voice. The door was flung open and in the doorway was seen a plump, short little woman, in a white cap and a short, striped jacket. She moaned, staggered, and would certainly have fallen had not Bazaroff supported her. Her plump little hands were instantly twined round his neck. “For what ages, my dear one, my darling Enyusha!” she cried, her wrinkled face wet with tears. Old Bazaroff breathed hard and screwed his eyes up more than ever.

“There, that’s enough, that’s enough, Arina; give over–please give over.”

His lips and eyebrows were twitching and his beard was quivering… but he was obviously trying to control himself and appear almost indifferent. But, like his wife, the old man was deeply moved at the coming of his son. Only with difficulty could he keep his eyes off him. The whole little house was turned upside down to provide him proper entertainment. Arisha produced the most tempting dainties she could cook and old Bazaroff brought out a bottle of wine, told some of the best of his old stories, and, regardless of the snubs uttered occasionally by Bazaroff, seemed to be filled with an ecstatic joy as long as he could be near him. He took an early opportunity of questioning Arkady, and when he heard the words of praise that fell from the latter’s lips and the expectation that was current at the University of the great future for his son, he could stand it no longer. He bent down to Arkady and kissed him on his shoulder.

“You have made me perfectly happy,” he said, never ceasing to smile. “I ought to tell you, I… idolise my son; my old wife I won’t speak of–we all know what mothers are!–but I dare not show my feelings before him, because he doesn’t like it. He is averse to every kind of demonstration of feeling; many people even find fault with him for such firmness of character, and regard it as a proof of pride or lack of feeling, but men like him ought not to be judged by the common standard, ought they?”

One thing troubled old Bazaroff. How long was his son going to stay? He dared not ask him, but he centred his hopes on three weeks, at least. Bazaroff, however, was restless and unsatisfied. He had not succeeded in effacing the memory of Madame Odintsov. On the third day he told Arkady that he could stand it no longer.

“I am bored; I want to work, but I can’t work here. I will come to your place again; I have left all my apparatus there, too. In your house one can, at any rate, shut oneself up; while here my father repeats to me, ‘My study is at your disposal–nobody shall interfere with you,’ and all the time he himself is never a yard away. It’s the same thing, too, with mother. I hear her sighing the other side of the wall, and if one goes in to her, one’s nothing to say to her.”

Vassily Ivanovitch was dumbfounded when he broke the news to him.

“Very good…” he faltered, “very good…. I had thought you were to be with us… a little longer. Three days…. After three years, it’s rather little; rather little, Yevgeny!”

“But I tell you I’m coming back directly. It’s necessary for me to go.”

“Necessary…. Very good. Arina and I, of course, did not anticipate this. She has just begged some flowers from a neighbour; she meant to decorate the room for you. Liberty… is the great thing; that’s my rule…. I don’t want to hamper you… not…”

He suddenly ceased and rushed from the room. He had to tell his old wife; that was the trying task that lay before him. She was utterly crushed, and only a two-hour exhortation from her husband enabled her to control herself until her son’s departure. When at last he was gone she broke down. Vassily Ivanovitch bent his grey head against her grey head.

“There’s no hope for it,” she moaned. “Only I am left you, unchanged for ever, as you for me.”

_III.–The Duel_

The two friends journeyed as far as X—- together. There Arkady left his companion in order to see Katya. Bazaroff, determined to cure himself of his passion for Madame Odintsov, made the rest of the journey alone, and took up his quarters once more in the house of Nicolai Petrovitch.

The fact of Arkady’s absence did not tend to improve matters between Pavel Petrovitch and Bazaroff. After a week the aristocrat’s antipathy passed all bounds. That night he knocked at Bazaroff’s door, and, gaining admittance, begged in his most delicate manner for five minutes’ conversation.

“I want to hear your views on the subject of duelling,” he said. Bazaroff, for once, was taken by surprise.

“My view is,” he said at last, “that I should not, in practice, allow myself to be insulted without demanding satisfaction.”

“Your words save me from rather a deplorable necessity. I have made up my mind to fight you.”

Bazaroff opened his eyes wide. “Me?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“What for, pray?”

“I cannot endure you; to my idea your presence here is superfluous, I despise you; and if that is not enough for you…”

Pavel Petrovitch’s eyes glittered…. Bazaroff’s, too, were flashing.

“Very good,” he assented; “no need of further explanations. You’ve a whim to try your chivalrous spirit upon me. I might refuse you this pleasure, but–so be it!”

The details of the duel were arranged there and then, eight paces and two shots each. The following morning they met at the place agreed upon, and, having marked off the ground, they took up their stations. Bazaroff watched Pavel Petrovitch take careful aim…. “He’s aiming straight at my nerves,” he thought; “and doesn’t he blink down it carefully, the ruffian! Not an agreeable sensation, though! I’m going to look at his watch-chain.”

Something whizzed sharply by his ear, and at the same instant there was the sound of a shot. Bazaroff, without taking aim, pressed the spring. Pavel Petrovitch gave a slight start, and clutched at his thigh. A stream of blood began to trickle down his white trousers. Bazaroff became the doctor at once, and, flinging aside his pistol, fell on his knees beside his late antagonist, and began with professional skill to attend to his wound. At that moment Nicolai Petrovitch drove up.

“What does this mean?” he asked, rushing to the side of his brother.

“It is nothing,” answered Pavel Petrovitch, faintly. “I had a little dispute with Mr. Bazaroff, and I have had to pay for it a little. I am the only person to blame in all this…. Mr. Bazaroff has behaved most honourably.”

After that incident Bazaroff’s stay in the house any longer was an impossibility. He left the same day, calling at Madame Odintsov’s house on his way home to see Arkady. He found his friend engaged to Katya and in the seventh heaven of delight. Madame Odintsov would have had him stay.

“Why should you not stay now?” she said. “Stay… it’s exciting talking to you… one seems walking on the edge of a precipice. At first one feels timid, but one gains courage as one goes on. Do stay.”

“Thanks for the suggestion,” he retorted, “and for your flattering opinion of my conversational talent. But I think I have already been moving too long in a sphere which is not my own. Flying fishes can hold out for a time in the air, but soon they must splash back into the water; allow me, too, to paddle in my own element.”

Madame Odintsov looked at Bazaroff. His pale face was twitching with a bitter smile. “This man did love me!” she thought, and she felt pity for him, and held out her hand to him with sympathy.

He, too, understood her. “No!” he said, stepping back a pace. “I am a poor man, but I have never taken charity so far. Good-bye and good luck to you.”

“I am certain we are not seeing each other for the last time,” she declared, with an unconscious gesture.

“Anything may happen!” answered Bazaroff, and he bowed and went away.

_IV.–The Passing of Bazaroff_

Bazaroff’s old parents were all the more overjoyed at their son’s arrival, as it was quite unexpected. His mother was greatly excited and his father, touching his neck with his fingers, turned his head round as though he were trying whether it were properly screwed on, and then, all at once, he opened his wide mouth and went off into a perfectly noiseless chuckle.

“I’ve come to you for six whole weeks, governor,” Bazaroff said to him. “I want to work, so please don’t hinder me now.”

But though his father and mother almost effaced themselves, scarcely daring to ask him a question, even to discover what he would like for dinner, the fever of work fell away. It was replaced by dreary boredom or vague restlessness. He began to seek the society of his father and to smoke with him in silence. Now and again he even assisted at some of the medical operations which his father conducted as a charity. Once he pulled a tooth out from a pedlar’s head, and Vassily Ivanovitch never ceased boasting about the extraordinary feat.

One day in a neighbouring village, the news was brought them that a peasant had died of typhus. Three days later Bazaroff came into his father’s room and asked him if he had any caustic to burn a cut in his finger.

“What sort of a cut? where is it?”

“Here, on my finger. I have been dissecting that peasant who died of typhus fever.”

Vassily Ivanovitch suddenly turned quite white. All that day he watched his son’s face stealthily. On the third day Bazaroff could not touch his food.

“Have you no appetite? And your head?” he at last asked, timidly; “does it ache?”

“Yes, of course it aches.”

“Don’t be angry, please,” continued Vassily Ivanovitch. “Won’t you let me feel your pulse?”

Bazaroff got up. “I can tell you without feeling my pulse,” he said. “I am feverish.”

“Has there been any shivering?”

“Yes, there’s been shivering, too; I’ll go and lie down.”

Bazaroff did not get up again all day, and passed the whole night in heavy, half-unconscious slumber. At one o’clock in the morning, opening his eyes with an effort, he saw, by the light of a lamp, his father’s pale face bending over him, and told him to go away. The old man begged his pardon, but he quickly came back on tiptoe, and, half hidden by the cupboard door, he gazed persistently at his son. His wife did not go to bed either, and, leaving the study door open a very little, she kept coming up to it to listen “how Enyusha was breathing” and to look at Vassily Ivanovitch. She could see nothing but his motionless bent back, but even that afforded her some faint consolation.

In the morning Bazaroff spoke to his father in a slow, drowsy voice.

“Governor, I am in a bad way; I’ve got the infection, and in a few days you will have to bury me.”

Vassily Ivanovitch staggered back as if someone had aimed a blow at his leg.

“God have mercy on you! What do you mean? You have only caught a cold. I’ve sent for the doctor and you’ll soon be cured.”

“Come, that’s humbug. I’ve got the typhus; you can see it in my arm. You told me you’d sent for the doctor. You did that to comfort yourself… comfort me, too; send a messenger to Madame Odintsov; she’s a lady with an estate… Do you know?” (Vassily Ivanovitch nodded.) “Yevgeny Bazaroff, say, sends his greetings, and sends word he is dying. Will you do that?”

“Yes, I will do it… But it is an impossible thing for you to die… Think only! Where would divine justice be after that?”

“I know nothing about that; only you send the messenger.”

He turned his face painfully to the wall, while Vassily Ivanovitch went out of the study, and, struggling as far as his wife’s bedroom, simply dropped down on to his knees before the holy pictures.

“Pray, Arina, pray for us,” he murmured. “Our son is dying.”

Bazaroff got worse every hour. He was in the agonies of high fever. His mother and father watched over him, combing his hair and giving him gulps of tea. The old man was tormented by a special anguish. He wished his son to take the sacrament, though, knowing his attitude towards religion, he dared not ask him. At last he could keep back the words no longer. As in a broken voice he begged his son to see a priest, a strange look came over Bazaroff’s face.

“I won’t refuse if that can be any comfort to you, but I’ll wait a little.”

There was the sound of carriage wheels outside. Vassily Ivanovitch rushed to the door. A lady in a black veil and a black mantle, accompanied by a little German doctor in spectacles, got out of the carriage.

“I am Madame Odintsov,” said the lady. “Your son is still living? I have a doctor with me.”

“Benefactress!” cried Vassily Ivanovitch, snatching her hand and placing it convulsively to his lips. “Still living; my Yevgeny is living, and now he will be saved! Wife! wife!… An angel from heaven has come to us.”

But when the doctor came out from examining his patient he breathed the news that there was no hope, and Vassily Ivanovitch conducted Madame Odintsov to his son’s room. As she looked at Bazaroff she felt simply dismayed, with a sort of cold and suffocating dismay; the thought that she would not have felt like that if she had really loved him flashed instantaneously through her brain.

“Thanks,” said Bazaroff from the bed. “I did not expect this. It’s a deed of mercy. So we have seen each other again as you promised…. I loved you! there was no sense in that even before, and less than ever now. Love is a form, and my own form is already breaking up.”

Madame Odintsov gave an involuntary shudder.

“Noble-hearted!” he whispered. “Oh, how young and fresh and pure… in this loathsome room! Well, good-bye…. I thought I wouldn’t die; I’d break down so many things. I wouldn’t die; why should I? There were problems to solve, and I was a giant! And now all the problem for the giant is how to die decently…. My father will tell you what a man Russia is losing…. That’s nonsense, but don’t contradict the old man. Whatever toy will comfort a child… you know. And be kind to mother. People like them are not to be found in your great world…. I was needed by Russia…. No, it’s clear I wasn’t needed. And who is needed?”

Bazaroff put his hand to his brow. Madame Odintsov bent down to him. “Yevgeny Vassilyvitch, I am here….” He at once took his hand away and raised himself.

“Good-bye,” he said, with a sudden force, and his eyes gleamed with their last light. “Good-bye…. Listen…. You know I didn’t kiss you then…. Breathe on the dying lamp, and let it go out….”

She put her lips on his forehead.

“Enough!” he murmured, and dropped back on to the pillow. “Now… darkness….”

Madame Odintsov went softly out. “Well?” Vassily Ivanovitch asked her in a whisper. “He has fallen asleep,” she answered, hardly audible. But Bazaroff was not fated to awaken. That night he breathed his last. A universal lamentation arose in the house. Vassily Ivanovitch was seized by a sudden frenzy.

“I said I should rebel,” he shrieked hoarsely, his face inflamed and distorted, shaking his fist in the air, as though threatening someone; “and I rebel, I rebel!”

But his wife, all in tears, hung upon his neck, and both fell on their faces together. “Side by side,” said one of the servants afterwards, “they drooped their poor heads like lambs at noonday….”

* * * * *

There is a little grave in the graveyard, surrounded by an iron railing; two young fir-trees have been planted, one at each end. Yevgeny Bazaroff is buried in this tomb. Often from the little village not far off two quite feeble old people come to visit it–a husband and wife. At the iron railing they fall down and remain on their knees, and long and bitterly they weep and yearn and intently they gaze at the dumb stone under which their son is lying…. Can it be that their prayers, their tears are fruitless? Can it be that love, sacred, devoted love, is not all-powerful?

Oh, no! however passionate, sinning, and rebellious the heart hidden in the tomb, the flowers growing over it peep serenely at us with their innocent eyes; they tell us not of eternal peace alone, that great peace of “indifferent” nature; they tell us, too, of eternal reconciliation and of life without end.

* * * * *

A Nest of Nobles

“A Nest of Nobles” (“Dvorianskoe Gniezdo”), published in 1858, brought Turgenev a European reputation. Of all his novels, “A Nest of Nobles” is probably the best. It has all the love of detail that is peculiar to the Slavonic mind, a trait which is largely responsible for that feeling of pessimism that pervades the writings of all those who have listened to the “still, sad music of humanity.” Yet Turgenev is not typical of that Russian school of novelists of which Tolstoy and Gorki are distinguished examples; rather he belongs to the school of Thackeray, George Eliot, and Dickens.

_I.–A Student’s Marriage_

Fedor Ivanitch Lavretsky came of an ancient noble family. His father, a strangely whimsical man, determined that his son should grow up a Spartan. A gymnastic instructor was his principal teacher, although he also studied natural science, mathematics, and international law. Music, as a pursuit unworthy of a man, was discarded. The female sex he was taught to hold in contempt, and all the gentler arts and emotions were rigorously repressed. The boy was conscious of defects in his education, and from his eighteenth year set himself to remedy them as far as he could. His father died when he was twenty-two, and young Lavretsky determined to go to Moscow, in the hope that diligent study might enable him to regain the ground lost in youth.

The whole tendency of his education had been to make him into a shy man: he could not get on with people; with an unquenchable thirst for love in his heart, he had never yet dared to look a woman in the face. Robust, rosy-cheeked, bearded, and taciturn, he produced a strange impression on his companions, who did not suspect that this outwardly austere man was inwardly almost a child. He appeared to them to be a queer kind of pedant; they did not care for him, made no overtures to him, and he avoided them. During the first two years he spent at the University he only became fairly intimate with one student, Mihalevitch by name, for he took lessons in Latin.

One day at the theatre he saw in a box in the front tier a young girl leaning her elbow on the velvet of the box. The light of youth and life played in every feature of her lovely dark oval face; subtle intelligence was expressed in the splendid eyes which gazed softly and attentively from under her fine brows, in the swift smile of her sensitive lips, in the very poise of her head, her hands, her neck.

Suddenly the door of her box opened, and a man came in–it was Mihalevitch. The appearance of this man, almost his only acquaintance in Moscow, on the society of the girl who had suddenly absorbed his whole attention, struck him as curious and significant. The performance ceased to interest Lavretsky, and at one pathetic part he involuntarily looked at his beauty: she was bending forward, her cheeks glowing. Under the influence of his persistent gaze her eyes slowly turned and rested on him.

All night he was haunted by those eyes. The skilfully constructed barriers were broken down at last; he was in a shiver and a fever, and the next day he went to Mihalevitch, from whom he learnt that her name was Barbara Paulovna Korobyin. Mihalevitch offered to introduce him; Lavretsky blushed, muttered something unintelligible, and ran away. For five whole days he struggled with his timidity; on the sixth he got into a new uniform and placed himself at Mihalevitch’s disposal.

Paul Petrovitch Korobyin was a retired major-general. With the intention of improving his pecuniary position, he devised a new method of speculating with public funds–an excellent method in itself–but he neglected to bribe in the right place. Information was laid against him, and as a result of the subsequent inquiry he was advised to retire from active service. In Moscow he lived the life of a retired general on 2750 roubles a year.

His daughter at this time was nineteen years old, and the general found her expenses an ever-increasing tax upon his slender resources. He was therefore glad to throw no obstacle in Lavretsky’s way–having discovered that he was wealthy–when, six months after their first meeting, he proposed for his daughter’s hand.

Barbara Paulovna had much practical sense, and a very great love of comfort, together with a great faculty of obtaining it for herself. What charming travelling knick-knacks appeared from various corners of the luxurious carriage that she had purchased to convey them to Lavretsky’s country home! And how delightfully she herself made coffee in the morning! Lavretsky, however, was not disposed to be observant at that time: he was blissful, drunk with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child; indeed, he was as innocent as a child, this young Hercules. Not in vain was the whole personality of his young wife breathing with fascination; not in vain was her promise to the senses of a mysterious luxury of untold bliss: her fulfilment was richer than her promise.

Barbara Paulovna had no mind to establish herself permanently at Lavriky. The idea of staying in that out-of-the-way corner of the steppes never entered her head for an instant. In September she carried her husband off to St. Petersburg, where they passed two winters; the summer they spent at Tsarskoe Selo. They made many acquaintances, went out, and entertained a good deal, and gave the most charming dances and musical evenings. Barbara Paulovna attracted guests as fire attracts moths.

Fedor Ivanitch did not altogether like such a frivolous life. He was unwilling to enter the government service, as his wife suggested; still, he remained in St. Petersburg for her pleasure. He soon discovered, however, that no one hindered him from being alone; that it was not for nothing that he had the quietest and most comfortable study in St. Petersburg; that his tender wife was ever ready to aid him to be alone.

In the course of time a son was born to them, but the poor child did not live long–it died in the spring, and in the summer Lavretsky took his wife abroad. One summer and autumn they spent in Germany and Switzerland, and for the winter they went to Paris.

In Paris Barbara Paulovna made herself a little nest as quickly and as cleverly as in St. Petersburg. She soon drew round herself acquaintances–at first only Russians, afterwards Frenchmen with very excellent manners and fine-sounding names. All of them brought their friends, and _la belle Mme. de Lavretsky_ was soon known from Chausee d’Antin to Rue de Lille.

Fedor Ivanitch still busied himself with study, and set to work translating a well-known treatise on irrigation. “I am not wasting my time,” he thought; “it is all of use; but next winter I must, without fail, return to Russia and get to work.” An unexpected incident broke up his plans.

_II.–Separation_

Lavretsky had the most absolute confidence in his wife’s every action and thought. She was always as calm, affectionate, and confidential with him as she had been from the first. It was therefore with a feeling of stupefaction that, going one day into her boudoir during her absence, he picked up from the floor a note that disclosed her infidelity. He read it absent-mindedly, and did not understand what he had read. He read it a second time–his head began to swim, the ground to sway under his feet.

He had so blindly believed in her; the possibility of deception, of treason, had never presented itself to his mind. He could not understand. This young Frenchman, almost the most insignificant of all his wife’s acquaintances! The fear was borne in upon him that perhaps she had never been worthy of the trust he had reposed in her. To complete it all, he had been hoping in a few months to become a father.

All that night he wandered, half-distraught, about the streets of Paris and in the open country beyond. In the morning he went to an hotel and sent the incriminating note to his wife, with the following letter:

“The enclosed scraps of paper will explain everything to you. I cannot see you again; I imagine that you, too, would hardly desire an interview with me. I am assigning you fifteen thousand francs a year; I cannot give more. Send your address to the office of the estate. Do what you please. Live where you please. I wish you happiness!”

A long letter came back in reply: it put the finishing touch–his last doubts vanished. She did not attempt to defend herself; her only desire was to see him; she besought him not to condemn her irrevocably.

Three days later Lavretsky left Paris. For a time he followed his wife’s movements, as chronicled in Paris society papers. He learnt that a daughter had been born to him. Finally a tragi-comic story was reported with acclamation in all the papers; his wife played an unenviable part in it. Barbara Paulovna had become a notoriety. He ceased to follow her movements. Scepticism, half formed already by the experiences of his life and by his education, took complete possession of his heart, and he became indifferent to everything.

Four years passed by till he felt himself able to return to his own country and to meet his own people. He went to the town of O—-, where lived his cousin, Marya Dmitrievna Kalitin, with her two daughters, Elizabeth and Helena, and her aunt, Marfa Timofyevna Petrov.

_III.–A New Friendship_

Lavretsky stayed a few days in O—- before going to take up his residence, as he proposed doing, at Vassilyevskoe, a small estate of his some twenty miles distant. Mounting the steps of Kalitin’s house to say good-bye before departing, he met Elizabeth coming down.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“To service. It is Sunday.”

“Why do you go to church?”

Lisa looked at him in silent amazement.

“I beg your pardon; I did not mean to say that. I have come to say good-bye to you; I am starting for my village in an hour.”

“Well, mind you don’t forget us,” said Lisa, and went down the steps.

“And don’t forget me. And listen,” he added; “you are going to church; while you are there, pray for me too.”

Lisa stopped short and turned to face him. “Certainly,” she said, looking straight at him; “I will pray for you too. Good-bye.”

In the drawing-room he found Marya Dmitrievna alone. She began to gossip about a young man whom he had met the previous day, Vladimir Nikolaitch Panshin.

“I will tell you a secret, my dear cousin: he is simply crazy about my Lisa. Well, he is of good family, has a capital position, and is a clever fellow; and if it is God’s will, I for my part shall be well pleased.” She launched into a description of her cares and anxieties and maternal sentiments. Lavretsky listened in silence, turning his hat in his hands. Finally he rose, took his leave, and went upstairs to say good-bye to Marfa Timofyevna.

“Tell me, please,” he began; “Marya Dmitrievna has just been talking to me about this–what’s his name?–Panshin? What sort of man is he?”

“What a chatterbox she is, Lord save us! She told you, I suppose, as a secret that he has turned up as a suitor, and so far, there’s nothing to tell, thank God! But already she’s gossipping about him.”

“Why thank God?”

“Because I don’t like the fine young gentleman; and so what is there to be glad of in it?

“Well, shall we see you again soon?” the old lady asked, as he rose to depart.

“Very likely, aunt; it’s not so far, you know.”

“Well, go, then, and God be with you. And Lisa’s not going to marry Panshin; don’t you trouble yourself–that’s not the sort of husband she deserves.”

* * * * *

Lavretsky lived alone at Vassilyevskoe, and often rode into O—— to see his cousins. He saw a good deal of Lisa’s music-master, an old German named Christopher Theodor Lemm, and, finding much in common with him, invited him to stay for a few days.

“Maestro,” said Lavretsky one morning at breakfast, “you will soon have to compose a triumphal cantata.”

“On what occasion?”

“On the nuptials of M. Panshin and Lisa. It seems to me things are in a fair way with them already.”

“That will never be,” cried Lemm.

“Why?”

“Because it is impossible.”

“What, then, do you find amiss with the match?”

“Everything is amiss, everything. At the age of nineteen Lisavetta is a girl of high principles, serious, of lofty feelings, and he–he is a dilettante, in a word.”

“But suppose she loves him?”

“No, she does not love him; that is to say, she is very pure in heart, and does not know herself what it means–love. Mme. de Kalitin tells her that he is a fine young man, and she obeys because she is quite a child. She can only love what is beautiful, and he is not–that is, his soul is not beautiful….”

It sometimes happens that two people who are acquainted but not on intimate terms all of a sudden grow more intimate in a few minutes. This was exactly what came to pass with Lavretsky and Lisa. “So he is like that,” was her thought as she turned a friendly glance at him. “So you are like that,” he, too, was thinking. And thus he was not very much surprised when she began to speak to him about his wife.

“You will forgive me–I ought not to dare to speak of it to you… but how could you… why did you separate from her?”

Lavretsky shuddered. He looked at Lisa and sat down beside her. “My child,” he began, “do not touch on that woman; your hands are tender, but it will hurt me just the same.”

“I know,” Lisa continued as though she had not heard. “I know she has been to blame. I don’t want to defend her; but what God has joined, how can you put asunder? You must forgive, if you wish to be forgiven.”

“She is perfectly contented with her position, I assure you. But her name ought never to be uttered by you. You are too pure. You are not capable of understanding such a creature.”

“Then, if she is like that, why did you marry her?”

Lavretsky got up quickly from his seat. “Why did I marry her? I was young and inexperienced; I was deceived, I was carried away by a beautiful exterior. I knew no women, I knew nothing. God grant that you may make a happier marriage.”

At that moment Marya Dmitrievna came in. Lavretsky did not again succeed in being alone with Lisa, but he looked at her in such a way that she felt her heart at rest, and a little ashamed and sorry for him. Before he left, he had obtained from his cousin a promise that she would come over to Vassilyevskoe one day with her daughters.

When they came Lavretsky made further opportunities to talk with Lisa, while the others were fishing. He led the conversation round to Panshin.

“Vladimir Nikolaitch has a good heart,” said Lisa, “and he is clever; mother likes him.”

“And do you like him?”

“He is nice; why should I not like him?”

“Ah!” A half ironical, half mournful expression crossed his face. “Well, may God grant them happiness,” he muttered as though to himself.

Lisa flushed. “You are mistaken, Fedor Ivanitch. You are wrong in thinking–but don’t you like Vladimir Nikolaitch?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Why?”

“I think he has no heart.”

“What makes you think he has no heart?”

“I may be mistaken–time will show, however.”

Lisa grew thoughtful. Lavretsky began to talk to her about his daily life at Vassilyevskoe. He felt a need to talk to her, to share with her everything that was passing in his heart; she listened so sweetly, so attentively. Her few replies and observations seemed to him so intelligent….

_IV.–Love and Duty_

Glancing one day at a bundle of French newspapers that had been lying on the table unopened for a fortnight, Lavretsky suddenly came upon a paragraph announcing “Mournful intelligence: That charming, fascinating Moscow lady, Mme. Lavretsky, died suddenly yesterday.”

He hastened over to O—-and communicated the news to Lisa, requesting her to keep it secret for a time. They walked in the garden; Lavretsky discussed his newly won freedom.

“Stop!” said Lisa, “don’t talk like that. Of what use is your freedom to you? You ought to be thinking of forgiveness.”

“I forgave her long ago.”

“You don’t understand! You ought to be seeking to be forgiven.”

“You are right,” said Lavretsky after a pause; “what good is my freedom to me?”

“When did you get that paper?” said Lisa without heeding his question.

“The day after your visit.”

“And is it possible that you did not shed tears?”

“What is there to weep over now? Though, indeed, who knows? I might perhaps have been more grieved a fortnight sooner.”

“A fortnight?” said Lisa. “But what has happened, then, in the last fortnight?”

Lavretsky made no reply, and suddenly Lisa flushed violently.

“Yes, yes! you guess why. In the course of this fortnight I have come to know the value of a pure woman’s heart. But I am glad I showed you that paper,” Lavretsky continued after a pause; “already I have grown used to hiding nothing from you, and I hope that you will repay me with the same confidence….”

Lavretsky was not a young man; he could not long delude himself as to the nature of the feeling inspired in him by Lisa. He was brought that day to the final conviction that he loved her.

“Have I really nothing better to do,” he thought, “at the age of thirty-five, than to put my soul into a woman’s keeping again? But Lisa is not like her; she would not demand degrading sacrifices from me; she would not tempt me away from my duties; she would herself incite me to hard, honest work, and we should walk hand in hand towards a noble aim. That’s all very fine,” he concluded his reflections, “but the worst of it is that she does not in the least wish to walk hand in hand with me. But she doesn’t in the least love Panshin either… a poor consolation!”

Painful days followed for Fedor Ivanitch. He found himself in a continual fever. Every morning he made for the post and tore open letters and papers; nowhere did he find confirmation or disproof of the fateful news.

Late one night he found himself wandering aimlessly around the outskirts of O—-. Rambling over the dewy grass he came across a narrow path leading to a little gate which he found open. Wandering in, he found, to his amazement, that he was in the Kalitins’ garden. In Lisa’s room a candle shone behind the white curtains; all else was dark. The light vanished as he looked.

“Sleep well, my sweet girl,” he whispered, sitting motionless, his eyes fixed on the darkened window. Suddenly a light appeared in one of the windows of the ground floor, then another. Who could it be? Lavretsky rose… he caught a glimpse of a well-known face. Lisa entered the drawing-room–she drew near the open door, and stood on the threshold, a light, slender figure, all in white.

“Lisa!” broke hardly audibly from his lips. She started, and began to gaze into the darkness. “Lisa!” he repeated louder, and came out of the shadow.

She raised her head in alarm, and shrank back. “Is it you?” she said. “You here?”

“I–I–listen to me,” whispered Lavretsky, and seizing her hand he led her to a seat. She followed him unresisting. Her pale face, her fixed eyes, and all her gestures expressed an unutterable bewilderment. Lavretsky stood before her. “I did not mean to come here,” he began; “something brought me. I–I love you,” he uttered, in involuntary terror. She tried to get up–she could not; she covered her face with her hands.

“Lisa!” murmured Lavretsky. “Lisa,” he repeated, and fell at her feet. Her shoulders began to heave slightly.

“What is it?” he urged, and he heard a subdued sob. His heart stood still… he knew the meaning of those tears. “Can it be that you love me?” he whispered, and caressed her knees.

“Get up!” he heard her voice. “Get up, Fedor Ivanitch. What are we doing?”

He got up and sat beside her on the seat.

“It frightens me; what we are doing?” she repeated.

“I love you,” he said again. “I am ready to devote my whole life to you.”

She shuddered again as though something had stung her, and lifted her eyes towards heaven.

“All that is in God’s hands,” she said.

“But you love me, Lisa? We shall be happy.”

She dropped her eyes. He softly drew her to him, and her head sank on to his shoulder–he bent his head a little and touched her pale lips….

On the following day Lavretsky drove over to Vassilyevskoe. The first thing that struck him on entering was the scent of patchouli, always distasteful to him. There were some travelling trunks in the hall. He crossed the threshold of the drawing-room–a lady arose from the sofa, made a step forward, and fell at his feet. He caught his breath… he leaned against the wall for support…. It was Barbara Paulovna!

A torrent of words told him that, stricken by remorse, she had determined to break every tie with her sins. A serious illness had given rise to the rumour of her death. She had taken advantage of this to give up everything. Would he not spare her for their little daughter’s sake?

Lavretsky listened to the flood of eloquence in silence. He did not believe one word of her protestations. His wrath choked him: this blow had fallen so suddenly upon him.

* * * * *

Lisa bent forward in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

“This is how we were to meet again,” he brought out at last. It was in Marfa Timofyevna’s room that they met once more. Lisa took her hands from her face. “Yes!” she said faintly. “We were quickly punished.”

“Punished!” said Lavretsky. “What had you done to be punished?” His heart ached with pity and love. “Yes, all is over before it had begun.”

“We must forget all that,” she brought out at last. “It is left for us to do our duty. You, Fedor Ivanitch, must be reconciled with your wife.”

“Lisa!”

“I beg you to do so: by that alone can you expiate…”

“Lisa, for God’s sake!–to be reconciled to her now!”

“I do not ask of you–do not live with her if you cannot. Remember your little girl; do it for my sake.”

“Very well,” Lavretsky muttered between his clenched teeth; “I will do that; in that I shall fulfil my duty. But you–what does your duty consist in?”

“That I know myself.”

Lavretsky started: “You cannot be making up your mind to marry Panshin?”

Lisa gave an almost imperceptible smile–“Oh, no!” she said.

“Now you see for yourself, Fedor Ivanitch, as I told you before, that happiness does not depend on us, but on God.”

* * * * *

Smoke

Considered simply as stories, “Fathers and Sons” and “Smoke” are to all intents and purposes independent of each other, yet in important particulars the latter is a sequel to the first. Once on his arrival at St. Petersburg, Turgenev was met with the words, “Just see what your Nihilists are doing! They have almost gone so far as to burn the city.” Thus again he took up the question of social reform, and in “Smoke” (“Dim”) he views with apprehension the actions of the so-called “intellectuals,” who would make themselves responsible for the shaping of future Russia. Charlatans among the leaders of the new thought, and society dilettantism, both came under his merciless lash. In his opinion the men and ideas in the two camps are no more than smoke–dirty, evil-smelling smoke. The entire atmosphere is gloomy, and throughout is only relieved by the character of Irina, the most exquisite piece of feminine psychology in the whole range of Turgenev’s novels.

_I.–A Broken Idyll_

Early in the fifties there was living in Moscow, in very straitened circumstances, almost in poverty, the numerous family of the Princes Osinin. These were real princes–not Tartar-Georgians, but pure-blooded descendants of Rurik. Time, however, had dealt hardly with them. They had fallen under the ban of the Empire, and retained nothing but their name and the pride of their nobility.

The family of Osinins consisted of a husband and wife and five children. It was living near the dog’s place, in a one-storied little wooden house with a striped portico looking on to the street, green lions on the gates, and all the other pretensions of nobility, though it could hardly make both ends meet, was constantly in debt at the green-grocer’s, and often sitting without firewood or candles in the winter. Though their pride kept them aloof from the society of their neighbours, their straitened circumstances compelled them to receive certain people to whom they were under obligations. Among the number of these was Grigory Mihalovitch Litvinov, a young student of Moscow, the son of a retired official of plebeian extraction, who had once lent the Osinins three hundred roubles. Litvinov called frequently at the house, and fell desperately in love with the eldest daughter, Irina.

Irina was only seventeen, and as beautiful as the dawn. Her thick fair hair was mingled with darker tresses; the languid curves of her lovely neck, and her smile–half indifferent, half weary–betrayed the nervous temperament of a delicate girl; but in the lines of those fine, faintly smiling lips there was something wilful and passionate, something dangerous to herself and others. Her dark grey eyes, with shining lashes and bold sweep of eyebrow, had a strange look in them; they seemed looking out intently and thoughtfully–looking out from some unknown depth and distance. Litvinov fell in love with Irina from the moment he saw her (he was only three years older than she was), but for a long while he failed to obtain not only a response, but even a hearing. She treated him with hostility, and the more he showed his love, the greater was her coldness, the more malignant her indifference. She tortured him in this way for two months. Then everything was transformed in one day.

Worn out by this cold torture, Litvinov was one night about to depart in despair. Without saying good-bye, he began to look for his hat. “Stay,” sounded suddenly in a soft whisper. With throbbing heart he looked round, hardly believing his ears. Before him he saw Irina, transformed. “Stay,” she repeated; “don’t go. I want to be with you.”

From that moment of the discovery of her love, Irina was changed. She, who before had been proud and cruel, became at once as docile as a lamb, as soft as silk, and boundlessly kind.

“Ah, love me, love me, my sweet, my saviour,” she would whisper to him, with her arms about his neck.

In this new dream of happiness the days flew, the weeks passed; the future came ever nearer with the glorious hope of their happiness, and then, suddenly, an event occurred which scattered all their dreams and plans like light roadside dust. The Court came to Moscow, and the Osinins, despite their poverty, determined to attend the customary great ball in the Hall of Nobility. At first Irina resolutely refused to go, and Litvinov was called in by the prince to use his persuasion.

“Very well, then, I will go,” she said, when she had listened to his arguments; “only remember, it is you yourself who desired it.”

She spoke so strangely that he feared he had offended her.

“Irina, darling, you seem to be angry.”

Irina laughed.

“Oh, no! I am not angry. Only, Grisha…” (She fastened her eyes on him, and he thought he had never before seen such an expression in them.) “Perhaps it must be,” she added, in an undertone.

“But, Irina, you love me, dear?”

“I love you,” she answered, with almost solemn gravity, and she clasped his hand firmly like a man.

She went to the ball in a simple white dress, wearing a bunch of heliotrope, the gift of her lover. When he called the following day, Litvinov heard from the prince of the impression Irina had created; how all the great noblemen from St. Petersburg, and even the Czar himself, had commented upon her beauty. But Irina herself he did not see. She had a bad headache, the prince explained. The following day he was again denied a sight of her, and as he turned once more from the house he saw a great personage drive up in a magnificent carriage. A dread foreboding seized him. Dull stupefaction, and thoughts scurrying like mice, vague terror, and the numbness of expectation and the weight of crushed tears in his heavy-laden breast, on his lips the forced, empty smile, and a meaningless prayer–addressed to no one….

As he walked down the street his servant touched him on the shoulder, handing him a note. He recognised Irina’s writing. He tore open the envelope all at once. On a small sheet of notepaper were the following lines:

“Forgive me, Grigory Mihalovitch. All is over between us; I am going away to Petersburg. I am dreadfully unhappy, but the thing is done. It seems my fate… but no, I do not want to justify myself. My presentiments have been realised. Forgive me, forget me! I am not worthy of you.–Irina. Be magnanimous: do not try to see me.”

The blow almost broke Litvinov’s heart. A rich cousin of the Princess Osinin, struck by the impression created by the girl at the ball, had taken her to Petersburg, to use her as a pawn in his struggle for power. Utterly crushed, Litvinov threw up the University and went home to his father in the country. He heard of her occasionally, encircled in splendour. Her name was mentioned with curiosity, respect, and envy, and at last came the news of her marriage to General Ratmirov.

_II–Temptation_

Ten years had passed–ten years during which much had happened to Litvinov. He had served in the Crimea, and, after almost dying of typhus, had been invalided home. Observation had shown him that his father’s management of their property was so old-fashioned that it did not yield a tenth of the revenue it might yield in skillful hands. He determined to go abroad to study agriculture and technology, so that he might properly manage the estate. In various parts of Europe, in England as well, he had travelled and studied, and now he found himself at Baden, his work concluded, ready to take up his duties.

He was at Baden for two reasons: first, because he was espoused to his cousin, Tatyana Petrovna Shestov, whom he had grown to dearly love, and who had promised to be his comrade and friend “for better or worse,” as the English say. And he was at Baden, also, because Tatyana’s aunt, Kapitolina Markovna Shestov, an old unmarried lady of fifty-five, a good-natured, honest, eccentric soul–a democrat, sworn opponent of aristocracy and fashionable society–could not resist the temptation of gazing for once on the aristocratic society which sunned itself in such a fashionable place as Baden.

While he was expecting the arrival of his betrothed, Litvinov found himself compelled to pass his time in the society of his fellow-countrymen–ardent young Russian Liberals of both sexes, bubbling over with new theories and enthusiasm, and ready to talk for hours together on the political and social regeneration of their native country. As far as possible, he avoided their society, and escaped into the solitudes of the mountains. It was during one of these lonely excursions that, feeling hungry, he made his way to the old castle, and, seating himself at one of the little white-painted tables of the restaurant, ordered a light breakfast. While he was seated there, there was a loud tramping of horses, and a party of young Russian generals–persons of the highest society, of weight and importance–arrived, and with much noise and ostentation summoned the obsequious waiters to attend to their wants. Litvinov made haste to drink off his glass of milk, paid for it, and, putting his hat on, was just making off past the party of generals…

“Grigory Mihalovitch,” he heard a woman’s voice, “don’t you recognise me?”

He stopped involuntarily. That voice… that voice had too often set his heart beating in the past… He turned round and saw Irina.

Litvinov knew her at once, though she had changed since he saw her that last time ten years ago, though she had been transformed from a girl into a woman.

“Irina Pavlovna,” he uttered, irresolutely.

“You know me? How glad I am! how glad–” She stopped, blushing. “Let me introduce you to my husband.”

One of the young generals, Ratmirov by name, almost the most elegant of