White nights, and other stories
heart." Arkady sobbed and turned an imploring look on every one. It
seemed to him that they were all brothers of his dear Vasya, that they
were all worried and weeping about him. "How, how has it happened? how
has it happened?" asked Yulian Mastakovitch. "What has sent him out of
his mind?"
"Gra--gra--gratitude!" was all Arkady Ivanovitch could articulate.
Every one heard his answer with amazement, and it seemed strange and
incredible to every one that a man could go out of his mind from
gratitude. Arkady explained as best he could.
"Good Heavens! what a pity!" said Yulian Mastakovitch at last. "And the
work entrusted to him was not important, and not urgent in the least. It
was not worth while for a man to kill himself over it! Well, take him
away!"... At this point Yulian Mastakovitch turned to Arkady Ivanovitch
again, and began questioning him once more. "He begs," he said, pointing
to Vasya, "that some girl should not be told of this. Who is she--his
betrothed, I suppose?"
Arkady began to explain. Meanwhile Vasya seemed to be thinking of
something, as though he were straining his memory to the utmost to
recall some important, necessary matter, which was particularly wanted
at this moment. From time to time he looked round with a distressed
face, as though hoping some one would remind him of what he had
forgotten. He fastened his eyes on Arkady. All of a sudden there was a
gleam of hope in his eyes; he moved with the left leg forward, took
three steps as smartly as he could, clicking with his right boot as
soldiers do when they move forward at the call from their officer. Every
one was waiting to see what would happen.
"I have a physical defect and am small and weak, and I am not fit for
military service, Your Excellency," he said abruptly.
At that every one in the room felt a pang at his heart, and firm as was
Yulian Mastakovitch's character, tears trickled from his eyes.
"Take him away," he said, with a wave of his hands.
"Present!" said Vasya in an undertone; he wheeled round to the left and
marched out of the room. All who were interested in his fate followed
him out. Arkady pushed his way out behind the others. They made Vasya
sit down in the waiting-room till the carriage came which had been
ordered to take him to the hospital. He sat down in silence and seemed
in great anxiety. He nodded to any one he recognized as though saying
good-bye. He looked round towards the door every minute, and prepared
himself to set off when he should be told it was time. People crowded in
a close circle round him; they were all shaking their heads and
lamenting. Many of them were much impressed by his story, which had
suddenly become known. Some discussed his illness, while others
expressed their pity and high opinion of Vasya, saying that he was such
a quiet, modest young man, that he had been so promising; people
described what efforts he had made to learn, how eager he was for
knowledge, how he had worked to educate himself. "He had risen by his
own efforts from a humble position," some one observed. They spoke with
emotion of His Excellency's affection for him. Some of them fell to
explaining why Vasya was possessed by the idea that he was being sent
for a soldier, because he had not finished his work. They said that the
poor fellow had so lately belonged to the class liable for military
service and had only received his first grade through the good offices
of Yulian Mastakovitch, who had had the cleverness to discover his
talent, his docility, and the rare mildness of his disposition. In fact,
there was a great number of views and theories.
A very short fellow-clerk of Vasya's was conspicuous as being
particularly distressed. He was not very young, probably about thirty.
He was pale as a sheet, trembling all over and smiling queerly, perhaps
because any scandalous affair or terrible scene both frightens, and at
the same time somewhat rejoices the outside spectator. He kept running
round the circle that surrounded Vasya, and as he was so short, stood on
tiptoe and caught at the button of every one--that is, of those with
whom he felt entitled to take such a liberty--and kept saying that he
knew how it had all happened, that it was not so simple, but a very
important matter, that it couldn't be left without further inquiry; then
stood on tiptoe again, whispered in some one's ear, nodded his head
again two or three times, and ran round again. At last everything was
over. The porter made his appearance, and an attendant from the hospital
went up to Vasya and told him it was time to start. Vasya jumped up in a
flutter and went with them, looking about him. He was looking about for
some one.
"Vasya, Vasya!" cried Arkady Ivanovitch, sobbing. Vasya stopped, and
Arkady squeezed his way up to him. They flung themselves into each
other's arms in a last bitter embrace. It was sad to see them. What
monstrous calamity was wringing the tears from their eyes! What were
they weeping for? What was their trouble? Why did they not understand
one another?
"Here, here, take it! Take care of it," said Shumkov, thrusting a paper
of some kind into Arkady's hand. "They will take it away from me. Bring
it me later on; bring it ... take care of it...." Vasya could not
finish, they called to him. He ran hurriedly downstairs, nodding to
every one, saying good-bye to every one. There was despair in his face.
At last he was put in the carriage and taken away. Arkady made haste to
open the paper: it was Liza's curl of black hair, from which Vasya had
never parted. Hot tears gushed from Arkady's eyes: oh, poor Liza!
When office hours were over, he went to the Artemyevs'. There is no need
to describe what happened there! Even Petya, little Petya, though he
could not quite understand what had happened to dear Vasya, went into a
corner, hid his face in his little hands, and sobbed in the fullness of
his childish heart. It was quite dusk when Arkady returned home. When he
reached the Neva he stood still for a minute and turned a keen glance up
the river into the smoky frozen thickness of the distance, which was
suddenly flushed crimson with the last purple and blood-red glow of
sunset, still smouldering on the misty horizon.... Night lay over the
city, and the wide plain of the Neva, swollen with frozen snow, was
shining in the last gleams of the sun with myriads of sparks of gleaming
hoar frost. There was a frost of twenty degrees. A cloud of frozen steam
hung about the overdriven horses and the hurrying people. The condensed
atmosphere quivered at the slightest sound, and from all the roofs on
both sides of the river, columns of smoke rose up like giants and
floated across the cold sky, intertwining and untwining as they went, so
that it seemed new buildings were rising up above the old, a new town
was taking shape in the air.... It seemed as if all that world, with all
its inhabitants, strong and weak, with all their habitations, the
refuges of the poor, or the gilded palaces for the comfort of the
powerful of this world was at that twilight hour like a fantastic vision
of fairy-land, like a dream which in its turn would vanish and pass away
like vapour into the dark blue sky. A strange thought came to poor
Vasya's forlorn friend. He started, and his heart seemed at that instant
flooded with a hot rush of blood kindled by a powerful, overwhelming
sensation he had never known before. He seemed only now to understand
all the trouble, and to know why his poor Vasya had gone out of his
mind, unable to bear his happiness. His lips twitched, his eyes lighted
up, he turned pale, and as it were had a clear vision into something
new.
He became gloomy and depressed, and lost all his gaiety. His old lodging
grew hateful to him--he took a new room. He did not care to visit the
Artemyevs, and indeed he could not. Two years later he met Lizanka in
church. She was by then married; beside her walked a wet nurse with a
tiny baby. They greeted each other, and for a long time avoided all
mention of the past. Liza said that, thank God, she was happy, that she
was not badly off, that her husband was a kind man and that she was fond
of him.... But suddenly in the middle of a sentence her eyes filled with
tears, her voice failed, she turned away, and bowed down to the church
pavement to hide her grief.
A CHRISTMAS TREE AND A WEDDING
A STORY
The other day I saw a wedding ... but no, I had better tell you about
the Christmas tree. The wedding was nice, I liked it very much; but the
other incident was better. I don't know how it was that, looking at that
wedding, I thought of that Christmas tree. This was what happened. Just
five years ago, on New Year's Eve, I was invited to a children's party.
The giver of the party was a well-known and business-like personage,
with connections, with a large circle of acquaintances, and a good many
schemes on hand, so that it may be supposed that this party was an
excuse for getting the parents together and discussing various
interesting matters in an innocent, casual way. I was an outsider; I had
no interesting matter to contribute, and so I spent the evening rather
independently. There was another gentleman present who was, I fancied,
of no special rank or family, and who, like me, had simply turned up at
this family festivity. He was the first to catch my eye. He was a tall,
lanky man, very grave and very correctly dressed. But one could see that
he was in no mood for merrymaking and family festivity; whenever he
withdrew into a corner he left off smiling and knitted his bushy black
brows. He had not a single acquaintance in the party except his host.
One could see that he was fearfully bored, but that he was valiantly
keeping up the part of a man perfectly happy and enjoying himself. I
learned afterwards that this was a gentleman from the provinces, who had
a critical and perplexing piece of business in Petersburg, who had
brought a letter of introduction to our host, for whom our host was, by
no means _con amore_, using his interest, and whom he had invited, out
of civility, to his children's party. He did not play cards, cigars were
not offered him, every one avoided entering into conversation with him,
most likely recognizing the bird from its feathers; and so my gentleman
was forced to sit the whole evening stroking his whiskers simply to have
something to do with his hands. His whiskers were certainly very fine.
But he stroked them so zealously that, looking at him, one might have
supposed that the whiskers were created first and the gentleman only
attached to them in order to stroke them.
In addition to this individual who assisted in this way at our host's
family festivity (he had five fat, well-fed boys), I was attracted, too,
by another gentleman. But he was quite of a different sort. He was a
personage. He was called Yulian Mastakovitch. From the first glance one
could see that he was an honoured guest, and stood in the same relation
to our host as our host stood in relation to the gentleman who was
stroking his whiskers. Our host and hostess said no end of polite things
to him, waited on him hand and foot, pressed him to drink, flattered
him, brought their visitors up to be introduced to him, but did not take
him to be introduced to any one else. I noticed that tears glistened in
our host's eyes when he remarked about the party that he had rarely
spent an evening so agreeably. I felt as it were frightened in the
presence of such a personage, and so, after admiring the children, I
went away into a little parlour, which was quite empty, and sat down in
an arbour of flowers which filled up almost half the room.
The children were all incredibly sweet, and resolutely refused to model
themselves on the "grown-ups," regardless of all the admonitions of