a glimpse of his widow. She had the reputation in the neighbourhood of a first-rate manager. And so it proved; her estate and homestead and the house itself (I could not help glancing at the roof; it was an iron one) all turned out to be in excellent order; everything was neat, clean, tidied-up, where needful—painted, as though its mistress were a German. Anna Martinovna herself, of course, looked older. But the peculiar, cold, and, as it were, wicked charm which had once so fascinated me had not altogether left her. She was dressed in rustic fashion, but elegantly. She received us, not cordially—that word was not applicable to her—but courteously, and on seeing me, a witness of that fearful scene, not an eyelash quivered. She made not the slightest reference to my mother, nor her father, nor her sister, nor her husband.
She had two daughters, both very pretty, slim young things, with charming little faces, and a bright and friendly expression in their black eyes. There was a son, too, a little like his father, but still a boy to he proud of! During the discussions between the landowners, Anna Martinovna’s attitude was composed and dignified, she showed no sign of being specially obstinate, nor specially grasping. But none had a truer perception of their own interests than she of hers; none could more convincingly expound and defend their rights. All the laws «pertinent to the case,» even the Minister’s circulars, she had thoroughly mastered. She spoke little, and in a quiet voice, but every word she uttered was to the point. It ended in our all signifying our agreement to all her demands, and making concessions, which we could only marvel at ourselves. On our way home, some of the worthy landowners even used harsh words of themselves; they all hummed and hawed, and shook their heads.
«Ah, she’s got brains that woman!» said one. «A tricky baggage!» put in another less delicate proprietor. «Smooth in word, but cruel in deed!»
«And a screw into the bargain!» added a third; «not a glass of vodka nor a morsel of caviare for us—what do you think of that?»
«What can one expect of her?» suddenly croaked a gentleman who had been silent till then, «every one knows she poisoned her husband!»
To my astonishment, nobody thought fit to controvert this awful and certainly unfounded charge! I was the more surprised at this, as, in spite of the slighting expressions I have reported, all of them felt respect for Anna Martinovna, not excluding the indelicate landowner. As for the mediator, he waxed positively eloquent.
«Put her on a throne,» he exclaimed, «she’d be another Semiramis or Catherine the Second! The discipline among her peasants is a perfect model. . . . The education of her children is model! What a head! What brains!»
Without going into the question of Semiramis and Catherine, there was no doubt Anna Martinovna was living a very happy life. Ease, inward and external, the pleasant serenity of spiritual health, seemed the very atmosphere about herself, her family, all her surroundings. How far she had deserved such happiness. . . that is another question. Such questions, though, are only propounded in youth. Everything in the world, good and bad, comes to man, not through his deserts, but in consequence of some as yet unknown but logical laws which I will not take upon myself to indicate, though I sometimes fancy I have a dim perception of them. XXXI
I QUESTIONED the mediator about Evlampia Martinovna, and learnt that she had been lost sight of completely ever since she left home, and probably «had departed this life long ago.»
So our worthy mediator expressed himself but I am convinced that I have seen Evlampia, that I have come across her. This was how it was.
Four years after my interview with Anna Martinovna, I was spending the summer at Murino, a little hamlet near Petersburg, a well-known resort of summer visitors of the middle class. The shooting was pretty decent about Murino at that time, and I used to go out with my gun almost every day. I had a companion on my expeditions, a man of the tradesman class, called Vikulov, a very sensible and good-natured fellow; but, as he said of himself, of no position whatever. This man had been simply everywhere, and everything! Nothing could astonish him, he knew everything—but he cared for nothing but shooting and wine. Well, one day we were on our way home to Murino, and we chanced to pass a solitary house, standing at the cross-roads, and enclosed by a high, close paling. It was not the first time I had seen the house, and every time it excited my curiosity. There was something about it mysterious, locked-up, grimly-dumb, something suggestive of a prison or a hospital. Nothing of it could be seen from the road but its steep, dark, red-painted roof. There was only one pair of gates in the whole fence; and these seemed fastened and never opened. No sound came from the other side of them. For all that, we felt that some one was certainly living in the house; it had not at all the air of a deserted dwelling. On the I contrary, everything about it was stout, and tight, and strong, as if it would stand a siege!
«What is that fortress?» I asked my companion. «Don’t you know?»
Vikulov gave a sly wink. «A fine building, eh? The police-captain of these parts gets a nice little income out of it!»
«How’s that?»
«I’ll tell you. You’ve heard, I daresay, of the Flagellant dissenters—that do without priests, you know?»
«Yes.»
«Well, it’s there that their chief mother lives.»
«A woman?»
«Yes—the mother; a mother of God, they say.»
«Nonsense!»
«I tell you, it is so. She is a strict one, they say. . . . A regular commander-in-chief! She rules over thousands! I’d take her, and all these mothers of God . . . But what’s the use of talking?»
He called his Pegashka, a marvellous dog, with an excellent scent, but with no notion of setting. Vikulov was obliged to tie her hind paws to keep her from running so furiously.
His words sank into my memory. I sometimes went out of my way to pass by the mysterious house. One day I had just got up to it, when suddenly—wonderful to relate!—a bolt grated in the gates, a key creaked in the lock, then the gates themselves slowly parted, there appeared a large horse’s head, with a plaited forelock under a decorated yoke, and slowly there rolled into the road a small cart, like those driven by horse-dealers, and higglers. On the leather cushion of the cart, near to me, sat a peasant of about thirty, of a remarkably handsome and attractive appearance, in a neat black smock, and a black cap, pulled down low on his forehead. He was carefully driving the well-fed horse, whose sides were as broad as a stove. Beside the peasant, on the far side of the cart, sat a tall woman, as straight as an arrow. Her head was covered by a costly-looking black shawl. She was dressed in a short jerkin of dove-coloured velvet, and a dark blue merino skirt; her white hands she held discreetly clasped on her bosom. The cart turned on the road to the left, and brought the woman within two paces of me; she turned her head a little, and I recognised Evlampia Harlov. I knew her at once, I did not doubt for one instant, and indeed no doubt was possible; eyes like hers, and above all that cut of the lips—haughty and sensual—I had never seen in any one else. Her face had grown longer and thinner, the skin was darker, here and there lines could be discerned; but, above all, the expression of the face was changed! It is difficult to do justice in words to the self-confidence, the sternness, the pride it had gained! Not simply the serenity of power—the satiety of power was visible in every feature. The careless glance she cast at me told of long years of habitually meeting nothing but reverent, unquestioning obedience. That woman clearly lived surrounded, not by worshippers, but by slaves. She had clearly forgotten even the time when any command, any desire of hers, was not carried out at the instant! I called her loudly by her name and her father’s; she gave a faint start, looked at me a second time, not with alarm, but with contemptuous wrath, as though asking—«Who dares to disturb me?» and barely parting her lips, uttered a word of command. The peasant sitting beside her started forward, with a wave of his arm struck the horse with the reins—the horse set off at a strong rapid trot, and the cart disappeared.
Since then I have not seen Evlampia again. In what way Martin Petrovitch’s daughter came to be a Holy Virgin in the Flagellant sect I cannot imagine. But, who knows, very likely she has founded a sect which will be called—or even now is called—after her name, the Evlampieshtchin sect? Anything may be, anything may come to pass.
And so this is what I had to tell you of my Lear of the Steppes, of his family and his doings.
The story-teller ceased, and we talked a little longer, and then parted, each to his home.
WEIMAR, 1870.
ACIA I
AT that time I was five-and-twenty, began N. N.,—it was in days long past, as you perceive. I had only just gained my freedom and gone abroad, not to «finish my education,» as the phrase was in those days; I simply wanted to have a look at
