On the Eve/XXXI

Shubin had spoken truly. The unexpected news of Elena's marriage nearly killed Anna Vassilyevna. She took to her bed. Nikolai Artemyevitch insisted on her not admitting her daughter to her presence; he seemed to be enjoying the opportunity of showing himself in the fullest sense the master of the house, with all the authority of the head of the family; he made an incessant uproar in the household, storming at the servants, and constantly saying: 'I will show you who I am, I will let you know—you wait a little!' While he was in the house, Anna Vassilyevna did not see Elena, and had to be content with Zoya, who waited on her very devotedly, but kept thinking to herself: Diesen Insarof vorziehen—und wem? But directly Nikolai Artemyevitch went out—and that happened pretty often, Augustina Christianovna had come back in sober earnest—Elena went to her mother, and a long time her mother gazed at her in silence and in tears.

This dumb reproach, more deeply than any other, cut Elena to the heart; at such moments she felt, not remorse, but a deep, boundless pity akin to remorse.

'Mamma, dear mamma!' she would repeat, kissing her hands; 'what was I to do? I'm not to blame, I loved him, I could not have acted differently. Throw the blame on fate for throwing me with a man whom papa doesn't like, and who is taking me away from you.'

'Ah!' Anna Vassilyevna cut her short, 'don't remind me of that. When I think where you mean to go, my heart is ready to burst!'

'Dear mamma,' answered Elena, 'be comforted; at least, it might have been worse; I might have died.'

'But, as it is, I don't expect to see you again. Either you will end your days there in a tent somewhere'—Anna Vassilyevna pictured Bulgaria as something after the nature of the Siberian swamps,—'or I shall not survive the separation——'

'Don't say that, mamma dearest, we shall see each other again, please God. There are towns in Bulgaria just as there are here.'

'Fine towns there, indeed! There is war going on there now; wherever you go, I suppose they are firing cannons off all the while. . . Are you meaning to set off soon?'

'Soon ... if only papa. He means to appeal to the authorities; he threatens to separate us.'

Anna Vassilyevna turned her eyes heavenwards.

'No, Lenotchka, he will not do that. I would not myself have consented to this marriage. I would have died first; but what's done can't be undone, and I will not let my daughter be disgraced.'

So passed a few days. At last Anna Vassilyevna plucked up her courage, and one evening she shut herself up alone with her husband in her room. The whole house was hushed to catch every sound. At first nothing was to be heard; then Nikolai Artemyevitch's voice began to tune up, then a quarrel broke out, shouts were raised, even groans were discerned. . . . Already Shubin was plotting with the maids and Zoya to rush in to the rescue; but the uproar in the bedroom began by degrees to grow less, passed into quiet talk, and ceased. Only from time to time a faint sob was to be heard, and then those, too, were still. There was the jingling of keys, the creak of a bureau being unfastened. . . . The door was opened, and Nikolai Artemyevitch appeared. He looked surlily at every one who met him, and went out to the club; while Anna Vassilyevna sent for Elena, embraced her warmly, and, with bitter tears flowing down her cheeks, she said:

'Everything is settled, he will not make a scandal, and there is nothing now to hinder you from going—from abandoning us.'

'You will let Dmitri come to thank you?' Elena begged her mother, as soon as the latter had been restored a little.

'Wait a little, my darling, I cannot bear yet to see the man who has come between us. We shall have time before you go.'

'Before we go,' repeated Elena mournfully.

Nikolai Artemyevitch had consented 'not to make a scandal,' but Anna Vassilyevna did not tell her daughter what a price he had put on his consent. She did not tell her that she had promised to pay all his debts, and had given him a thousand roubles down on the spot. Moreover, he had declared decisively to Anna Vassilyevna that he had no wish to meet Insarov, whom he persisted in calling 'the Montenegrin vagrant,' and when he got to the club, he began, quite without occasion, talking of Elena's marriage, to his partner at cards, a retired general of engineers. 'You have heard,' he observed with a show of carelessness, 'my daughter, through the higher education, has gone and married a student.' The general looked at him through his spectacles, muttered, 'H'm!' and asked him what stakes would he play for.

Накануне (Тургенев)/Глава 31