Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 132.djvu/185

Rh that you had not precisely a winning exterior. You were shy, you blushed, and you stammered. The country air did not even improve your health; your life went out like a candle, poor fellow!

It is true that the window of your room opened into the garden; elder, apple, and lime trees shed their light blossoms on to your table, your books, and inkstand; on the wall hung a blue silk watch-pocket, a parting gift from a good, kind-hearted German governess with fair hair and blue eyes. Now and then an old friend from Moscow paid you a visit, and delighted you with reading poems of his own or some one else's; but the loneliness, the unbearable slavery of a tutor's life, the impossibility of ever becoming free, the endless autumn and winter days, and at length illness that would not be gainsaid — poor, poor Avenir!

I went to see Sorokoumoff a short time before his death. He could then hardly walk. His employer did not turn him out of the house, but he no longer paid him his salary, and had engaged another tutor for Sosa — Fofa had entered the cadet corps.

Avenir sat in an old armchair at the window. The weather was splendid. The clear blue autumn sky formed a vault over the dark mass of leafless lime-trees, on which the last golden leaves were trembling here and there. The ground, which had been frozen hard in the night, sparkled and thawed in the sun, which cast its slanting red rays over the bleached grass; there was a faint twittering noise in the air; the voices of the gardeners sounded clearly and distinctly from the garden. Avenir wore an old dressing-gown; his green neckcloth threw a ghastly reflection over his fearfully haggard face. He was immensely pleased to see me, and stretched out his hand to me; but when he began to speak his cough overcame him. I let him recover himself, and sat down beside him. On his knees lay a neatly-written manuscript, containing Koltsoff's poems; he tapped it with his finger, and said with a smile, "There is a poet!" He could scarcely stop coughing, yet he declaimed in a hardly audible voice: —

I stopped him. The doctor had forbidden him to speak. I knew how I could give him pleasure. Sorokoumoff had never, as the expression is, "kept pace with the progress of knowledge;" but he was, nevertheless, curious to know how far the great intellects of the day had got. Sometimes he would entice a companion into a corner, and begin to question him; he could listen with astonishment, believe every word, and repeat it faithfully to others. German philosophy had a special interest for him.

I began to talk to him of Hegel. (I am speaking of old days, you see.)

Avenir nodded his head in acquiescence, knitted his brows, smiled and whispered, "I see, I understand! — Ah! good, very good!"

This childlike craving for knowledge in the dying, homeless, forsaken man moved me, I must confess, to tears. It must be observed that Avenir did not, like most consumptive people, deceive himself as to his illness — and yet he never complained, he did not fidget, nor did he ever once allude to his position.

When he had somewhat recovered his strength he talked of Moscow, of his old companions, of Pushin, of the theatre and Russian literature. He called to mind our former feasts, and the fiery debates of that time; he mentioned with regret the names of several dead friends.

"Do you remember Dasha?" he said at last; "that was indeed a golden disposition! what a heart! and how she loved me! — I wonder how she is getting on now? She must be thin and careworn, poor child!"

I would not disturb the sick man's illusion; and, in truth, why need he know that his Dasha was now a fat, rouged woman, full of shrill chidings and a taste for Philistine society. "Only," methought, looking at his haggard face, "could not one get him away from here? After all, it might be possible to cure him." But he would not let me finish my proposal.

"No, brother," he said, "many thanks; it is all the same where one dies. I shall not live over the winter — why should I give people unnecessary trouble? I am accustomed to this house; it is true that the family here are ——"

"Disagreeable?" I broke in.

"No, not disagreeable, but — somehow woodeny; but, however, I have nothing to complain about. There are some neighbors too. One of them, Mr. Kassatkin has a daughter, who is a well-brought-up, amiable girl, not at all proud ——"

Sorokoumoff had another fit of coughing.