XXXIV
It was ten o'clock in the evening in the drawing-room of the mansion of Arzhano. Sipyagin, his wife, and Kallomyetsev were playing cards, when a footman came in and announced the arrival of a stranger, Mr. Paklin, who wanted to see Boris Andreitch on the most urgent and important business.
'So late!' wondered Valentina Mihalovna.
'Eh?' queried Boris Andreitch, wrinkling up his handsome nose. 'What did you say was the gentleman's name?'
'He said Paklin, sir.'
'Paklin!' cried Kallomyetsev. 'A truly rural name. Paklin' (i.e. stuffing) '. . . Solomin' (i.e. strawing) '. . .De vrais noms ruraux, hein?'
'And you say,' pursued Boris Andreitch, turning to the footman with the same expression of displeasure, 'that his business is important, urgent?'
'So the gentleman says, sir.'
'H'm . . . some beggar or swindler' ('Or both together,' put in Kallomyetsev). 'Quite likely. Ask him into my study,' Boris Andreitch got up. 'Pardon, ma bonne. Have a game of écarté while I'm gone, or wait for me. I'll be back directly.'
'Nous causerons . . . allez!' said Kallomyetsev. When Sipyagin came into his study and saw Paklin's pitiful, feeble little figure meekly huddled against the wall between the fireplace and the door, he was seized with that truly ministerial sensation of lofty compassion and fastidious condescension so characteristic of the Petersburg higher official.
'Mercy on us! What a poor little plucked bird!' he thought, 'and I do believe he's lame too!'
'Be seated,' he said aloud, giving vent to the benevolent baritone notes of his voice, and affably throwing back his little head; and he took a seat before his visitor.
'You are tired from your journey, I presume; take a seat, and let me hear what is the important business that has brought you to me so late.'
'Your Excellency,' began Paklin, dropping discreetly into a chair, 'I have made bold to come to you———'
'Wait a bit, wait a bit,' Sipyagin interrupted him; 'I've seen you before. I never forget a face I have once met; I always recollect it. Eh . . . eh . . . eh . . . precisely . . . where have I met you?'
'You are right, your Excellency. . . . I had the honour of meeting you in Petersburg at a person's who . . . who . . . since then . . . has unfortunately . . . incurred your displeasure.'
Sipyagin got up quickly from his chair.
'At Mr. Nezhdanov's! I remember now. Surely you haven't come from him?'
'Oh, no, your Excellency; quite the contrary . . . I . . .'
Sipyagin sat down again.
'That's as well. For in that case I would promptly have asked you to leave the house. I can give no admittance to any mediator between me and Mr. Nezhdanov. Mr. Nezhdanov has shown me one of those affronts which are not forgotten. . . . I am above revenge, but I wish to know nothing of him, nor of the girl—more depraved in mind than in heart' (this phrase Sipyagin must have repeated thirty times since Marianna's flight)—'who could bring herself to leave the home where she had been cared for to become the mistress of a baseborn adventurer! It's enough for them that I consent to forget them!'
At this last word Sipyagin made a downward motion of his wrist away from him.
'I forget them, sir!'
'Your Excellency, I have already submitted to you that I have not come here from them, though I may nevertheless inform your Excellency, among other things, that they are already joined in the bonds of lawful matrimony.' . . . ('There, it's all one!' thought Paklin; 'I said I'd lie a bit here, and I'm lying. Here goes!')
Sipyagin moved his head restlessly to right and left against the back of his easy-chair.
'That is a matter of no interest to me, sir. One foolish marriage the more in the world, that's all. But what is this most urgent business to which I am indebted for the pleasure of your visit?'
'Ugh! the damned director of a department!' Paklin thought again. 'That's enough of your airs and graces, you ugly English monkey-face.'
'Your wife's brother,' he said aloud—'Mr. Markelov—has been seized by the peasants he had meant to incite to insurrection, and is now in custody in the governor's house.'
Sipyagin jumped up a second time.
'What . . . what did you say?' he stammered, not at all in his ministerial baritone, but in a sort of piteous guttural.
'I said your brother-in-law had been seized and is in chains. Directly I learned this fact, I took horses and came to warn you. I imagined that I might be rendering a service both to you and to that unfortunate man whom you may be able to save!'
'I am much obliged to you,' said Sipyagin in the same feeble voice; and with a violent blow on a bell shaped like a mushroom, he filled the whole house with its clear, metallic ring. 'I am much obliged to you,' he repeated more sharply; 'though let me tell you, a man who has trampled underfoot every law, human and divine, were he a hundred times my kinsman, is in my eyes not to be pitied; he is a criminal!'
A footman darted into the room.
'Your orders, sir?'
'The coach! This minute the coach and four! I am driving to the town. Filip and Stepan to come with me!' The footman darted out. 'Yes, sir, my brother-in-law is a criminal; and I am driving to the town, not to save him! Oh, no!'
'But, your Excellency . . .'
'Such are my principles, sir; and I beg you not to trouble me with objections!'
Sipyagin fell to walking up and down the room, while Paklin's eyes grew round as saucers. 'Ugh, you devil!' he was thinking; 'and you call yourself a liberal! Why, you've a roaring lion!' The door opened, and with quick steps there entered first Valentina Mihalovna, and behind her Kallomyetsev.
'What is the meaning of this, Boris? you have ordered the coach out? you are going to the town? what has happened?'
Sipyagin went up to his wife, and took her by her arm, between the wrist and the elbow. 'Il faut vous armer de courage, ma chère. Your brother is arrested.'
'My brother? Sergei? What for?'
'He has been preaching Socialistic theories to the peasants!' (Kallomyetsev gave vent to a faint whistle.) 'Yes! He has been preaching revolution! he has been making propaganda! They seized him, and gave him up. Now he's—in the town.'
'The madman! But who has told you this?'
'Mr.. . . Mr.. . . what's his name? Mr. Konopatin brought this news.'
Valentina Mihalovna glanced at Paklin. He gave a forlorn bow. 'My! what an elegant female!' was his thought. Even at such painful moments . . . alas, how susceptible was poor Paklin to feminine charms!
'And you mean to go to the town—so late?'
'I shall find the governor still up.'
'I always predicted that it must end so,' put in Kallomyetsev. 'It could not be otherwise! But what splendid chaps our Russian peasants are! Delightful! Pardon, madame, c'est votre frère! Mais la vérité avant tout!'
'Can you really mean to go, Boris?' asked Valentina Mihalovna.
'I'm convinced too,' continued Kallomyetsev, 'that that fellow too, that tutor, Mr. Nezhdanov, has had a hand in it. J'en mettrais ma main au feu. They're all in one boat! Has he been caught? You don't know?'
Again Sipyagin made a downward gesture from his wrist.
'I don't know, and I don't want to know! By the way,' he added, turning to his wife, 'il paraît qu'ils sont mariés!'
'Who said so? The same gentleman?' Valentina Mihalovna again looked at Paklin, but this time she screwed up her eyes as she did so.
'Yes.'
'In that case,' put in Kallomyetsev, 'he knows where they are for a certainty. Do you know where they are? Do you know where they are? Eh? eh? eh? Do you know?' Kallomyetsev began pacing up and down before Paklin, as though to bar the way to him, though the latter showed not the faintest inclination to escape.'Speak! Answer! Eh? Eh? Do you know? Do you know?'
'If I did know,' Paklin said with annoyance—his wrath was stirred at last and his little eyes flashed—'if I did know, I should not tell you.'
'Oh . . . oh . . . oh!' muttered Kallomyetsev. 'You hear . . . you hear! Why, this fellow, too . . . this fellow, too, must be one of their gang!'
'The coach is ready!' a footman announced. Sipyagin seized his hat with a graceful, resolute gesture; but Valentina Mihalovna begged him with such insistence to put off going till next morning—she laid before him such cogent reasons, the darkness on the road, and every one would be asleep in the town, and he would merely be upsetting his nerves and might catch cold—that Sipyagin at last was persuaded by her, and exclaiming, 'I obey!' with a gesture as graceful, but no longer resolute, he laid his hat on the table.
'Take out the horses!' he commanded the footman;'but to-morrow at six in the morning precisely, let them be ready! Do you hear? You can go! Stop! The visitor . . . the gentleman's conveyance can be dismissed! Pay the man! Eh? I fancy you spoke, Mr. Konopatin? I'll take you with me to-morrow, Mr. Konopatin! What do you say? I don't hear.. . . You will take some vodka, I dare say? Some vodka for Mr. Konopatin! No! You don't drink it? In that case, Fyodor, show the gentleman to the green room! Good-night, Mr. Kono———'
Paklin lost all patience at last.
'Paklin!' he roared, 'my name is Paklin!'
'Yes, yes; well, that's much the same. It's not unlike, you know. But what a powerful voice you have for one of your build! Good-night, Mr. Paklin.. . . I've got it right now, eh? Siméon, vous viendrez avec nous?'
'Je crois bien!'
And Paklin was led off to the green room. And he was even locked in there. As he got into bed, he heard the key turn in the ringing English lock. Violently he swore at himself for his 'stroke of genius,' and he slept very badly.
Early next morning, at half-past five, he was called. Coffee was handed him; while he drank it, a footman with embroidered shoulder-knots waited with the tray in his hands, and shifted from one leg to the other, as though he would say, 'Hurry up, you're keeping the gentlemen waiting!' Then he was conducted downstairs. The coach was already standing before the house. There, too, was Kallomyetsev's open carriage. Sipyagin made his appearance on the steps in a camel's-hair cloak with a round collar. Such cloaks had not been worn for many years except by a certain very important dignitary whom Sipyagin was trying to please and to imitate. On important official occasions, therefore, he wore such a cloak.
Sipyagin greeted Paklin fairly affably, and with an energetic gesture motioned him to the coach and asked him to take his seat. 'Mr. Paklin, you will come with me, Mr. Paklin! Put Mr. Paklin's bag on the box! I am taking Mr. Paklin!' he said, with an emphasis on the word Paklin, and an accent on the letter a, as though he would say, 'You've a name like that and presume to feel insulted when people change it for you! There you are, then! Take plenty of it! I'll give you as much as you want! Mr. Paklin! Paklin!' The unlucky name kept resounding in the keen morning air. It was so keen as to set Kallomyetsev, who came out after Sipyagin, muttering several times in French, 'B-r-r-r! B-r-r-r! B-r-r-r!' and wrapping himself more closely in his cloak he seated himself in his elegant open carriage. (His poor friend the Servian prince, Mihal Obrenovitch, on seeing it had bought one exactly like it at Binder's . . . vous savez Binder, le grand carrossier des Champs-Élysées?) From the half-open shutters of a bedroom Valentina Mihalovna peeped out 'in the trailing garments of the night,' as the poet has it.
Sipyagin took his seat and kissed his hand to her.
'Are you comfortable, Mr. Paklin? Drive on!'
'Je vous recommande mon frère; épargnez-le!' Valentina Mihalovna was heard to say.
'Soyez tranquille!' cried Kallomyetsev, glancing smartly up at her from under the edge of a travelling-cap that he had designed himself, with a cockade in it. . . .'C'est surtout l'autre qu'il faut pincer!'
'Drive on!' repeated Sipyagin. 'Mr. Paklin, you're not cold? Drive on!'
The two carriages rolled away.
For the first ten minutes both Sipyagin and Paklin were silent. The luckless Sila in his shabby little suit and greasy cap seemed a still more pitiful figure against the dark-blue background of the rich silky material with which the inside of the coach was upholstered. In silence he looked round at the delicate, pale-blue blinds that ran up rapidly at a mere finger's touch on a button, and at the rug of soft white sheepskin at their feet, and the box of red wood fitted in in front, with a movable tray desk for letters, and even a shelf for books. (Boris Andreitch did not much care to work in his coach, but he wished to make people believe he liked to work on his journeys like Thiers.) Paklin felt intimidated. Sipyagin glanced at him twice over his glossily shaven cheek, and with majestic deliberation pulled out of his side-pocket a silver cigar-case with a curly monogram on it in old Slavonic type, and offered him . . . positively offered him a cigar, balancing it between the second and third fingers of a hand in an English glove of yellow dogskin.
'I don't smoke,' muttered Paklin.
'Ah!' responded Sipyagin, and he himself lighted the cigar, which appeared to be a most choice regalia.
'I ought to tell you . . . dear Mr. Paklin,' he began, puffing affably at his cigar, and emitting delicate rings of fragrant smoke . . . 'that I . . . am in reality . . . very grateful . . . to you. . . . I may have seemed . . . somewhat short . . . to you yesterday . . . though that is not . . . a characteristic . . . of mine at all' (Sipyagin intentionally cut his sentence up meaningly), 'I venture to assure you of that. But, Mr. Paklin, put yourself in my . . . place' (Sipyagin rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other). 'The position I occupy makes me . . . so to say . . . conspicuous; and all of a sudden . . . my wife's brother . . . compromises himself . . . and me in this incredible manner! Eh! Mr. Paklin? You perhaps think that's of no great matter?'
'I don't think that, your Excellency.'
'You don't know for what precisely . . . and where exactly, he was arrested?'
'I heard it was in T——— district.'
'From whom did you hear that?'
'From . . . from a man.'
'Well, it would hardly be from a bird. But what man?'
'From . . . from an assistant of the director of the business of the governor's office.'
'What's his name?'
'The director?'
'No, the assistant.'
'His . . . his name is Ulyashevitch. He's a very good public servant, your Excellency. When I heard of that occurrence, I hurried at once to you.'
'To be sure, to be sure! And I repeat that I am very grateful to you. But what madness! Isn't it madness? eh? Mr. Paklin? eh?'
'Perfect madness!' cried Paklin, and the perspiration zigzagged in a hot rivulet down his back. 'It comes,' he went on, 'of not in the least understanding the Russian peasant. Mr. Markelov, so far as I know him, has a very kind and generous heart; but he has never understood the Russian peasant' (Paklin glanced at Sipyagin, who, turning slightly towards him, was scanning him with a chilly but not hostile expression). 'The Russian peasant cannot ever be induced to revolt except by taking advantage of his devotion to a higher authority, some sort of Tsar. Some sort of legend must be invented—you remember the false Demetrius—some sort of regal insignia, branded in burnt patches on the breast.'
'Yes, yes, like Pugatchev,' interrupted Sipyagin in a tone that seemed to say, 'I've not forgotten my history . . . you needn't enlarge!' and adding, 'It's madness! madness!' he turned to the contemplation of the swift coil of smoke rising from the end of his cigar.
'Your Excellency!' observed Paklin, gathering courage, 'I told you just now I didn't smoke . . . but that's not quite accurate. I do smoke at times; and your cigar smells so delicious.. . .'
'Eh? what? what's that?' said Sipyagin, as though waking up; and without letting Paklin repeat what he had said, he proved in the most unmistakable manner that he had heard him, and had uttered his reiterated questions solely for the sake of his dignity, by offering him his open cigar-case.
Paklin discreetly and gratefully lighted a cigar.
'Now, I fancy, is a good moment,' he thought; but Sipyagin anticipated him.
'You spoke to me, too, do you remember?' he said carelessly, interrupting himself to look at his cigar, and to jog his hat forwards on to his forehead, 'you spoke . . . eh? you spoke of . . . that friend of yours who has married my . . . relation. Do you see them? They are settled not far from here?'
'Aha!' thought Paklin, 'Sila, look out!'
'I have seen them only once, your Excellency! they are living, as a fact . . . at no great distance from here.'
'You understand, of course,' Sipyagin went on in the same manner, 'that I have no further serious interest, as I explained to you, either in that frivolous girl or in your friend. Good heavens! I've no prejudices, but you will agree with me, this is beyond everything. It's folly, you know. Though I imagine they have been more drawn together by political sympathies' ('Politics!' he repeated with a shrug of his shoulders) 'than by any other feeling.'
'Indeed I imagine so, your Excellency!'
'Yes, Mr. Nezhdanov was a red-hot republican. I must do him the justice to admit that he made no secret of his opinions.'
'Nezhdanov,' Paklin hazarded, 'has been led away, perhaps, but his heart———'
'Is good,' put in Sipyagin: 'to be sure . . . to be sure, like Markelov's. They all have good hearts. Probably he too has taken part—and will be too . . . We shall have to protect him too.'
Paklin clasped his hands before his breast.
'Ah, yes, yes, your Excellency! Extend your protection to him! Indeed . . . he deserves . . . deserves your sympathy.'
'H'm,' said Sipyagin; 'you think so?'
'If not for his own sake, at least . . . for your niece's; for his wife's! ('O Lord! O Lord!' Paklin was thinking, 'what lies I'm telling!')
Sipyagin puckered up his eyes.
'You are, I see, a very devoted friend. That's excellent; that's very praiseworthy, young man. And so, you say, they're living near here?'
'Yes, your Excellency; at a large establishment . . .' Paklin bit his tongue.
'Tut . . . tut-tut . . . at Solomin's! so they're there! I was aware of that—indeed, I'd been told so, I'd been informed.. . . Yes.' (Mr. Sipyagin was not in the least aware of it, and no one had told him so; but recollecting Solomin's visit, and their midnight interview, he dropped this bait.. . . And Paklin rose to it at once.)
'Since you know that,' he began, and a second time he bit his tongue.. . . But it was too late. . . . From the mere glance flung at him by Sipyagin he realised that he had been playing with him all the while, as a cat plays with a mouse.
'I must tell your Excellency, though,' the luckless wretch faltered, 'that I really know nothing.. . .'
'And I ask you no questions, upon my word! What do you mean? What do you take me, and yourself, for?' said Sipyagin haughtily, and he promptly withdrew into his ministerial heights.
And again Paklin felt himself a wretched little, entrapped creature.. . . Till that instant he kept his cigar in the corner of his mouth, remote from Sipyagin, and had stealthily puffed the smoke on one side; now he took it out of his mouth altogether, and ceased smoking.
'Good Lord!' he groaned inwardly—and the sweat trickled over his shoulders more plentifully than before. 'What have I done! I have betrayed everything and every one! . . . I've been fooled, bought with a good cigar! . . . I'm an informer . . . and what can be done to undo the harm now? Lord!'
There was nothing to be done. Sipyagin began to doze with the same dignified, solemn ministerial air, wrapped up in his camel's-hair cloak.. . . And before another quarter of an hour had passed, both the carriages stopped in front of the governor's house.