Youth

Chapter 18

THE VALAKHIN FAMILY

Accordingly I set off alone. My first call on the route lay at

the Valakhin mansion. It was now three years since I had seen

Sonetchka, and my love for her had long become a thing of the

past, yet there still lingered in my heart a sort of clear,

touching recollection of our bygone childish affection. At

intervals, also, during those three years, I had found myself

recalling her memory with such force and vividness that I had

actually shed tears, and imagined myself to be in love with her

again, but those occasions had not lasted more than a few minutes

at a time, and had been long in recurring.

I knew that Sonetchka and her mother had been abroad--that, in

fact, they had been so for the last two years. Also, I had heard

that they had been in a carriage accident, and that Sonetchka's

face had been so badly cut with the broken glass that her beauty

was marred. As I drove to their house, I kept recalling the old

Sonetchka to my mind, and wondering what she would look like when

I met her. Somehow I imagined that, after her two years' sojourn

abroad, she would look very tall, with a beautiful waist, and,

though sedate and imposing, extremely attractive. Somehow, also,

my imagination refused to picture her with her face disfigured

with scars, but, on the contrary, since I had read somewhere of a

lover who remained true to his adored one in spite of her

disfigurement with smallpox, strove to imagine that I was in love

with Sonetchka, for the purpose of priding myself on holding to

my troth in spite of her scars--Yet, as a matter of fact, I was

not really in love with her during that drive, but having once

stirred up in myself old MEMORIES of love, felt PREPARED to fall

into that condition, and the more so because, of late, my

conscience had often been pricking me for having discarded so

many of my old flames.

The Valakhins lived in a neat little wooden mansion approached by

a courtyard. I gained admittance by ringing a bell (then a rarity

in Moscow), and was received by a mincing, smartly-attired page.

He either could not or made no attempt to inform me whether there

was any one at home, but, leaving me alone in the dark hall, ran

off down a still darker corridor. For a long time I waited in

solitude in this gloomy place, out of which, in addition to the

front door and the corridor, there only opened a door which at

the moment was closed. Rather surprised at the dismal appearance

of the house, I came to the conclusion that the reason was that

its inmates were still abroad. After five minutes, however, the

door leading into the salon was opened by the page boy, who then

conducted me into a neat, but not richly furnished, drawing-room,

where presently I was joined by Sonetchka.

She was now seventeen years old, and very small and thin, as well

as of an unhealthy pallor of face. No scars at all were visible,

however, and the beautiful, prominent eyes and bright, cheerful

smile were the same as I had known and loved in my childhood. I

had not expected her to look at all like this, and therefore

could not at once lavish upon her the sentiment which I had been

preparing on the way. She gave me her hand in the English fashion

(which was then as much a novelty as a door-bell), and, bestowing

upon mine a frank squeeze, sat down on the sofa by my side.

"Ah! how glad I am to see you, my dear Nicolas!" she said as she

looked me in the face with an expression of pleasure so sincere

that in the words "my dear Nicolas" I caught the purely friendly

rather than the patronising note. To my surprise she seemed to me

simpler, kinder, and more sisterly after her foreign tour than

she had been before it. True, I could now see that she had two

small scars between her nose and temples, but her wonderful eyes

and smile fitted in exactly with my recollections, and shone as

of old.

"But how greatly you have changed!" she went on. "You are quite

grown-up now. And I-I-well, what do you think of me?"

"I should never have known you," I replied, despite the fact that

at the moment I was thinking that I should have known her

anywhere and always.

"Why? Am I grown so ugly?" she inquired with a movement of her

head.

"Oh, no, decidedly not!" I hastened to reply. "But you have grown

taller and older. As for being uglier, why, you are even--

"Yes, yes; never mind. Do you remember our dances and games, and

St. Jerome, and Madame Dorat?" (As a matter of fact, I could not

recollect any Madame Dorat, but saw that Sonetchka was being led

away by the joy of her childish recollections, and mixing them up

a little). "Ah! what a lovely time it was!" she went on--and once

more there shone before me the same eyes and smile as I had

always carried in my memory. While she had been speaking, I had

been thinking over my position at the present moment, and had

come to the conclusion that I was in love with her. The instant,

however, that I arrived at that result my careless, happy mood

vanished, a mist seemed to arise before me which concealed even

her eyes and smile, and, blushing hotly, I became tongue-tied and

ill-at-ease.

"But times are different now," she went on with a sigh and a

little lifting of her eyebrows. "Everything seems worse than it

used to be, and ourselves too. Is it not so, Nicolas?"

I could return her no answer, but sat silently looking at her.

"Where are those Iwins and Kornakoffs now? Do you remember them?"

she continued, looking, I think, with some curiosity at my

blushing, downcast countenance. "What splendid times we used to

have!"

Still I could not answer her.

The next moment, I was relieved from this awkward position by the

entry of old Madame Valakhin into the room. Rising, I bowed, and

straightway recovered my faculty of speech. On the other hand, an

extraordinary change now took place in Sonetchka. All her gaiety

and bonhomie disappeared, her smile became quite a different one,

and, except for the point of her shortness of stature, she became

just the lady from abroad whom I had expected to find in her. Yet

for this change there was no apparent reason, since her mother

smiled every whit as pleasantly, and expressed in her every

movement just the same benignity, as of old. Seating herself in

her arm-chair, the old lady signed to me to come and sit beside

her; after which she said something to her daughter in English,

and Sonetchka left the room--a fact which still further helped to

relieve me. Madame then inquired after my father and brother, and

passed on to speak of her great bereavement--the loss of her

husband. Presently, however, she seemed to become sensible of the

fact that I was not helping much in the conversation, for she

gave me a look as much as to say: "If, now, my dear boy, you were

to get up, to take your leave, and to depart, it would be well."

But a curious circumstance had overtaken me. While she had been

speaking of her bereavement, I had recalled to myself, not only

the fact that I was in love, but the probability that the mother

knew of it: whereupon such a fit of bashfulness had come upon me

that I felt powerless to put any member of my body to its

legitimate use. I knew that if I were to rise and walk I should

have to think where to plant each foot, what to do with my head,

what with my hands, and so on. In a word, I foresaw that I should

be very much as I had been on the night when I partook too freely

of champagne, and therefore, since I felt uncertain of being able

to manage myself if I DID rise, I ended by feeling UNABLE to

rise. Meanwhile, I should say, Sonetchka had returned to the room

with her work, and seated herself in a far corner--a corner

whence, as I was nevertheless sensible, she could observe me.

Madame must have felt some surprise as she gazed at my crimson

face and noted my complete immobility, but I decided that it was

better to continue sitting in that absurd position than to risk

something unpleasant by getting up and walking. Thus I sat on and

on, in the hope that some unforeseen chance would deliver me from

my predicament. That unforeseen chance at length presented itself

in the person of an unforeseen young man, who entered the room

with an air of being one of the household, and bowed to me

politely as he did so: whereupon Madame rose, excused herself to

me for having to speak with her "homme d'affaires," and finally

gave me a glance which said: "Well, if you DO mean to go on

sitting there for ever, at least I can't drive you away."

Accordingly, with a great effort I also rose, but, finding it

impossible to do any leave-taking, moved away towards the door,

followed by the pitying glances of mother and daughter. All at

once I stumbled over a chair, although it was lying quite out of

my route: the reason for my stumbling being that my whole

attention was centred upon not tripping over the carpet. Driving

through the fresh air, however--where at first I muttered and

fidgeted about so much that Kuzma, my coachman, asked me what was

the matter--I soon found this feeling pass away, and began to

meditate quietly concerning my love for Sonetchka and her

relations with her mother, which had appeared to me rather

strange. When, afterwards, I told my father that mother and

daughter had not seemed on the best of terms with one another, he

said:

"Yes, Madame leads the poor girl an awful life with her meanness.

Yet," added my father with a greater display of feeling than a

man might naturally conceive for a mere relative, "she used to be

such an original, dear, charming woman! I cannot think what has

made her change so much. By the way, you didn't notice a

secretary fellow about, did you? Fancy a Russian lady having an

affaire with a secretary!"

"Yes, I saw him," I replied.

"And was he at least good-looking?"

"No, not at all."

"It is extraordinary!" concluded Papa, with a cough and an

irritable hoist of his shoulder.

"Well, I am in love!" was my secret thought to myself as I drove

along in my drozhki.