«In my opinion they are magnificent,» said Tánya, deeply convinced. «Read them, Andrusha, and persuade father to write more often. He could write a whole treatise on gardening.»
Yegor Semiónovitch laughed, blushed, and stammered out the conventional phrases used by abashed authors. At last he gave in.
«If you must read them, read first these papers of Gauche’s, and the Russian articles,» he stammered, picking out the papers with trembling hands. «Otherwise you won’t understand them. Before you read my replies you must know what I am replying to. But it won’t interest you … stupid. And it’s time for bed.»
Tánya went out. Yegor Semiónovitch sat on the end of the sofa and sighed loudly.
«Akh, brother mine …» he began after a long silence. As you see, my dear Magister, I write articles, and exhibit at shows, and get medals sometimes. … Pesótsky, they say, has apples as big as your head…. Pesótsky has made a fortune out of his gardens…. In one word:
«‘Rich and glorious is Kotchubéi.'»
«But I should like to ask you what is going to be the end of all this? The gardens—there is no question of that—are splendid, they are models…. Not gardens at all, in short, but a whole institution of high political importance, and a step towards a new era in Russian agriculture and Russian industry…. But for what purpose? What ultimate object?»
«That question is easily answered.»
«I do not mean in that sense. What I want to know is what will happen with the garden when I die? As things are, it would not last without me a single month. The secret does not lie in the fact that the garden is big and the workers many, but in the fact that I love the work—you understand? I love it, perhaps, more than I love myself. Just look at me! I work from morning to night. I do everything with my own hands. All grafting, all pruning, all planting—everything is done by me. When I am helped I feel jealous, and get irritated to the point of rudeness. The whole secret is in love, in a sharp master’s eye, in a master’s hands, and in the feeling when I drive over to a friend and sit down for half an hour, that I have left my heart behind me and am not myself—all the time I am in dread that something has happened to the garden. Now suppose I die to-morrow, who will replace all this? Who will do the work? The head gardeners? The workmen? Why the whole burden of my present worries is that my greatest enemy is not the hare or the beetle or the frost, but the hands of the stranger.»
«But Tánya?» said Kovrin, laughing. «Surely she is not more dangerous than a hare?… She loves and understands the work.»
«Yes, Tánya loves it and understands it. If after my death the garden should fall to her as mistress, then I could wish for nothing better. But suppose—which God forbid—she should marry!» Yegor Semiónovitch whispered and look at Kovrin with frightened eyes. «That’s the whole crux. She might marry, there would be children, and there would be no time to attend to the garden. That is bad enough. But what I fear most of all is that she may marry some spendthrift who is always in want of money, who will lease the garden to tradesmen, and the whole thing will go to the devil in the first year. In a business like this a woman, is the scourge of God.»
Yegor Semiónovitch sighed and was silent for a few minutes.
«Perhaps you may call it egoism. But I do not want Tánya to marry. I am afraid! You’ve seen that fop who comes along with a fiddle and makes a noise. I know Tánya would never marry him, yet I cannot bear the sight of him…. In short, brother, I am a character … and I know it.»
Yegor Semiónovitch rose and walked excitedly up and down the room. It was plain that he had something very serious to say, but could not bring himself to the point.
«I love you too sincerely not to talk to you frankly,» he said, thrusting his hands into his pockets. «In all delicate questions I say what I think, and dislike mystification. I tell you plainly, therefore, that you are the only man whom I should not be afraid of Tánya marrying. You are a clever man, you have a heart, and you would not see my life’s work ruined. And what is more, I love you as my own son … and am proud of you. So if you and Tánya were to end … in a sort of romance … I should be very glad and very happy. I tell you this straight to your face, without shame, as becomes an honest man.»
Kovrin smiled. Yegor Semiónovitch opened the door, and was leaving the room, but stopped suddenly on the threshold.
«And if you and Tánya had a son, I could make a horti-culturist out of him,» he added. «But that is an idle fancy. Good night!»
Left alone, Kovrin settled himself comfortably, and took up his host’s articles. The first was entitled «Intermediate Culture,» the second «A Few Words in Reply to the Remarks of Mr. Z. about the Treatment of the Soil of a New Garden,» the third «More about Grafting.» The others were similar in scope. But all breathed restlessness and sickly irritation. Even a paper with the peaceful title of «Russian Apple Trees» exhaled irritability. Yegor Semiónovitch began with the words «Audi alteram partem,» and ended it with «Sapienti sat»; and between these learned quotations flowed a whole torrent of acid words directed against «the learned ignorance of our patent horticulturists who observe nature from their academic chairs,» and against M. Gauche, «whose fame is founded on the admiration of the profane and dilletanti» And finally Kovrin came across an uncalled-for and quite insincere expression of regret that it is no longer legal to flog peasants who are caught stealing fruit and injuring trees.
«His is good work, wholesome and fascinating,» thought Kovrin, «yet in these pamphlets we have nothing but bad temper and war to the knife. I suppose it is the same everywhere; in all careers men of ideas are nervous, and victims of this kind of exalted sensitiveness. I suppose it must be so.»
He thought of Tánya, so delighted with her father’s articles, and then of Yegor Semiónovitch. Tánya, small, pale, and slight, with her collar-bone showing, with her widely-opened, her dark and clever eyes, which it seemed were always searching for something. And Yegor Semiónovitch with his little, hurried steps. He thought again of Tánya, fond of talking, fond of argument, and always accompanying even the most insignificant phrases with mimicry and gesticulation. Nervous—she must be nervous in the highest degree. Again Kovrin began to read, but he understood nothing, and threw down his books. The agreeable emotion with which he had danced the mazurka and listened to the music still held possession of him, and aroused a multitude of thoughts. It flashed upon him that if this strange, unnatural monk had been seen by him alone, he must be ill, ill to the point of suffering from hallucinations. The thought frightened him, but not for long.
He sat on the sofa, and held his head in his hands, curbing the inexplicable joy which filled his whole being; and then walked up and down the room for a minute, and returned to his work. But the thoughts which he read in books no longer satisfied him. He longed for something vast, infinite, astonishing. Towards morning he undressed and went unwillingly to bed; he felt that he had better rest. When at last he heard Yegor Semiónovitch going to his work in the garden, he rang, and ordered the servant to bring him some wine. He drank several glasses; his consciousness became dim, and he slept.
IV
Yegor Semiónovitch and Tánya often quarrelled and said disagreeable things to one another. This morning they had both been irritated, and Tánya burst out crying and went to her room, coming down neither to dinner nor to tea At first Yegor Semiónovitch marched about, solemn and dignified, as if wishing to give everyone to understand that for him justice and order were the supreme interests of life. But he was unable to keep this up for long; his spirits fell, and he wandered about the park and sighed, «Akh, my God!» At dinner he ate nothing, and at last, tortured by his conscience, he knocked softly at the closed door, and called timidly:
«Tánya! Tánya!»
Through the door came a Weak voice, tearful but determined:
«Leave me alone!… I implore you.»
The misery of father and daughter reacted on the whole household, even on the labourers in the garden. Kovrin, as usual, was immersed in his own interesting work, but at last even he felt tired and uncomfortable. He determined to interfere, and disperse the cloud before evening. He knocked at Tánya’s door, and was admitted.
«Come, come! What a shame!» he began jokingly; and then looked with surprise at her tear-stained and afflicted face covered with red spots. «Is it so serious, then? Well, well!»
«But if you knew how he tortured me!» she said, and a flood of tears gushed out of her big eyes. «He tormented me!» she continued, wringing her hands. «I never said a word to him…. I only said there was no need to keep unnecessary labourers, if … if we can get day workmen…. You know the men have done nothing for the whole week.
