Nekhlyudov kept growing more and more despondent. His right hand, which was resting on his knee, fell flaccidly upon the keys. They gave forth a chord, a second, a third — Nekhlyudov moved up, drew his other hand from his pocket, and began to play. The chords which he took were sometimes unprepared, and not always correct; they were often common enough to be trite, and did not display the least musical talent; but this occupation afforded him a certain indefinable melancholy pleasure.
At every change of harmony, he waited in breathless expectancy what would come out of it, and, when something came, his imagination dimly supplied what was lacking. It seemed to him that he heard hundreds of melodies : a chorus and an orchestra, in conformity with his harmony.
But he derived his chief pleasure from the intensified activity of his imagination, which at that time brought up before him, disconnectedly and fragmentarily, but with wonderful clearness, the most varied, mixed, and absurd images and pictures from the past and future.
Now he saw the bloated form of Davydka the White timidly blinking with his white eyelashes at the sight of his mother’s black, venous fist; his curved back, and immense hands covered with white hair, answering to all tortures and deprivations with patience and submission to fate.
Then he saw the nimble nurse, emboldened through her association with the manor, and he imagined her visiting the villages and preaching to the peasants that they must conceal their money from the proprietors; and he unconsciously repeated to himself, “Yes, it is necessary to conceal the money from the proprietors!”
Then suddenly presented itself to him the blonde head of his future wife, for some reason in tears, and in great anguish leaning upon his shoulder.
Then he saw Churis’s kindly blue eyes, tenderly looking down upon his only thick-bellied little son. Yes, he saw in him not only a son, but a helper and saviour. “This is love! “he whispered.
Then he recalled Yukhvanka’s mother, and the expression of long-suffering and forgiveness which he had noticed upon her aged face, in spite of her prominent tooth and abhorrent features. “No doubt, I am the first one to have noticed this, in the seventy years of her life,” he thought; and he whispered, “It is strange,” and continued unconsciously to run his fingers over the keys and to listen to the sounds they made.
Then he vividly recalled his flight from the apiary, and the expression of the faces of Ignat and Karp, who evidently wanted to laugh, but pretended that they did not see him.
He blushed, and involuntarily looked at his nurse, who remained sitting at the door, silently gazing at him, and now and then shaking her gray hair.
Suddenly there came to him the troyka of sweaty horses, and Ilyushka’s handsome and strong figure, with his blond curls, beaming, narrow blue eyes, ruddy cheeks, and light-coloured down just beginning to cover his lip and chin. He remembered how Ilyushka was afraid he would not be permitted to go teaming, and how warmly he defended his cause, which he liked so well. And he saw a gray, misty morning, a slippery highway, and a long row of heavily laden, mat-covered three-horse wagons, marked with big black letters.
The stout-legged, well-fed horses, jingling their bells, bending their backs, and tugging at their traces, pulled evenly up-hill, straining their legs so that the sponges might catch on the slippery road. Down-hill, past the train of wagons, came dashing the stage, tinkling its little bells, which reechoed far into the large forest that extended on both sides of the road.
“Whew! “shouted, in a childish voice, the first driver, with a tin label on his lambskin cap, raising his whip above his head.
Karp, with his red beard and gloomy look, was striding heavily in his huge boots beside the front wheel of the first wagon. From the second wagon stuck out the hand-some head of Ilyushka, who, at the early dawn, was making himself snug and warm under the front mat. Three troykas, laden with portmanteaus, dashed by, with rumbling wheels, jingling bells, and shouts. Ilyushka again hid his handsome head under the mat, and fell asleep.
Now it was a clear, warm evening. The plank gate creaked for the tired teams that were crowded in front of the tavern, and the tall, mat-covered wagons, jolting over the board that lay in the gate entrance, disappeared one after another under the spacious sheds.
Ilyushka merrily greeted the fair-complexioned, broad-chested landlady, who asked, “Do you come far? And will you have a good supper? “looking with pleasure at the handsome lad, with his sparkling, kindly eyes.
Now, having unharnessed the horses, he went into the close hut crowded with people, made the sign of the cross, sat down at a full wooden bowl, and chatted шеrrilу with the landlady and his companions.
And then his bed was under the starry heaven, which was visible from the shed, and upon the fragrant hay, near his horses which, stamping and snorting, rummaged through the fodder in the wooden cribs. He walked up to the hay, turned to the east, and, crossing himself some thirty times in succession, over his broad, powerful breast, and shaking his bright curls, he said the Lord’s Prayer, and repeated some twenty times the “Kyrie eleison,” and, wrapping his cloak around body and head, slept the sound, careless sleep of a strong, healthy man.
And he saw in his dream the city of Kiev, with its saints and throngs of pilgrims; Eomen, with its merchants and merchandise; and Odessa and the endless blue sea with its white sails; and the city of Constantinople, with its golden houses, and white-breasted, black-browed Turkish maidens; and he flew there, rising on some invisible pinions. He flew freely and easily, farther and farther, and saw below him golden cities bathed in bright splendour, and the blue heaven with its pure stars, and the blue sea with its white sails, and he felt a joy and pleasure in flying ever farther and farther —
“Glorious! “Nekhlyudov whispered to himself, and the thought came to him, “Why am I not Ilyushka?”
The End
