“Tut, tut! How provoking!” muttered Delesov. “Why did you let him go, Zakhar?”
Zakhar was a Petersburg valet who had been in Delesov’s service for eight years. Delesov, being a lonely bachelor, could not help confiding his intentions to him, and liked to know his opinions about all his undertakings.
“How could I dare not to let him?” Zakhar replied, toying with the fob of his watch. “If you had told me to keep him in I might have amused him at home. But you only spoke to me about clothes.”
“Pshaw! How provoking! Well, and what was he doing here without me?”
Zakhar smiled.
“One can well call him an ‘artist’, sir. Note: In addition to its proper meaning, the word “artist” was used in Russian to denote a thief, or a man dextrous at anything, good or bad. As soon as he woke he asked for Madeira, and then he amused himself with the cook and with the neighbours manservant. He is so funny. However, he is good-natured. I gave him tea and brought him dinner. He would not eat anything himself, but kept inviting me to do so. But when it comes to playing the violin, even Izler has few artists like him. One may well befriend such a man. When he played Down the Little Mother Volga to us it was as if a man were weeping. It was too beautiful. Even the servants from all the flats came to our back entrance to hear him.”
“Well, and did you get him dressed?” his master interrupted him.
“Of course. I gave him a night-shirt of yours and put my own paletot on him. A man like that is worth helping-he really is a dear fellow!” Zakhar smiled.
“He kept asking me what your rank is, whether you have influential acquaintances, and how many serfs you own.”
“Well, all right, but now he must be found, and in future don’t let him have anything to drink, or it’ll be worse for him.”
“That’s true,” Zakhar interjected. “He is evidently feeble; our old master had a clerk like that…”
But Delesov who had long known the story of the clerk who took hopelessly to drink, did not let Zakhar finish, and telling him to get everything ready for the night, sent him out to find Albert and bring him back.
He then went to bed and put out the light, but could not fall asleep for a long time, thinking about Albert. “Though it may seem strange to many of my acquaintances,” he thought, “yet one so seldom does anything for others that one ought to thank God when such an opportunity presents itself, and I will not miss it. I will do anything-positively anything in my power-to help him. He may not be mad at all, but only under the influence of drink. It won’t cost me very much. Where there’s enough for one there’s enough for two. Let him live with me awhile, then we’ll find him a place or arrange a concert for him and pull him out of the shallows, and then see what happens.”
He experienced a pleasant feeling of self-satisfaction after this reflection. “Really I’m not altogether a bed fellow,” he thought. “Not at all bad even-when I compare myself with others.”
He was already falling asleep when the sound of opening doors and of footsteps in the hall roused him.
“Well, I’ll be stricter with him,” he thought, “that will be best; and I must do it.”
He rang.
“Have you brought him back?” he asked when Zakhar entered.
“A pitiable man, sir,” said Zakhar, shaking his head significantly and closing his eyes.
“Is he drunk?”
“He is very weak.”
“And has he the violin?”
“I’ve brought it back. The lady gave it me.”
“Well, please don’t let him in here now. Put him to bed, and tomorrow be sure not to let him leave the house on any account.”
But before Zakhar was out of the room Albert entered it
Chapter V
“Do you want to sleep already?” asked Albert with a smile. “And I have been at Anna Ivanovna’s and had a very pleasant evening. We had music, and laughed, and there was delightful company. Let me have a glass of something,” he added, taking hold of a water-bottle that stood on a little table, “-but not water.”
Albert was just the same as he had been the previous evening: the same beautiful smile in his eyes and on his lips, the same bright inspired forehead, and the same feeble limbs. Zakhar’s paletot fitted him well, and the clean wide unstarched collar of the nightshirt encircled his thin white neck picturesquely, giving him a Particularly childlike and innocent look. He sat down on Delesov’s bed and looked at him silently with a happy and grateful smile. Delesov looked into his eyes, and again suddenly felt himself captivated by that smile. He no longer wanted to sleep, he forgot that it was his duty to be stern: on the contrary he wished to make merry, to hear music, and to chat amicably with Albert till morning. He told Zakhar to bring a bottle of wine, some cigarettes, and the violin.
“There, that’s splendid!” said Albert. “It’s still early, and we’ll have some music. I’ll play for you as much as you like.”
Zakhar, with evident pleasure, brought a bottle of Lafitte, two tumblers, some mild cigarettes such as Albert smoked, and the violin. But instead of going to bed as his master told him to, he himself lit a cigar and sat down in the adjoining room.
“Let us have a talk,” said Delesov to the musician, who was about to take up the violin.
Albert submissively sat down on the bed and again smiled joyfully.
“Oh yes!” said he, suddenly striking his forehead with his hand and assuming an anxiously inquisitive expression. (A change of expression always preceded anything he was about to say.) “Allow me to ask-” he made a slight pause-”that gentleman who was there with you last night-you called him N-, isn’t he the son of the celebrated N-?”
“His own son,” Delesov answered, not at all understanding how that could interest Albert.
“Exactly!” said Albert with a self-satisfied smile. “I noticed at once something Particularly aristocratic in his manner. I love aristocrats: there is something Particularly beautiful and elegant in an aristocrat. And that officer who dances so well?” he asked. “I liked him very much too: he is so merry and so fine. Isn’t he Adjutant N.N.?”
“Which one?” asked Delesov.
“The one who bumped against me when we were dancing. He must be an excellent fellow.”
“No, he’s a shallow fellow,” Delesov replied.
“Oh, no!” Albert warmly defended him. “There is something very, very pleasant about him. He is a capital musician,” he added. “He played something there out of an opera. It’s a long time since I took such a liking to anyone.”
“Yes, he plays well, but I don’t like his playing,” said Delesov, wishing to get his companion to talk about music. “He does not understand classical music-Donizetti and Bellini, you know, are not music. You think so too, no doubt?”
“Oh, no, no, excuse me!” began Albert with a gentle, pleading look. “The old music is music, and the new music is music. There are extraordinary beauties in the new music too. Sonnambula, and the finale of Lucia, and Chopin, and Robert! Note: Sonnambula, opera by Bellini, produced in 1831. Lucia di Lammermoor, opera by Donizetti, produced in 1835. Robert the Devil, opera by Meyerbeer, produced in 1831; or possibly the allusion may be to Roberto Devereux, by Donizetti. I often think-” he paused, evidently collecting his thoughts-”that if Beethoven were alive he would weep with joy listening to Sonnambula for the first time when Viardot and Rubini were here. Note: Pauline Viardot-Garcia, the celebrated operatic singer with whom Turgenev had a close friendship for many years. Rubini, an Italian tenor who had great success in Russia in the ‘forties of the last century. It was like this … “ he said, and his eyes glistened as he made a gesture with both arms as though tearing something out of his breast. “A little more and it would have been impossible to bear it.”
“And what do you think of the opera at the present time?” asked Delesov.
“Bosio is good, very good,” Note: Angidina Bosio, an Italian singer, who was in Petersburg in 1856-9. he said, “extraordinarily exquisite, but she does not touch one here,” pointing to his sunken chest. “A singer needs passion, and she has none. She gives pleasure but does not torment.”
“How about Lablache?” Note: Luigi Lablache. He was regarded as the chief basso of modern times.
“I heard him in Paris in the Barbier de Seville. He was unique then, but now he is old: he cannot be an artist, he is old.”
“Well, what if he is old? He is still good in morceaux d’ensemble,” said Delesov, who was in the habit of saying that of Lablache.
“How ‘what if he is old?’” rejoined Albert severely. “He should not be old. An artist should not be old. Much is needed for art, but above all, fire!” said he with glittering eyes and stretching both arms upwards.
And a terrible inner fire really seemed to burn in his whole body.
“O my God!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Don’t you know Petrov, the artist?”
“No, I don’t,” Delesov replied, smiling.
“How I should like you to make his acquaintance! You would enjoy talks with him. How well he understands art, too! I used often to meet him at Anna Ivanovna’s, but now she is angry with him for some reason. I should very much like you to know him.
