“Her marriage was a very romantic story, and it all took place under my eyes. Natasha was almost en-gaged to Miatlin, who was afterward killed in a duel with Debro. Just at that time Prince Piotr came to Mos-cow, fell in love with her, and made her an offer. Only her father, who was very favorably inclined to Miatlin and was especially afraid of Labazof as a Mason her father refused his consent. But the young man con-tinued to meet her at balls, everywhere, and he made friends with Miatlin, and asked him to withdraw. Miat-lin consented. Labazof persuaded her to elope with him. She had already agreed to do so, but repented at the last moment” the conversation was carried on in French “she went to her father and told him that all was ready for their elopement, and that she could leave him, but that she hoped for his generosity. And in fact her father forgave her, all took her part, and he gave his consent.
And so the wedding took place, and it was a gay wedding! Who of us dreamed that within a year she would follow him to Siberia? She was an only daughter, the richest and handsomest heiress of that time. The Emperor Alexander always paid her attention at balls, and how many times he danced with her. The Countess G. gave a bal costumt, if I remember rightly; and she went as a Neapolitan girl, wonderfully beautiful. Whenever the Emperor came to Moscow he would ask: Que fait la belle Napolitaine? And suddenly this woman, in a delicate condition, her baby was born on the way, without a moment’s hesitation, without making any preparations, without packing her trunks, just as she was, when they arrested him, followed him for five thousand versts.”
“Oh, what a wonderful woman,” exclaimed the hostess.
“And both he and she were such uncommon people,” said still another woman. “I have been told, but I don’t know whether it is true or not, that everywhere in Siberia where they work in the mines, or whatever it is called, the convicts who were with them became better from associating with them.”
“Yes; but she never worked in the mines,” corrected Pakhtin.
That is what the year ‘56 was! Three years before no one had a thought for the Labazofs, and if any one remembered them, it was with that inexplicable sense of terror with which one speaks of the recently dead. Now how vividly all their former relations were remem-bered, all their admirable qualities were brought up, and every lady already began to form plans for securing a monoply of the Labazofs, and by means of them to attract other guests.
“Their son and daughter have come with them,” said Pakhtin.
“If only they are as handsome as their mother was! “said the Countess Fuchs …. however, their father also was very, very handsome.”
“How could they educate their children there?” queried the hostess.
“They say they are admirably educated. They say the young man is so handsome, so likeable! and educated as if he had been brought up in Paris.”
“I predict a great success for the young lady,” said a very handsome girl. “All these Siberian ladies have about them something pleasantly trivial, and every one likes it.”
“Yes, that is so,” said another girl.
“So we have still another wealthy match,” said a third girl.
The old colonel, who was of German extraction, and three years before had come to Moscow to make a rich marriage, decided that it was for his interest, as soon as possible, before the young men found out about this, to get an introduction to her, and offer himself. The girls and ladies had almost precisely the same thought re-garding the young man from Siberia.
“This must be and is my fate,” thought one girl who for eight years had been vainly launched on society. “It must have been for the best that that stupid cavalier guardsman did not offer himself to me. I should surely have been unhappy.
“Well, they will all grow yellow with jealousy when this young man like the rest falls in love with me,” thought a young and beautiful woman.
Whatever is said of the provincialism of small towns, there is nothing worse than the provincialism of high society. There one finds no new faces, but society is ready to take up with any new persons as soon as once they appear; here it is rarely that, as now with the La-bazofs, people are acknowledged as belonging to their circle and received, and the sensation produced by these new personages was even stronger than would have been the case in a district city.
III
“MOSCOW, OH, MOTHER Moscow, white-walled city! “l exclaimed Piotr Ivanovitch, rubbing his eyes the next morning and listening to the sound of bells that floated above the Gazetnui Pereulok.
Nothing so vividly recalls the past as sounds; and these peals of the Moscow bells, together with the sight of the white wall seen from the window and the rattle of wheels, so vividly recalled to him not only that Moscow which he had known thirty-five years before, but also that Moscow with its Kreml, its roofs, its Ivans, and the rest which he had borne in his heart, that he felt a childish delight in the fact that he was a Russian and that he was in Moscow.
There appeared a Bukhara khalat, flung open over a broad chest in a chintz shirt, a pipe with an amber mouth-piece, a lackey with gentle manners, tea, the scent of to-bacco; a loud impetuous voice of a man was heard in Chevalier’s rooms; morning kisses were exchanged, and the voices of daughter and son intermingled, and the Dekabrist was just as much at home as in Irkutsk or as he would have been in New York or Paris.
As I should not wish to present to my readers my Dekabrist hero as above all weaknesses, it must be con-fessed in the interests of truth that Piotr Ivanovitch shaved himself with the greatest care, combed his hair, and looked into the mirror. He was dissatisfied with his coat, which had been none too well mended in Siberia, and twice he unbuttoned and buttoned up his waistcoat.
Natalya Nikolayevna came into the drawing-room with her black moire gown rustling, with such sleeves and laces on her cap, that, although it was entirely out of the prevalent fashion, still it was so devised that it not only was not ridicule but on the contrary distingue. But in case of ladies this is a peculiar sixth sense, and sagacity is not to be compared with it.
Sonya was likewise so constituted that, although every-thing she wore was at least two years behind the style, still one could find no fault with it. The mother wore what was dark and simple; the daughter what was light and gay.
Serozha had only just woke up, and the ladies went without him to mass. The father and the mother sat behind, the daughter in front. Vasili sat on the box, and an izvoshchik’s cab carried them to the Kreml. When they entered, the ladies adjusted their gowns, and Piotr Ivanovitch took Natalya Nikolayevna on his arm, and, hanging his head, entered the doors of the cathedral. Few either merchants, or officers, or the common people could have known who these strangers were.
Who was that deeply sunburnt and decrepit old man with the straight and circling wrinkles, indicative of a labo-rious life wrinkles of a kind never met with at the English club with his hair and beard white as snow, with his proud yet kindly glance and his energetic movements? Who was that tall lady with her air of dis-tinction and her large beautiful eyes, so weary and so dim? Who was that strong, fresh, well-proportioned girl, dressed so unfashionably, and yet so self-assured? Of the merchant class or not of the merchant class? Germans or not Germans? People of rank? Appar-ently not, and yet evidently people of distinction.
Thus thought those that saw them in the church, and consequently they all even more willingly made haste to step aside and to let them pass than if they were men with heavy epaulets.
Piotr Ivanovitch held himself as majestically as at his entrance, and said his prayers with dignity and solemnity, not forgetting himself.
Natalya Nikolayevna knelt lightly, taking out her handkerchief, and she wept many tears during the time of the Kheruvimskaya song. Sonya evidently seemed to be making an effort to control herself so as to say her prayers. The service did not appeal to her, but she did not look round; she crossed herself assiduously.
Serozha stayed at home partly because he slept over, partly because he did not like to stand during the ser-vice; it made his feet swell, and he never could under-stand why it was that to travel on snow-shoes forty versts did not trouble him in the least, while to stand during the twelve Gospels caused him the greatest physical pain; but his chief excuse was that he needed new clothes.
He dressed and went to the Kuznetsky Most. He had plenty of money. His father had made it a rule ever since his son was twenty-one years old, to give him as much money as he wanted. It was in his power to leave his father and mother absolutely penniless.
What a pity about the two hundred and fifty silver rubles which he wasted in Kuntz’s ready-made clothing establishment! Any one of the gentlemen who passed Serozha on the street would have gladly taught him, and would have considered it a pleasure to go with him to show him what to
