The Jew And Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev

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A mazurka tune struck up. The officers fell to bounding up and down,
tapping with their heels, and tossing the epaulettes on their shoulders;
the civilians tapped with their heels too. Lutchkov still did not stir
from his place, and slowly followed the couples with his eyes, as they
whirled by. Some one touched his sleeve... he looked round; his
neighbour pointed him out Masha. She was standing before him with
downcast eyes, holding out her hand to him. Lutchkov for the first
moment gazed at her in perplexity, then he carelessly took off his
sword, threw his hat on the floor, picked his way awkwardly among the
arm-chairs, took Masha by the hand, and went round the circle, with no
capering up and down nor stamping, as it were unwillingly performing an
unpleasant duty.... Masha's heart beat violently.

'Why don't you dance?' she asked him at last.

'I don't care for it,' answered Lutchkov.

'Where's your place?'

'Over there.'

Lutchkov conducted Masha to her chair, coolly bowed to her and coolly
returned to his corner... but there was an agreeable stirring of the
spleen within him.

Kister asked Masha for a dance.

'What a strange person your friend is!'

'He does interest you...' said Fyodor Fedoritch, with a sly twinkle of
his blue and kindly eyes.

'Yes... he must be very unhappy.'

'He unhappy? What makes you suppose so?' And Fyodor Fedoritch laughed.

'You don't know... you don't know...' Masha solemnly shook her head with
an important air.

'Me not know? How's that?'...

Masha shook her head again and glanced towards Lutchkov. Avdey
Ivanovitch noticed the glance, shrugged his shoulders imperceptibly,
and walked away into the other room.

III

Several months had passed since that evening. Lutchkov had not once been
at the Perekatovs'. But Kister visited them pretty often. Nenila
Makarievna had taken a fancy to him, but it was not she that attracted
Fyodor Fedoritch. He liked Masha. Being an inexperienced person who had
not yet talked himself out, he derived great pleasure from the
interchange of ideas and feelings, and he had a simple-hearted faith in
the possibility of a calm and exalted friendship between a young man and
a young girl.

One day his three well-fed and skittish horses whirled him rapidly along
to Mr. Perekatov's house. It was a summer day, close and sultry. Not a
cloud anywhere. The blue of the sky was so thick and dark on the horizon
that the eye mistook it for storm-cloud. The house Mr. Perekatov had
erected for a summer residence had been, with the foresight usual in the
steppes, built with every window directly facing the sun. Nenila
Makarievna had every shutter closed from early morning. Kister walked
into the cool, half-dark drawing-room. The light lay in long lines on
the floor and in short, close streaks on the walls. The Perekatov family
gave Fyodor Fedoritch a friendly reception. After dinner Nenila
Makarievna went away to her own room to lie down; Mr. Perekatov settled
himself on the sofa in the drawing-room; Masha sat near the window at
her embroidery frame, Kister facing her. Masha, without opening her
frame, leaned lightly over it, with her head in her hands. Kister began
telling her something; she listened inattentively, as though waiting for
something, looked from time to time towards her father, and all at once
stretched out her hand.

'Listen, Fyodor Fedoritch... only speak a little more softly... papa's
asleep.'

Mr. Perekatov had indeed as usual dropped asleep on the sofa, with his
head hanging and his mouth a little open.

'What is it?' Kister inquired with curiosity.

'You will laugh at me.'

'Oh, no, really!...'

Masha let her head sink till only the upper part of her face remained
uncovered by her hands and in a half whisper, not without hesitation,
asked Kister why it was he never brought Mr. Lutchkov with him. It was
not the first time Masha had mentioned him since the ball.... Kister did
not speak. Masha glanced timorously over her interlaced fingers.

'May I tell you frankly what I think?' Kister asked her.

'Oh, why not? of course.'

'It seems to me that Lutchkov has made a great impression on you.'

'No!' answered Masha, and she bent over, as though wishing to examine
the pattern more closely; a narrow golden streak of light lay on her
hair; 'no... but...'

'Well, but?' said Kister, smiling.

'Well, don't you see,' said Masha, and she suddenly lifted her head, so
that the streak of light fell straight in her eyes; 'don't you see...
he...'

'He interests you....'

'Well... yes...' Masha said slowly; she flushed a little, turned her
head a little away and in that position went on talking. 'There is
something about him so... There, you're laughing at me,' she added
suddenly, glancing swiftly at Fyodor Fedoritch.

Fyodor Fedoritch smiled the gentlest smile imaginable.

'I tell you everything, whatever comes into my head,' Masha went on: 'I
know that you are a very'... (she nearly said great) 'good friend of
mine.'

Kister bowed. Masha ceased speaking, and shyly held out her hand to him;
Fyodor Fedoritch pressed the tips of her fingers respectfully.

'He must be a very queer person!' observed Masha, and again she propped
her elbows on the frame.

'Queer?'

'Of course; he interests me just because he is queer!' Masha added
slily.

'Lutchkov is a noble, a remarkable man,' Kister rejoined solemnly. 'They
don't know him in our regiment, they don't appreciate him, they only see
his external side. He's embittered, of course, and strange and
impatient, but his heart is good.'

Masha listened greedily to Fyodor Fedoritch.

'I will bring him to see you, I'll tell him there's no need to be afraid
of you, that it's absurd for him to be so shy... I'll tell him... Oh!
yes, I know what to say... Only you mustn't suppose, though, that I
would...' (Kister was embarrassed, Masha too was embarrassed.)...
'Besides, after all, of course you only... like him....'

'Of course, just as I like lots of people.'

Kister looked mischievously at her.

'All right, all right,' he said with a satisfied air; 'I'll bring him to
you....'

'Oh, no....'

'All right, I tell you it will be all right.... I'll arrange
everything.'

'You are so...' Masha began with a smile, and she shook her finger at
him. Mr. Perekatov yawned and opened his eyes.

'Why, I almost think I've been asleep,' he muttered with surprise. This
doubt and this surprise were repeated daily. Masha and Kister began
discussing Schiller.

Fyodor Fedoritch was not however quite at ease; he felt something like a
stir of envy within him... and was generously indignant with himself.
Nenila Makarievna came down into the drawing-room. Tea was brought in.
Mr. Perekatov made his dog jump several times over a stick, and then
explained he had taught it everything himself, while the dog wagged its
tail deferentially, licked itself and blinked. When at last the great
heat began to lessen, and an evening breeze blew up, the whole family
went out for a walk in the birch copse. Fyodor Fedoritch was continually
glancing at Masha, as though giving her to understand that he would
carry out her behests; Masha felt at once vexed with herself, and happy
and uncomfortable. Kister suddenly, apropos of nothing, plunged into a
rather high-flown discourse upon love in the abstract, and upon
friendship... but catching Nenila Makarievna's bright and vigilant eye
he, as abruptly, changed the subject. The sunset was brilliant and
glowing. A broad, level meadow lay outstretched before the birch copse.
Masha took it into her head to start a game of 'catch-catch.'
Maid-servants and footmen came out; Mr. Perekatov stood with his wife,
Kister with Masha. The maids ran with deferential little shrieks; Mr.
Perekatov's valet had the temerity to separate Nenila Makarievna from
her spouse; one of the servant-girls respectfully paired off with her
master; Fyodor Fedoritch was not parted from Masha. Every time as he
regained his place, he said two or three words to her; Masha, all
flushed with running, listened to him with a smile, passing her hand
over her hair. After supper, Kister took leave.

It was a still, starlight night. Kister took off his cap. He was
excited; there was a lump in his throat. 'Yes,' he said at last, almost
aloud; 'she loves him: I will bring them together; I will justify her
confidence in me.' Though there was as yet nothing to prove a definite
passion for Lutchkov on Masha's part, though, according to her own
account, he only excited her curiosity, Kister had by this time made up
a complete romance, and worked out his own duty in the matter. He
resolved to sacrifice his feelings--the more readily as 'so far I have
no other sentiment for her but sincere devotion,' thought he. Kister
really was capable of sacrificing himself to friendship, to a recognised
duty. He had read a great deal, and so fancied himself a person of
experience and even of penetration; he had no doubt of the truth of his
suppositions; he did not suspect that life is endlessly varied, and
never repeats itself. Little by little, Fyodor Fedoritch worked himself
into a state of ecstasy. He began musing with emotion on his mission. To
be the mediator between a shy, loving girl and a man possibly embittered
only because he had never once in his life loved and been loved; to
bring them together; to reveal their own feelings to them, and then to
withdraw, letting no one know the greatness of his sacrifice, what a
splendid feat! In spite of the coolness of the night, the simple-hearted
dreamer's face burned....

Next day he went round to Lutchkov early in the morning.

Avdey Ivanovitch was, as usual, lying on the sofa, smoking a pipe.
Kister greeted him.

'I was at the Perekatovs yesterday,' he said with some solemnity.

'Ah!' Lutchkov responded indifferently, and he yawned.

'Yes. They are splendid people.'

'Really?'

'We talked about you.'

'Much obliged; with which of them was that?'

'With the old people... and the daughter too.'

'Ah! that... little fat thing?'

'She's a splendid girl, Lutchkov.'

'To be sure, they're all splendid.'

'No, Lutchkov, you don't know her. I have never met such a clever, sweet
and sensitive girl.'

Lutchkov began humming through his nose:

'In the Hamburg Gazette,
You've read, I dare say,
How the year before last,
Munich gained the day....'

'But I assure you....'

'You 're in love with her, Fedya,' Lutchkov remarked sarcastically.

'Not at all. I never even thought of it.'

'Fedya, you're in love with her!'

'What nonsense! As if one couldn't...'

'You're in love with her, friend of my heart, beetle on my hearth,'
Avdey Ivanovitch chanted drawling.

'Ah, Avdey, you really ought to be ashamed!' Kister said with vexation.

With any one else Lutchkov would thereupon have kept on more than
before; Kister he did not tease. 'Well, well, sprechen Sie deutsch, Ivan
Andreitch,' he muttered in an undertone, 'don't be angry.'

'Listen, Avdey,' Kister began warmly, and he sat down beside him. 'You
know I care for you.' (Lutchkov made a wry face.) 'But there's one
thing, I'll own, I don't like about you... it's just that you won't make
friends with any one, that you will stick at home, and refuse all
intercourse with nice people. Why, there are nice people in the world,
hang it all! Suppose you have been deceived in life, have been
embittered, what of it; there's no need to rush into people's arms, of
course, but why turn your back on everybody? Why, you'll cast me off
some day, at that rate, I suppose.'

Lutchkov went on smoking coolly.

'That's how it is no one knows you... except me; goodness knows what
some people think of you... Avdey!' added Kister after a brief silence;
'do you disbelieve in virtue, Avdey?'

'Disbelieve... no, I believe in it,'... muttered Lutchkov.

Kister pressed his hand feelingly.

'I want,' he went on in a voice full of emotion, 'to reconcile you with
life. You will grow happier, blossom out... yes, blossom out. How I
shall rejoice then! Only you must let me dispose of you now and then, of
your time. To-day it's--what? Monday... to-morrow's Tuesday... on
Wednesday, yes, on Wednesday we'll go together to the Perekatovs'. They
will be so glad to see you... and we shall have such a jolly time
there... and now let me have a pipe.'

Avdey Ivanovitch lay without budging on the sofa, staring at the
ceiling. Kister lighted a pipe, went to the window, and began drumming
on the panes with his fingers.

'So they've been talking about me?' Avdey asked suddenly.

'They have,' Kister responded with meaning.

'What did they say?'

'Oh, they talked. There're very anxious to make your acquaintance.'

'Which of them's that?'

'I say, what curiosity!'

Avdey called his servant, and ordered his horse to be saddled.

'Where are you off to?'

'The riding-school.'

'Well, good-bye. So we're going to the Perekatovs', eh?'

'All right, if you like,' Lutchkov said lazily, stretching.

'Bravo, old man!' cried Kister, and he went out into the street,
pondered, and sighed deeply.

IV

Masha was just approaching the drawing-room door when the arrival of
Kister and Lutchkov was announced. She promptly returned to her own
room, and went up to the looking-glass.... Her heart was throbbing
violently. A girl came to summon her to the drawing-room. Masha drank a
little water, stopped twice on the stairs, and at last went down. Mr.
Perekatov was not at home. Nenila Makarievna was sitting on the sofa;
Lutchkov was sitting in an easy-chair, wearing his uniform, with his hat
on his knees; Kister was near him. They both got up on Masha's
entrance--Kister with his usual friendly smile, Lutchkov with a solemn
and constrained air. She bowed to them in confusion, and went up to her
mother. The first ten minutes passed off favourably. Masha recovered
herself, and gradually began to watch Lutchkov. To the questions
addressed to him by the lady of the house, he answered briefly, but
uneasily; he was shy, like all egoistic people. Nenila Makarievna
suggested a stroll in the garden to her guests, but did not herself go
beyond the balcony. She did not consider it essential never to lose
sight of her daughter, and to be constantly hobbling after her with a
fat reticule in her hands, after the fashion of many mothers in the
steppes. The stroll lasted rather a long while. Masha talked more with
Kister, but did not dare to look either at him or at Lutchkov. Avdey
Ivanovitch did not address a remark to her; Kister's voice showed
agitation. He laughed and chattered a little over-much.... They reached
the stream. A couple of yards or so from the bank there was a
water-lily, which seemed to rest on the smooth surface of the water,
encircled by its broad, round leaves.

'What a beautiful flower!' observed Masha.

She had hardly uttered these words when Lutchkov pulled out his sword,
clutched with one hand at the frail twigs of a willow, and, bending his
whole body over the water, cut off the head of the flower. 'It's deep
here, take care!' Masha cried in terror. Lutchkov with the tip of his
sword brought the flower to the bank, at her very feet. She bent down,
picked up the flower, and gazed with tender, delighted amazement at
Avdey. 'Bravo!' cried Kister. 'And I can't swim...' Lutchkov observed
abruptly. Masha did not like that remark. 'What made him say that?' she
wondered.

Lutchkov and Kister remained at Mr. Perekatov's till the evening.
Something new and unknown was passing in Masha's soul; a dreamy
perplexity was reflected more than once in her face. She moved somehow
more slowly, she did not flush on meeting her mother's eyes--on the
contrary, she seemed to seek them, as though she would question her.
During the whole evening, Lutchkov paid her a sort of awkward attention;
but even this awkwardness gratified her innocent vanity. When they had
both taken leave, with a promise to come again in a few days, she
quietly went off to her own room, and for a long while, as it were, in
bewilderment she looked about her. Nenila Makarievna came to her, kissed
and embraced her as usual. Masha opened her lips, tried to say
something--and did not utter a word. She wanted to confess---she did not
know what. Her soul was gently wandering in dreams. On the little table
by her bedside the flower Lutchkov had picked lay in water in a clean
glass. Masha, already in bed, sat up cautiously, leaned on her elbow,
and her maiden lips softly touched the fresh white petals....

'Well,' Kister questioned his friend next day, 'do you like the
Perekatovs? Was I right? eh? Tell me.'

Lutchkov did not answer.

'No, do tell me, do tell me!'

'Really, I don't know.'

'Nonsense, come now!'

'That... what's her name... Mashenka's all right; not bad-looking.'

'There, you see...' said Kister--and he said no more.

Five days later Lutchkov of his own accord suggested that they should
call on the Perekatovs.

Alone he would not have gone to see them; in Fyodor Fedoritch's absence
he would have had to keep up a conversation, and that he could not do,
and as far as possible avoided.

On the second visit of the two friends, Masha was much more at her ease.
She was by now secretly glad that she had not disturbed her mamma by an
uninvited avowal. Before dinner, Avdey had offered to try a young horse,
not yet broken in, and, in spite of its frantic rearing, he mastered it
completely. In the evening he thawed, and fell into joking and
laughing--and though he soon pulled himself up, yet he had succeeded in
making a momentary unpleasant impression on Masha. She could not yet be
sure herself what the feeling exactly was that Lutchkov excited in her,
but everything she did not like in him she set down to the influence of
misfortune, of loneliness.

V

The friends began to pay frequent visits to the Perekatovs'. Kister's
position became more and more painful. He did not regret his action...
no, but he desired at least to cut short the time of his trial. His
devotion to Masha increased daily; she too felt warmly towards him; but
to be nothing more than a go-between, a confidant, a friend even--it's a
dreary, thankless business! Coldly idealistic people talk a great deal
about the sacredness of suffering, the bliss of suffering... but to
Kister's warm and simple heart his sufferings were not a source of any
bliss whatever. At last, one day, when Lutchkov, ready dressed, came to
fetch him, and the carriage was waiting at the steps, Fyodor Fedoritch,
to the astonishment of his friend, announced point-blank that he should
stay at home. Lutchkov entreated him, was vexed and angry... Kister
pleaded a headache. Lutchkov set off alone.

The bully had changed in many ways of late. He left his comrades in
peace, did not annoy the novices, and though his spirit had not
'blossomed out,' as Kister had foretold, yet he certainly had toned down
a little. He could not have been called 'disillusioned' before--he had
seen and experienced almost nothing--and so it is not surprising that
Masha engrossed his thoughts. His heart was not touched though; only his
spleen was satisfied. Masha's feelings for him were of a strange kind.
She almost never looked him straight in the face; she could not talk to
him.... When they happened to be left alone together, Masha felt
horribly awkward. She took him for an exceptional man, and felt overawed
by him and agitated in his presence, fancied she did not understand him,
and was unworthy of his confidence; miserably, drearily--but
continually--she thought of him. Kister's society, on the contrary,
soothed her and put her in a good humour, though it neither overjoyed
nor excited her. With him she could chatter away for hours together,
leaning on his arm, as though he were her brother, looking
affectionately into his face, and laughing with his laughter--and she
rarely thought of him. In Lutchkov there was something enigmatic for the
young girl; she felt that his soul was 'dark as a forest,' and strained
every effort to penetrate into that mysterious gloom.... So children
stare a long while into a deep well, till at last they make out at the
very bottom the still, black water.

On Lutchkov's coming into the drawing-room alone, Masha was at first
scared... but then she felt delighted. She had more than once fancied
that there existed some sort of misunderstanding between Lutchkov and
her, that he had not hitherto had a chance of revealing himself.
Lutchkov mentioned the cause of Kister's absence; the parents expressed
their regret, but Masha looked incredulously at Avdey, and felt faint
with expectation. After dinner they were left alone; Masha did not know
what to say, she sat down to the piano; her fingers flitted hurriedly
and tremblingly over the keys; she was continually stopping and waiting
for the first word... Lutchkov did not understand nor care for music.
Masha began talking to him about Rossini (Rossini was at that time just
coming into fashion) and about Mozart.... Avdey Ivanovitch responded:
'Quite so,' 'by no means,' 'beautiful,' 'indeed,' and that was all.
Masha played some brilliant variations on one of Rossini's airs.
Lutchkov listened and listened... and when at last she turned to him,
his face expressed such unfeigned boredom, that Masha jumped up at once
and closed the piano. She went up to the window, and for a long while
stared into the garden; Lutchkov did not stir from his seat, and still
remained silent. Impatience began to take the place of timidity in
Masha's soul. 'What is it?' she wondered, 'won't you... or can't you?'
It was Lutchkov's turn to feel shy. He was conscious again of his
miserable, overwhelming diffidence; already he was raging!... 'It was
the devil's own notion to have anything to do with the wretched girl,'
he muttered to himself.... And all the while how easy it was to touch
Masha's heart at that instant! Whatever had been said by such an
extraordinary though eccentric man, as she imagined Lutchkov, she would
have understood everything, have excused anything, have believed
anything.... But this burdensome, stupid silence! Tears of vexation were
standing in her eyes. 'If he doesn't want to be open, if I am really not
worthy of his confidence, why does he go on coming to see us? Or perhaps
it is that I don't set the right way to work to make him reveal
himself?'... And she turned swiftly round, and glanced so inquiringly,
so searchingly at him, that he could not fail to understand her glance,
and could not keep silence any longer....

'Marya Sergievna,' he pronounced falteringly; 'I... I've... I ought to
tell you something....'

'Speak,' Masha responded rapidly.

Lutchkov looked round him irresolutely.

'I can't now...'

'Why not?'

'I should like to speak to you... alone....'

'Why, we are alone now.'

'Yes... but... here in the house....'

Masha was at her wits' end.... 'If I refuse,' she thought, 'it's all
over.'... Curiosity was the ruin of Eve....

'I agree,' she said at last.

'When then? Where?'

Masha's breathing came quickly and unevenly.

'To-morrow... in the evening. You know the copse above the Long
Meadow?'...

'Behind the mill?'

Masha nodded.

'What time?'

'Wait...'

She could not bring out another word; her voice broke... she turned pale
and went quickly out of the room.

A quarter of an hour later, Mr. Perekatov, with his characteristic
politeness, conducted Lutchkov to the hall, pressed his hand feelingly,
and begged him 'not to forget them'; then, having let out his guest, he
observed with dignity to the footman that it would be as well for him to
shave, and without awaiting a reply, returned with a careworn air to his
own room, with the same careworn air sat down on the sofa, and
guilelessly dropped asleep on the spot.

'You're a little pale to-day,' Nenila Makarievna said to her daughter,
on the evening of the same day. 'Are you quite well?'

'Yes, mamma.'

Nenila Makarievna set straight the kerchief on the girl's neck.

'You are very pale; look at me,' she went on, with that motherly
solicitude in which there is none the less audible a note of parental
authority: 'there, now, your eyes look heavy too. You're not well,
Masha.'

'My head does ache a little,' said Masha, to find some way of escape.

'There, I knew it.' Nenila Makarievna put some scent on Masha's
forehead. 'You're not feverish, though.'

Masha stooped down, and picked a thread off the floor.

Nenila Makarievna's arms lay softly round Masha's slender waist.

'It seems to me you have something you want to tell me,' she said
caressingly, not loosing her hands.

Masha shuddered inwardly.

'I? Oh, no, mamma.'

Masha's momentary confusion did not escape her mother's attention.

'Oh, yes, you do.... Think a little.'

But Masha had had time to regain her self-possession, and instead of
answering, she kissed her mother's hand with a laugh.

'And so you've nothing to tell me?'

'No, really, nothing.'

'I believe you,' responded Nenila Makarievna, after a short silence. 'I
know you keep nothing secret from me.... That's true, isn't it?'

'Of course, mamma.'

Masha could not help blushing a little, though.

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