"And what of the country's people?"
"What of the country's people? Oh, so long as you keep yourself to yourself they will not interfere with you."
"And why will they not?"
Kalinin paused, stared at me, smiled condescendingly, and, finally, said:
"What a dullard you are to ask about such simple things! Were you never given any sort of an education? Surely by this time you ought to be able to understand something?"
Then, with a change of subject, and subduing his tone to one of snuffling supplication, he added in the sing-song chant of a person reciting a prayer:
"'0h Lord, suffer me not to become bound unto the clergy the priesthood, the diaconate, the tchinovstvo, [The official class] or the intelligentsia!' This was a petition which my mother used often to repeat."
The raindrops now were falling more gently, and in finer lines and more transparent network, so that one could once more descry the great trunks of the blackened oaks, with the green and gold of their leaves. Also, our own hollow had grown less dark, and there could be discerned its smoky, satin-bright walls. From those walls Kalinin picked a bit of charcoal with finger and thumb, saying:
"It was shepherds that fired the place. See where they dragged in hay and dead leaves! A shepherd's fife hereabouts must be a truly glorious one!"
Lastly, clasping his head as though he were about to fall asleep, he sank his chin between his knees, and relapsed into silence.
Presently a brilliant, sinuous little rivulet which had long been laving the bare roots of our tree brought floating past us a red and fawn leaf.
"How pretty," I thought, "that leaf will look from a distance when reposing on the surface of the sea! For, like the sun when he is in solitary possession of the heavens, that leaf will stand out against the blue, silky expanse like a lonely red star."
After awhile my companion began, catlike, to purr to himself a song. Its melody, the melody of "the moon withdrew behind a cloud," was familiar enough, but not so the words, which ran:
0h Valentina, wondrous maid, More comely thou than e'er a flow'r!
The nurse's son doth pine for thee, And yearn to serve thee every hour!
"What does that ditty mean?" I inquired.
Kalinin straightened himself, gave a wriggle to a form that was as lithe as a lizard's, and passed one hand over his face.
"It is a certain composition," he replied presently. "It is a composition that was composed by a military clerk who afterwards died of consumption. He was my friend his life long, and my only friend, and a true one, besides being a man out of the common."
"And who was Valentina?"
"My one-time mistress," Kalinin spoke unwillingly.
"And he, the clerk--was he in love with her?"
"Oh dear no!"
Evidently Kalinin had no particular wish to discuss the subject, for he hugged himself together, buried his face in his hands, and muttered:
"I should like to kindle a fire, were it not that everything in the place is too damp for the purpose."
The wind shook the trees, and whistled despondently, while the fine, persistent rain still whipped the earth.
"I but humble am, and poor, Nor fated to be otherwise," sang Kalinin softly as, flinging up his head with an unexpected movement, he added meaningly:
"Yes, it is a mournful song, a song which could move to tears.
Only to two persons has it ever been known; to my friend the clerk and to myself. Yes, and to HER, though I need hardly add that at once she forgot it."
And Kalinin's eyes flashed into a smile as he added:
"I think that, as a young man, you had better learn forthwith where the greatest danger lurks in life. Let me tell you a story."
And upon that a very human tale filtered through the silken monotonous swish of the downpour, with, for listeners to it, only the rain and myself.
"Lukianov was NEVER in love with her," he narrated. "Only I was that. All that Lukianov did in the matter was to write, at my request, some verses. When she first appeared on the scene (I mean Valentina Ignatievna) I was just turned nineteen years of age; and the instant that my eyes fell upon her form I realised that in her alone lay my fate, and my heart almost stopped beating, and my vitality stretched out towards her as a speck of dust flies towards a fire. Yet all this I had to conceal as best I might; with the result that in the company's presence I felt like a sentry doing guard duty in the presence of his commanding officer. But at last, though I strove to pull myself together, to steady myself against the ferment that was raging in my breast, something happened. Valentina Ignatievna was then aged about twenty-five, and very beautiful--marvellous, in fact! Also, she was an orphan, since her father had been killed by the Chechentzes, and her mother had died of smallpox at Samarkand. As regards her kinship with the General, she stood to him in the relation of niece by marriage. Golden-locked, and as skin-fair as enamelled porcelain, she had eyes like emeralds, and a figure wholly symmetrical, though as slim as a wafer. For bedroom she had a little corner apartment situated next to the kitchen (the General possessed his own house, of course), while, in addition, they allotted her a bright little boudoir in which she disposed her curios and knickknacks, from cut-glass bottles and goblets to a copper pipe and a glass ring mounted on copper. This ring, when turned, used to emit showers of glittering sparks, though she was in no way afraid of them, but would sing as she made them dance:
"Not for me the spring will dawn!
Not for me the Bug will spate!
Not for me love's smile will wait!
Not for me, ah, not for me!
"Constantly would she warble this.
"Also, once she flashed an appeal at me with her eyes, and said:
"'Alexei, please never touch anything in my room, for my things are too fragile.'
"Sure enough, in HER presence ANYTHING might have fallen from my hands!
