The Created Legend, Fyodor Sologub [ebook reader with android os .txt] 📗

of his love, that her pity for him became serene and radiant. She looked at Piotr with loving eyes.

Piotr was in a state of despair. But Elena’s eyes aroused in him a sweet agitation for a new love. His wearied heart thirsted, and suffered intensely from deceived hopes.

Misha was strangely distraught. He flushed, and ran off more than usual with his fishing-rod to the river; there he wept. Now he impetuously embraced Elisaveta, now Trirodov. He felt ashamed and bitter. He knew that Elisaveta did not even suspect his love, and that she looked at him as at an infant. Sometimes in his helplessness he hated her. He said to Piotr:

“I shouldn’t walk about with a long face if I were you. She is not worthy of your love. She puts on airs. Elena is much better. Elena is a dear, while the other fancies all sorts of things.”

Piotr walked away from him in silence. And it was well that there was someone who did not scold, and with whom it was possible to ease his soul. Misha, too, wanted to be with Elisaveta, and it made him feel ashamed and depressed.

Miss Harrison did not express her opinion. Many things had already shocked her, and she grew accustomed to bear herself indifferently to everything that happened here. Trirodov, in her opinion, was an adventurer, a man with a doubtful reputation, and a dark past.

Elisaveta was the most tranquil of all.

Piotr’s gloomy appearance disturbed Rameyev. He wanted to comfort him if only with words. Luckily, people believe even in words! They must believe in something.

Rameyev and Piotr happened to find themselves alone. Rameyev said:

“I must confess that I once thought Elisaveta loved you. Or that she might love you, if you wished it strongly.”

Piotr said with a gloomy smile:

“I too may be pardoned for the error. All the more since M. Trirodov does not lack lovers.”

“Anyone may be pardoned for mistakes,” answered Rameyev calmly, “though they may be painful enough sometimes.”

Piotr grumbled something. Rameyev continued:

“I have been observing Elisaveta very attentively of late. And listen to what I say⁠—pardon me for my frankness⁠—I have come to the conclusion that you’d be better off with Elena. Perhaps you have also erred in your feelings.”

Piotr replied with a bitter smile:

“Why, of course⁠—Elena is more simple. She doesn’t read philosophic books, she doesn’t wear over-classical frocks; and doesn’t detest anyone.”

“Why drag self-love into everything?” asked Rameyev. “Elena is not as simple as you think. She is a very intelligent girl, though without pretensions to a deep and broad outlook⁠—and she is good, attractive, and cheerful.”

“In fact, quite a match for me,” observed Piotr with an ironic smile.

“As for that,” said Rameyev, “you are not limited to choosing a charming wife from among my daughters.”

“That’s not so easy,” said Piotr with dejected irony. “But I see no need of insisting. Besides, the same thing might happen with Elena. She might come across a more brilliant match. And there are not a few charlatans in this world of the Trirodov brand.”

“Elena loves you,” said Rameyev. “Surely you have noticed it?”

Piotr laughed. He assumed a gaiety⁠—or did he actually feel gay and joyous at the sudden thought of the charming Elena? Of course she loved him! But he asked:

“Why do you think, my dear uncle, that I need a wife at all costs? May God be with her!”

“You are in love generally, as is common in your years,” said Rameyev.

“Perhaps,” said Piotr, “but Elisaveta’s choice revolts me.”

“Why should it?” asked Rameyev.

“For many reasons,” replied Piotr. “For one thing, he presented her with a photograph of his dead wife, a naked beauty. Why? Is it right to make universal that which is intimate?27 She revealed her body to her husband, and not for Elisaveta and for us.”

“You would do away with many fine pictures if you had your way,” said Rameyev.

“I am not so simple as not to be able to make a distinction,” replied Piotr animatedly. “In the one case it is pure art, always sacred; in the other there is an effort to inflame the feelings with pornographic pictures. And don’t you notice it yourself, uncle, that Elisaveta has poisoned herself with this sweet poison, and has become terribly passionate and insufficiently modest?”

“I do not find this at all,” said Rameyev dryly.

“She is in love⁠—so what’s to be done? If there is sensuality in people, what is to be done with nature? Shall the whole world be maimed in order to gratify a decrepit morality?”

“Uncle, I did not suspect you of being such an amoralist,” said Piotr in vexation.

“There is morality and morality,” replied Rameyev, not without some confusion. “I do not uphold depravity, but nevertheless demand freedom of thought and feeling. A free feeling is always innocent.”

“And what will you say of those naked girls in his woods⁠—is that also innocent?” asked Piotr rather spitefully.

“Of course,” replied Rameyev. “His problem is to lull to sleep the beast in man, and to awaken the man.”

“I have heard his discourses,” said Piotr, showing his annoyance, “and I do not believe them in the slightest. I’m only astonished that others can believe such nonsense. And I don’t believe either in his poetry or in his chemistry. He has too many secrets and mysteries, too many cunning mechanisms in his doors and his corridors. Then there are his quiet children⁠—that I do not understand at all. Where have they come from? What does he do with them? There is something nasty behind it all.”

“That’s a work of the imagination,” answered Rameyev. “We see him often, we can always go to him, and we haven’t seen or heard anything in his house or in his colony to confirm the town tattle about him.”

Piotr recalled the evening that he met Trirodov on the riverbank. His sad but determined eyes suddenly flared up in Piotr’s memory⁠—and the poison of his spite grew weaker. He seemed affected as by a strange bewitchment, as if someone persistently yet quietly urged him