King Stakh's Wild Hunt (10 page)

Evidently, Dubatowk also understood it was time to interfere. He came up, stood between us, and put a heavy hand on Varona’s shoulder. His face was red.

“You pup!” He shouted. “And this is a Belarusian, an aristocrat? To insult a guest in such a way! A disgrace to my grey hair. Don’t you see whom you are picking a fight with? He is not one of our chicken-hearted fools. This is not a chick, this is a man. And he will quickly tear off your moustache for you. You are a nobleman, sir?”

“A nobleman.”

“So you see, the gentleman is an aristocrat. If you must have a talk together you can find a common language. This man is an aristocrat and a good one, too; his forefathers and ours may have been friends. Do not compare him to the modern snivellers. Ask your hostess to forgive you. You hear me?”

Varona was as if a changed man. He muttered some words and walked aside with Dubatowk. I remained with Yanovsky.

“My God, Mr. Andrey, I was so frightened for you. You’re too good a person to have anything to do with him.”

I raised my eyes. Dubatowk stood nearby and curiously looked at me and then at Miss Yanovsky.

“Miss Nadzeya,” I said with a warmth I hadn’t myself expected. “I am very grateful to you, you are a kind and sincere person, and your concern for me, your goodwill, I shall long remember. It can’t be helped, but my pride – the only thing I have – I never allow anybody to tread on.”

“So you see,” she lowered her eyes. “You are not at all like them. Many of these highborn people would have given in. Evidently, you are the real gentleman here, while they only pretend to be gentlemen... But remember, I have great fear for you. This man is dangerous, he’s a man with a dreadful reputation.”

“I know that,” I answered jokingly. “The local ‘aurochs’...”

“Don’t joke about it. He is a well-known brawler among us and a rabid duellist. He has killed seven men in duels. And it is perhaps worse for you that I am standing beside you. You understand me?”

I did not at all like this feminine dwarf with her large sad eyes. Her relations with Varona held no interest for me whatsoever, whether he was a sweetheart or a rejected admirer. However, one good deed deserves another. So sweet was she in her care for me, that I took her hand and carried it to my lips.

“My thanks, mademoiselle.” She did not remove her hand, and her transparent gentle little fingers slightly trembled under my lips. In a word, all this sounds too much like a sentimental and somewhat cheap novel about life in high society.

The veteran orchestra began to play the waltz “Mignon” and the illusion of “high society” immediately disappeared. In conformity with the orchestra were the clothes, in conformity with the clothes were the dances. Cymbals, pipes, something resembling tambourines, an old whistle, and violins. Among the violinists were a gypsy and a Jew, the latter”s violin trying all the time to play something very sad instead of the well-known melodies, but when it fell into a merry vein it played something resembling “Seven on a Violin”. And dances that had long gone out of fashion: “Chaqu’un”, “pas-de-deux”, even the Belarusian mannered parody on “Minuet” – “Labedzik”. And luckily I could dance all of these, for I liked national dances.

“Miss Nadzeya, may I invite you for the waltz?”

She hesitated a moment, shyly raising her fluffy eyebrows.

“I was taught it some time ago, and have probably forgotten.”

She put her hand somewhat awkwardly under my shoulder. At first I thought we would be a laughing stock for everybody in the ball room, but was soon set at ease. I had never met such a light dancer as this girl. She did not dance, she flew about in the air, and I almost carried her along on the floor. And that was easy to do, since she was as light as a feather. Approximately in the middle of the dance I noticed her face that had been concentrated and uncertain, becoming suddenly simple and very sweet. Her eyes sparkled, her lower lip somewhat protruding.

Then we danced some more. She became surprisingly lively, her cheeks turned rosy, and in this intoxication such youth sparkled in her face, that warmth filled my heart.

“This is me,” her soul seemed to be saying in her eyes, in her big, black and shining eyes, “This is me. You thought me far away, but I am here, here I am. In this one short evening I have shown you myself, and you are surprised. You didn’t consider me a living being, found me pale and bloodless, as the sprout of a dahlia in a dungeon, but you have taken me out into the world. I’m so grateful to you, you are so kind. You see live verdure has appeared in my stem, and soon if the sun warms me, I’ll show the world my wonderful scarlet flower. But there’s one thing that you must not do, you mustn’t carry me back into the cellar.”

It was strange to see in her eyes a reflection of the joy that she felt on sensing her own full value. I, too, was carried away by this, and my eyes, probably, began to shine with only my side vision tracking my surroundings now. Suddenly the squirrel whisked back into its hollow, the joy disappeared from the eyes, and the former horror settled behind her eyelashes: Varona was giving orders to lackeys who were hanging the portrait of Roman the Old above the fireplace.

The music stopped. Dubatowk came up to us, red in the face and merry.

“Nadzeya, my beauty, allow this old fool your little paw.”

He lowered himself heavily on a knee and, laughing, kissed her hand.

In a minute he spoke in an altogether different tone:

“According to the law a guardian must make his report immediately upon his ward’s reaching the age of eighteen.”

He withdrew from his pocket an enormous bulbous enamelled silver watch and, becoming official, declared:

“It is seven o’clock. We are going to make known our report. I shall speak; then, for the second guardian, Mr. Kalatecha–Kazlowsky, who lives in town and due to illness could not come, an arrangement has been made that Sava Stakhowsky and Mr. Ales Varona will speak in his stead. And an independent witness is necessary.” His eyes rested on me searchingly. “You’re just the man. You are a young man yet, and will live long yet. You will be able then to bear witness to the fact that everything was carried out here according to the old customs and to the dictates of conscience. Miss Yanovsky, please come together with us.”

Our conference did not last long. At first an inventory of the property was read – the real estate and the personal property – that was left, according to the last will and testament of her father. It turned out that it consisted mainly of the castle and the park, the entailed estate, from which not a single thing might vanish and which had to be kept up in such a way as to maintain the greatness of the family and its honour.

“A fine honour!” I thought. “The honour of dying of hunger in a wealthy house.”

Dubatowk proved that the real estate property had been well looked after and retained intact.

Next was the question of profits. Dubatowk announced that the money invested by Roman Yanovsky – 24,000 roubles – in two banking offices, at 8 % without the right to touch the basic capitat returned from 150 to 170 roubles monthly. This profit, due to the efforts of the guardian, even increased. Moreover, the basic capital had increased by a sum which, if it were so wished, could be added to the dowry of the heiress. All the people there shook their heads. The profits were scanty, especially if the necessity of running the house and keeping it in order were taken into consideration.

“And how are the servants paid?” I asked.

“A part of the inheritance is allotted for that in the will, as they are an inseparable part of the entailed estate.”

“I would ask Mr. Dubatowk to explain to me how things stand with the leased land belonging to the Marsh Firs estate,” said Sava Stakhowsky, a small thin man with such sharp knees it seemed they were on the point of cutting through his little trousers. He evidently always exchanged caustic remarks with Dubatowk and now asked him this venomous question. Dubatowk, however, wasn’t taken aback, he pulled out large silver spectacles, a kerchief which he spread out on his knees, then a key and only after that a scrap of paper. His spectacles, however, he did not put on, and began to read:

“Miss Yanovsky’s great-grandfather had 10,000 hectares of good arable land, not including the forest. Miss Yanovsky, as you probably know, most respected Mr. Stakhowsky, has fifty hectares of arable land, considerably impoverished. She has also the park which doesn’t give any returns, and the virgin forest, which is also effectively an entailed estate, as it is a Forest Reservation. Frankly speaking, this rule could be waived. However, firstly, access for the woodcutter to the virgin forest is impossible because of the quagmire. And secondly, would it be wise? Nadzeya may have children. What could they do with fifty hectares of poor land? Then the family will come to a complete downfall. Of course, the young lady is now grown up, she can decide for herself...”

“I quite agree with you, Uncle,” Lady Yanovsky said, blushing and almost in tears. “Let the virgin forest stand. I’m glad that one can get to it only by small paths, and at that only in dry weather. A pity to destroy such a dense forest. Virgin forests are God’s gardens.”

“That’s right,” continued her guardian, “Besides, almost the entire Yanovsky region is but a quagmire, a peat-bog and waste land on which nothing besides heather can grow. No one has ever lived on this land, as long as man can remember. And that means that we take only the fifty hectares which are rented out for half the crop. The land isn’t fertilized, only rye is planted on it, and each hectare gives thirty, at the most forty measurements, which means that at a price of fifty kopeck per measurement a hectare gives an income of ten roubles a year, and thus, from all the land, 500 roubles annually. And that is all. This money is not withheld, you can believe me, Mr. Stakhowsky.”

I shook my head. The landlady of a large estate had a monthly income of a little over 200 roubles. While an average official received 125 roubles. Nadezhda Yanovsky had a place to live in and food to eat, nevertheless hers was an undisguised need, a need without a ray of hope. I, a learned man and a journalist, the author of four books, received 400 roubles monthly. And I didn’t have to put it all into this hole – the castle, to make presents to the servants, to keep the park in relative order. I was Croesus in comparison with her.

I felt sorry for her, this child, on whose shoulders such an overwhelming load had fallen.

“You are rather poor,” Dubatowk said sadly. “As a matter of fact, after all the necessary expenses, you have only kopecks left on hand.”

At this he glanced in my direction very expressively and meaningfully, but my face, I dare say, expressed nothing. Indeed, how could it concern me in any way?

The papers were handed over to the new owner. Dubatowk promised to give his personal orders to Bierman, then he kissed Yanovsky on her forehead, and left the room. The rest of us also returned to the dancing hall where the guests had by now had time enough to tire of dancing.

Dubatowk again called forth an outburst of merriment and excitement.

There was some kind of a local dance that I did not know, and therefore Varona immediately carried off Nadzeya. Then she disappeared somewhere. I was watching the dancing, when suddenly I felt someone looking at me. Not far from me stood a thin but evidently strong young man with a frank face, modestly dressed, although the accentuated stress laid on its tidiness was quite apparent.

I had not seen him appear, but I liked him at first sight. I even liked the soft ascetism of his large mouth and clever brown hazel eyes. I smiled at him and he, as if that was what he had been waiting for, stepping lightly, walked over in my direction with an outstretched hand.

“I beg your pardon for this informality, Andrey Svetsilovich. It’s been an old wish of mine to make your acquaintance. I’m a former student of the Kiev University. I was expelled for my participation in student disturbances.”

I, too, introduced myself. He smiled a broad Belarusian smile, such a kind and frank smile that his face immediately became beautiful.

“You know, I’ve read your collections. Don’t consider it a compliment. I’m in general not fond of that, but after reading them I felt inexplicably drawn to you. You are doing something useful and necessary, and you understand your tasks. I judge that from your prefaces.”

A conversation between us got under way and we walked over to a window in a far corner of the room. I asked him how he happened to be in Marsh Firs. He began to laugh:

“I’m a distant relative of Nadzeya Yanovsky. A very distant one. As a matter of fact, we two, she and I, are the only ones left now, and I am from a female line of the family. It seems that some drop of blood of the former Deinowsky princes still flows in the veins of Haraburda, but his kinship, as well as that of the Hryckieviches, not a single expert in heraldry could prove. It is simply a family tradition. In any case Nadzeya is the only real Yanovsky.”

His face softened, became thoughtful.

“And anyway, this is all foolishness. All these heraldic entanglements, the small princes, the entailed estates of magnates. Were it up to me I would empty my veins of all this magnate blood. It only causes my conscience to suffer deeply. I think Nadzeya feels the same way.”

“But I was told that Miss Nadzeya is the only one of the Yanovskys.”

“That’s really so, yes. I am a very distant relative, and also, I was thought to be dead. It’s been five years since I’ve visited Marsh Firs, and now I’m 23. My father sent me away because at the age of eighteen I was dying of love for a thirteen year old girl. As a matter of fact that was unimportant, we’d have had to wait only two years, but my father believed in the power of the ancient curse.”

“Well, did the banishment help you?” I asked.

“Not a bit. Moreover, two meetings were sufficient for me to understand that the former adoration had grown into love.”

“And how does Nadzeya Yanovsky feel?” I asked.

He blushed so that tears even welled up in his eyes.

“You’ve guessed! I beg you to keep silent about that. The thing is that I don’t know yet what she thinks about it. That is not so important. Believe me... It’s simply that I feel so well in her presence, and even should she be indifferent – believe me – life would still be a good and happy thing, she will still be living on this land, won’t she? She is an unusual person. She is an extraordinary being. She is surrounded by such a dirty world of pigs, by such undisguised slavery, while she is so pure and kind.”