That review was followed by dead silence both in print and in conversation concerning the book, and Koznyshev saw that his six years’ work, carried out with so much devotion and labour, was entirely thrown away.

 

His position was the more painful because, having finished his book, he no longer had any literary work such as had previously occupied the greater part of his time.

 

He was intelligent, well-educated, healthy and active, but did not know how to employ his energy. Discussions in drawing-rooms, at meetings, at assemblies, in committees, and everywhere where one could speak, took up part of his time; but, as an habitual town-dweller, he did not allow himself to be entirely absorbed by discussions, as his inexperienced brother did when he was in Moscow; so he had much superfluous leisure and mental energy.

 

Fortunately for him, at this most trying time, after the failure of his book, in place of the questions of Dissent, our American friends, the Samara Famine, the Exhibitions, and Spiritualism, the Slavonic question — which had previously only smouldered in Society — came to the front, and Koznyshev, who had previously been one of the promoters of that cause, devoted himself to it entirely.

 

Among the people to whom he belonged, nothing was written or talked about at that time except the Serbian war. Everything that the idle crowd usually does to kill time, it now did for the benefit of the Slavs: balls, concerts, dinners, speeches, ladies’ dresses, beer, restaurants — all bore witness to our sympathy with the Slavs.

 

With much that was spoken and written on the subject Koznyshev did not agree in detail. He saw that the Slav question had become one of those fashionable diversions which, ever succeeding one another, serve to occupy Society; he saw that too many people took up the question from interested motives. He admitted that the papers published much that was unnecessary and exaggerated with the sole aim of drawing attention to themselves, each outcrying the other. He saw that amid this general elation in Society those who were unsuccessful or discontented leapt to the front and shouted louder than anyone else: Commanders-in-Chief without armies, Ministers without portfolios, journalists without papers, and party leaders without followers. He saw there was much that was frivolous and ridiculous; but he also saw and admitted the unquestionable and ever-growing enthusiasm which was uniting all classes of society, and with which one could not help sympathizing. The massacre of our coreligionists and brother Slavs evoked sympathy for the sufferers and indignation against their oppressors. And the heroism of the Serbs and Montenegrins, fighting for a great cause, aroused in the whole nation a desire to help their brothers not only with words but by deeds.

 

Also there was an accompanying fact that pleased Koznyshev. It was the manifestation of public opinion. The nation had definitely expressed its wishes. As Koznyshev put it, ‘the soul of the nation had become articulate.’ The more he went into this question, the clearer it seemed to him that it was a matter which would attain enormous proportions and become epoch-making.

 

He devoted himself completely to the service of that great movement and forgot to think about his book.

 

His whole time was now so taken up that he was unable to answer all the letters and demands addressed to him.

 

After working all through the spring and part of the summer, it was not till July that he prepared to go to his brother’s in the country.

 

He went, both to enjoy a fortnight’s rest, and — in that holy of holies of the people, the very heart of the country — to enjoy the sight of that uplift of the national spirit, of which he and all the town-dwellers were fully convinced. Katavasov, who had promised Levin to visit him, and had long been meaning to keep that promise, accompanied Koznyshev.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

 

—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—

 

 

 

HARDLY had Koznyshev and Katavasov reached the station, got out of their carriage, and looked for the footman who had followed with their luggage, before some Volunteers drove up with four izvoshchiks. The Volunteers were met by ladies who brought them nosegays and who, with the crowd that rushed after them, accompanied them into the station.

 

[The period referred to is July 1876, when, after the Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro and Herzegovina were rising against Turkey. Many Russian Volunteers joined the insurgents, and eventually, in April 1877, Russia declared war to obtain autonomy or independence for the Christian provinces of Turkey.]

 

One of the ladies who had met the Volunteers spoke to Koznyshev at the exit from the waiting-room.

 

‘You too have come to see them off?’ she asked in French.

 

‘No, Princess, I am going to my brother’s for a rest. And do you always come to see them off?’ he asked with a slight smile.

 

‘How can one help it?’ replied the Princess. ‘Is it true that eight hundred have already gone from here? Malvinsky would not believe me.’

 

‘More than eight hundred: counting those who did not go from Moscow direct, more than a thousand,’ said Koznyshev.

 

‘There now! I said so!’ the lady said joyfully. ‘And isn’t it true that about a million roubles have been collected?’

 

‘More than that, Princess.’

 

‘And what a telegram there is to-day! They have beaten the Turks again!’

 

‘Yes, I read it,’ he answered. They were talking of the latest telegram, confirming the report that for three consecutive days the Turks had been beaten at all points and were in flight, and that a decisive battle was expected next day.

 

‘Oh, I say! There is a splendid young man who wants to go. I don’t know why they are making difficulties. I wished to speak to you about him, I know him, please write a note for him! He was sent by the Countess Lydia Ivanovna.’

 

Having obtained such details as the Princess could give about the young petitioner, Koznyshev went into the first-class waiting-room, wrote a note to the person on whom the decision depended, and gave it to the Princess.

 

‘Do you know that the well-known Count Vronsky is going by this train?’ remarked the Princess with a triumphant and significant smile, when Koznyshev had found her again and given her the note.

 

‘I heard he was going, but did not know when. Going by this train?’

 

‘I have seen him. He is here. Only his mother is seeing him off. After all, it is the best thing he could do.’

 

‘Oh yes, certainly.’

 

While they were speaking the crowd rushed past them toward the dining-table. They too moved on, and heard the loud voice of a man who, with a glass in his hand, was making a speech to the Volunteers: ‘To serve the Faith, humanity, and our brothers!’ said the gentleman, raising his voice more and more. ‘Mother Moscow blesses you in the great undertaking! Zhivio! [Serbian: Hail!]’ he concluded in a loud and tearful voice.

 

Every one shouted ‘Zhivio!’ and a fresh crowd surged into the refreshment-room, nearly knocking the Princess off her feet.

 

‘Ah, Princess! What do you think of that!’ said Oblonsky, beaming with a joyous smile, as he suddenly appeared in the midst of the crowd. ‘Wasn’t it finely and cordially expressed! Bravo! . . . And Sergius Ivanich! Now, you should say something, so that . . . just a few words, you know, of encouragement; you do it so well,’ he added with an affectionate, respectful and solicitous smile, gently pushing Koznyshev forward by the arm.

 

‘No, I am just going.’

 

‘Where to?’

 

‘To my brother’s in the country,’ answered Koznyshev.

 

‘Then you’ll see my wife; I have written to her, but you’ll see her sooner. Please tell her you have seen me and it’s all right! She will understand. However, tell her, if you’ll be so kind, that I am appointed Member of the Committee of the Joint . . . But she will understand! You know, les petites misères de la vie humaine [the little miseries of human life],’ he said to the Princess, as if to excuse himself. ‘And the Princess Myagkaya, not Lisa but Bibish, is really sending a thousand rifles and twelve nurses! Did I tell you?’

 

‘Yes, I have heard,’ replied Koznyshev reluctantly.

 

‘What a pity you are going away,’ said Oblonsky. ‘To-morrow we are giving a dinner to two of those who are going to the war: Dmitry Bartnyansky from Petersburg and our Veslovsky — Vasenka. They are both going. Veslovsky married recently. A fine fellow! Isn’t he, Princess?’ he added, turning to the lady.

 

The Princess without replying glanced at Koznyshev. But the fact that Koznyshev and the Princess seemed to wish to get rid of him did not abash Oblonsky in the least. He looked smilingly now at the feather on the Princess’s bonnet and now about him, as if trying to remember something. Noticing a lady with a collecting-box he beckoned to her and put in a five-rouble note.

 

‘I can’t look calmly at those collecting-boxes while I have any money,’ he remarked. ‘And what a telegram that was to-day! Fine fellows, those Montenegrins!’

 

‘You don’t say so!’ he exclaimed, when the Princess told him that Vronsky was going by that train. For a moment Oblonsky’s face looked sad, but a minute later when, with a slight spring in his step and smoothing his whiskers, he entered the waiting-room where Vronsky was, Oblonsky had quite forgotten how he had sobbed with despair over his sister’s corpse, and he saw in Vronsky only a hero and an old friend.

 

‘With all his faults one must do him justice,’ the Princess said to Koznyshev as soon as Oblonsky had left them. ‘His is a thoroughly Russian, Slavonic nature! Only I’m afraid it will be painful for Vronsky to see him. Say what you will, that man’s fate touches me. Have a talk with him on the journey,’ said the Princess.

 

‘Yes, I might if opportunity offers.’

 

‘I never liked him. But this atones for much. Not only is he going himself but he is taking a whole squadron at his own expense.’

 

‘So I heard.’

 

The bell rang. Everybody thronged toward the door.

 

‘There he is!’ said the Princess, pointing to Vronsky who, in a long overcoat and a black broad-brimmed hat, was passing with his mother on his arm. Oblonsky walked beside him, talking with animation.

 

Vronsky was frowning and looking straight before him, as if not hearing what Oblonsky was saying.

 

Probably at Oblonsky’s indication, he looked round to where Koznyshev and the Princess were standing and silently raised his hat. His face, which was aged and full of suffering, seemed petrified.

 

Coming up to the train, Vronsky, letting his mother pass before him, silently disappeared into one of the compartments.

 

On the platform ‘God save the Tsar’ was struck up, followed by ‘hurrah’ and ‘zhivio!’ One of the Volunteers, a tall, hollow-chested, very young man, was bowing in a specially noticeable way, waving over his head a felt hat and a bouquet. From behind him two officers and an elderly man with a large beard and a greasy cap thrust their heads out, and also bowed.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

 

—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—

 

 

 

HAVING taken leave of the Princess, Koznyshev with Katavasov, who had joined him, entered the very crowded carriage, and the train started.

 

At the Tsaritsyno station the train was met by a melodious choir of young people singing Slavsya [a patriotic song]. Again the Volunteers bowed and thrust their heads out, but Koznyshev did not pay attention to them: he had had so much to do with Volunteers that he was already familiar with their general type and it did not interest him. Katavasov, however, whose scientific occupations had offered him no opportunities of studying the Volunteers, was much interested in them and questioned Koznyshev about them.

 

Koznyshev advised him to go into the second-class carriage and have a talk with some of them. At the next station Katavasov followed this advice.

 

As soon as the train stopped he changed carriages and made acquaintance with the Volunteers. They were sitting in a corner talking loudly, evidently aware that the attention of their fellow-passengers and of Katavasov, who had just entered, was directed toward them. The tall, hollow-chested young man talked louder than any of them. He was evidently drunk, and was speaking of something that had happened at his school. Opposite him sat an officer, no longer young, wearing a military jacket of the Austrian Guards. He listened smilingly to the young man and tried to stop him. The third Volunteer, wearing an artillery uniform, sat beside them on a trunk. A fourth one was asleep.

 

Getting into conversation with the young man, Katavasov learnt that he had been a rich Moscow merchant but had run through a large fortune before he was twenty-two. Katavasov did not like him because he was effeminate, spoilt, and delicate; he was evidently sure, especially now that he was tipsy, that he was performing an heroic deed, and he bragged most unpleasantly.

 

Another, a retired officer, also produced an unpleasant impression on Katavasov. He was, apparently, a man who had tried everything. He had had a post on the railway, been a steward, and had started factories, and he talked about it all quite needlessly, using inappropriate technical terms.

 

But Katavasov liked the third, an artilleryman, very much. He was a modest, quiet man, who evidently deferred to the knowledge of the retired Guardsman and to the heroic self-sacrifice of the merchant and did not talk at all about himself When Katavasov asked him what prompted him to go to Serbia, he modestly replied:

 

‘Well, everybody is going. One must help the Serbs. One’s sorry for them.’

 

‘Yes, it’s particularly artillerymen they are short of,’ said Katavasov.

 

‘But I have not served long in the artillery: perhaps they will put me in the infantry or cavalry.’

 

‘Why into the infantry, when they need artillerymen most of all?’ said Katavasov, concluding from the artilleryman’s age that he must have risen to a considerable rank.

 

‘I did not serve in the artillery long. I am a retired Cadet,’ he said, and began to explain why he had not passed the examination for a commission.

 

All this put together produced on Katavasov a disagreeable impression, and when the Volunteers got out at a station to have a drink he wished to verify this unfavourable impression by a talk with somebody. One of the passengers, an old man in a military overcoat, had been listening all the time to Katavasov’s conversations with the Volunteers. When they were left alone together Katavasov addressed him.

 

‘What a variety there is in the positions of all these men who are going there!’ Katavasov remarked vaguely, wishing to express his own opinion but at the same time to draw the old man.

 

The old soldier had been through two campaigns. He knew what a military man ought to be, and by the appearance and talk of those men, and by the swagger with which they applied themselves to their flasks on the way, he considered them bad soldiers. Besides that, he lived in a provincial town and wanted to speak of a discharged soldier of his town who had volunteered, a drunkard and thief whom no one would employ any longer. But, knowing by experience that in the present state of public feeling it was dangerous to express any opinion contrary to the prevailing one, and especially dangerous to censure the Volunteers, he also watched Katavasov.

 

‘Well, men are wanted there,’ he said, with laughing eyes. And they began talking about the latest war news, each concealing from the other his perplexity as to whom to-morrow’s battle was to be with, since the Turks, according to the latest intelligence, had been beaten at all points. And so they parted without either of them having expressed his opinion.

 

Katavasov returning to his carriage involuntarily prevaricated; and in telling Koznyshev his observations of the Volunteers, let it appear that they were excellent fellows.

 

At the station of a big town the Volunteers were again greeted with songs and cheers; again women and men turned up with collecting-boxes, the provincial ladies presented nosegays and accompanied the Volunteers to the refreshment-bar; but all this was far feebler and weaker than in Moscow.

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

 

 

—>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<—

 

 

 

WHEN the train stopped at the Provincial capital, Koznyshev, instead of going to the refreshment-room, walked up and down the platform.

 

The first time he passed the Vronskys’ compartment he noticed that the blind was down. But the next time he passed he saw the old Countess at the window. She beckoned to him.

 

‘You see I am going with him as far as Kursk,’ said she.

 

‘Yes, so I heard,’ replied Koznyshev, stopping by her window and glancing inside. ‘What a fine action this is of his!’ he added, noticing that Vronsky was not there.

 

‘Yes, but after his misfortune what could he do?’

 

‘What a dreadful occurrence!’ remarked Koznyshev.

 

‘Oh, what I have endured! But come in. . . . Oh, what I have endured!’ she repeated when Koznyshev had entered and taken a seat beside her. ‘You cannot imagine it! For six weeks he spoke to no one and ate only when I implored him to. One could not leave him a moment alone. We took away everything that he could kill himself with. We lived on the ground floor, but one could not tell what he might do. You know he had once before shot himself on her account?’ she said, and the old woman’s brows knit at the recollection.

 

‘Yes, she ended as such a woman deserved to end. Even the death she chose was mean and low.’

 

‘It is not for us to judge, Countess,’ Koznyshev remarked with a sigh, ‘but I understand how distressing it was for you.’

 

‘Oh, don’t speak of it! I was living on my estate and he was with me. A note was brought. He wrote an answer and sent it off. We had no idea that she was herself there at the station. In the evening I had only just gone to my room when my Mary told me that at the station a lady had thrown herself under a train. I felt as if I had received a blow! — I knew it was she! The first thing I said was: “Don’t tell him!” But he had already been told. His coachman had been there and saw it all. When I ran to his room he was beside himself — it was terrible to see him. He did not say a word, but off he galloped to the station. I don’t know what happened there, but they brought him back like a corpse. I should not have known him. “Prostration complète,” the doctor said. Then came raving madness, almost! . . . Ah, one can’t speak of it!’ exclaimed the Countess with a gesture of her arm. ‘A terrible time! No, say what you will, she was a bad woman. Such desperate passions! Only to prove something unusual. Well, she proved it! She ruined herself and two splendid men — her husband and my unfortunate son.’

 

‘And how about her husband?’ inquired Koznyshev.

 

‘He took her little girl. Alexis at first agreed to everything. But now he is greatly distressed at having given up his daughter to a stranger. But he can’t go back on his word. Karenin came to the funeral; but we tried to arrange so that he and Alexis should not meet. For him, the husband, it is better. She has set him free. But my poor son had given himself up to her entirely. He had thrown up everything — his career, me; and then she did not even pity him, but deliberately dealt him a deathblow. No, say what you will, her death itself was the death of a horrid woman, without religion. God forgive me! I cannot help hating her memory when I see my son’s ruin!’

 

‘But how is he now?’

 

‘It is a God-sent help for us, this Serbian war! I am an old woman and understand nothing about it, but for him it is a godsend. Of course I, as his mother, fear for him; and above all I hear that ce n’est pas très bien vu à Pétersburg [it is not very favourably regarded in Petersburg]. But it can’t be helped! It was the only thing that could rouse him. His friend, Yashvin, had lost everything at cards and was going to Serbia. He came to see him and persuaded him to go. Now it interests him. Please have a talk with him. I want him to have some distraction. He is so sad. Unluckily, too, his teeth have started aching. But he will be very glad to see you. Please have a talk with him. He is walking about on the other side.’

 

Koznyshev said he would be very pleased, and crossed over to the other platform.