VII

That evening I remember as an ever-deepening initiation into the very complicated affairs of the Bursanov family. It had been raining again, and the washed cobbles on either side of the street looked clean and shining as if newly polished. For once Nikolai Vasilievich was at home, but he had gone into his study, and, sitting at the piano, I could not help listening to what was said in the room.

“But Mama does want a divorce herself, Fanny Ivanovna,”⁠—from Nina.

“She didn’t before,” said Fanny Ivanovna.

“She does now,” said Nina.

“I wonder why?”

“I don’t really think, Fanny Ivanovna, that you have any right to know that.”

“She can’t have a divorce, anyhow,” said Fanny Ivanovna. “And I have asked you to make that clear to her.”

“You see,” said the girl of fifteen, “Mama has her own point of view. She doesn’t look at things from your point of view. Why should she?”

“Why should she⁠ ⁠…” repeated Fanny Ivanovna. And there was a long pause.

“I’ve done what you asked me,” said her ambassador, shrugging her pretty shoulders.

I stopped playing.

Nikolai Vasilievich came back and we sat down to dinner, and amongst us appeared Vera. I was to understand her presence a little afterwards. The atmosphere was tense. No doubt they had all been discussing the family tangle. No doubt Nikolai Vasilievich and Fanny Ivanovna had been shouting and blackguarding each other as usual. But silence reigned for the moment. It was as if they had all been a little overstrained by this uncanny family burden. Then there was a ring at the bell.

It was merely the postman, and the maid brought in a letter for Fanny Ivanovna. So soon as she caught sight of the envelope she got flushed and wildly excited.

“It’s from Germany,” she cried, and something about her flush, about her manner, told us that the letter was a painful reminder of her painful circumstances, rather than a joy. She tore it open, and for some reason the room grew still: all seemed to watch her in perfect silence. And then she fluttered the letter and flushed again, and cried out to Nikolai Vasilievich in a voice of deep sorrow and reproach, as a tear welled up from her eye:

“Listen.⁠ ⁠… ‘Dear Fanny⁠ ⁠… and Nikolai!’ And Nikolai! And Nikolai!⁠ ⁠… Do you hear: And Nikolai!⁠ ⁠…”

“Nikolai‑i‑i⁠—” echoed with pathetic insistence. It was a sound that rent the heart. Tears flushed her eyes, sobs choked her throat. And for the moment, at all events, they forgot her clumsy stupidities; they felt only how irreparably they had wronged her.

And then, like the announcement of the next act, there was another ring. We heard an unfamiliar voice inquire in the hall if Nikolai Vasilievich was at home. Then the visitor’s card was brought in by the maid.

“No!” said Nikolai Vasilievich, rising very emphatically. “I draw the line there.” And he walked away to his study.

Fanny Ivanovna, her tragedy forgotten in the excitement of the visit, snatched at the card.

“Eisenstein!” she exclaimed.

“Och!” cried the three sisters in disgust.

And then, uninvited, unannounced, Eisenstein walked into the dining-room.

He was a tall, flabby man, with prominently Jewish features, and probably good-looking as Jews of that type go.

“Nina,” he said, looking round. “I want to see Nina. I missed seeing her in Moscow.”

“Yes?” Nina said, “I am here.”

Fanny Ivanovna looked at Eisenstein with scrutiny. I think she could feel no real enmity to this man because he had, after all, run away with Nikolai Vasilievich’s wife⁠—to all appearance a necessary preliminary to her own advent into his life. It was quite obvious that Eisenstein was not in the least seeking a tête-à-tête with Nina, but on the contrary, desired to exhibit his overflowing emotions to as large an audience as possible.

“Nina,” he said, halting in the middle of the room. And I remembered that Eisenstein had been an actor in his youth, a conjurer and ventriloquist. “Nina, she mustn’t leave me. You who have such influence over your mother must insist on that.” And sooner than anyone had been prepared for it his body quivered and he wept bitter tears.

“Moesei Moeseiech,” Nina said, “you mustn’t cry. That won’t do at all.”

“Monsieur Eisenstein,” intervened Fanny Ivanovna, rising dramatically, “this is my house and I won’t allow it.”

“You leave him alone, Fanny Ivanovna,” said Nina.

“I can’t bear it, Nina,” he said, coming up to her. “Why must she leave me? Haven’t I always been very kind to her, Nina? She says I speculate. But why do I speculate? For her, Nina.”

“For her!” cried Nina in bewilderment.

But he misunderstood her intonation.

“Why, of course!”

“With her money, Moesei Moeseiech?”

“My dear child, even if it is her money, what of it? I am still doing it for her, trying to get her more. My heart bleeds for her. She has so little money. Your father in his immoral pursuits of other women has forgotten his own wife.”

“Moesei Moeseiech, leave us.”

“But why, Nina?”

“You’re⁠ ⁠… hopeless.”

“Hopeless? And you say that, Nina. Haven’t I always been a good father to you when you came to live with us at Moscow? Haven’t I always been a good father to you? Now, have I not? Nina, Nina! You alone can stop her.”

“I’ve had too many fathers, Moesei Moeseiech, and I am not sure, if not too many mothers.” She paused. But when he opened his mouth to speak, she rose abruptly, turned on her heel and left the room.

Fanny Ivanovna rose a second time.

“Monsieur Eisenstein,” she said, “you have upset everybody. I must ask you to leave my house. I cannot have you exhibiting your domestic difficulties in this strange manner before our friends. We all have our sorrows, but we must keep them to ourselves. They are of no interest to others. Please leave us.” Again she must have thought of him as the man who had delivered Nikolai Vasilievich from his wife. She had a kind look for him, but she was a determined lady.

But for not being put out even by the most determined lady, give me a Russian Jew. Eisenstein looked round and saw Vera in the twilight, mute and hostile, perched up on the armchair in the corner.

“Vera! Vèrochka!” he cried. “You, my daughter⁠—”

“S‑s‑s‑sh!” Fanny Ivanovna hissed like a serpent. “You must not!”

“Must not, why? Why mustn’t I?” he said with that characteristically Jewish intonation. “Why should I be ashamed of my own daughter? You treat me as if I was an outsider and didn’t belong to the family. Why should my daughter be ashamed of me? She is my daughter, and you know it, Fanny Ivanovna.”

Whether this was a revelation to Vera, or only a confirmation of what she already knew or had perhaps suspected, it was hard to tell. She sat there on her perch, mute, aloof.

“Now,” said Fanny Ivanovna, coming up to him with indomitable determination, “you must certainly go.” And he left the room, sobbing.

“How horribly he cried,” said Sonia. I followed her out into the drawing-room. When I returned I perceived that Vera was wiping her tear-stained eyes and telling Fanny Ivanovna who had evidently been consoling her:

“And I had hated him so.⁠ ⁠… Oh, I still hate him so⁠ ⁠… so.⁠ ⁠…” She half sobbed again, wiping her tear-stained face with her little handkerchief. And I thought that I could now discover something Jewish about her pretty features.

And then there was another bell. It seemed that evening that it was one long succession of bells each carrying in its trail some fresh dramatic revelation, as though we had been privileged to witness some three-act soul-shattering melodrama. It was to be a night of bells and sobs.