Besides these pipes there were in the bed-room other objects of value: a writing-desk of peculiar wood, a porcelain frame, with Cupids at the top, surrounding an oval mirror, at which were bottles, vials, toilet boxes, and a rather long cigarette-case of pure gold, which Kranitski kept with him at all times, and which, as he lay now in the long-chair, he turned in his fingers, mechanically. This cigarette-case was a precious memento. He had received it soon after his arrival in the city, twenty and some years before, from Countess Eugenia, his mother's aunt. Prom their first meeting the countess was simply wild about him. Society even insisted, notwithstanding her more than ripe years, that she was madly in love with that uncommonly beautiful and blooming young man, who had been reared by his mother with immense care, and trained to appear successfully in that society to which she had been born. Kranitski's mother, through various causes, had become the victim of a mesalliance; she grieved out, and wept away secretly; her life, in a village corner, after marrying a noble who was perfectly honorable, but neither a man of the world, nor the owner of much property. She desired for her only son a better fate than she herself had had, and prepared him for it long beforehand. He spoke French with a Parisian accent, and English quite well; he was versed in the literatures of Western Europe; he was a famous dancer; he was obliging; he had an inborn instinct of kindness toward people; he was popular, sought after, petted; when the money with which his mother furnished him proved insufficient he obtained a small office, through the influence of wealthy relatives, which, besides increasing his revenue, gave him a certain independent aspect. He passed whole days in great and wealthy houses, where he read books, aloud, to old princesses and countesses, and for young princesses and countesses; he held skeins of silk on his opened hands. He carried out commissions and various small affairs; at balls he led dances; he amused himself; fell in love, was loved in return; he passed evenings and nights in clubs, and in private rooms at restaurants, at theatres, and behind the scenes in theatres, where he paid homage to famous actresses of various degrees and qualities. Those were times truly joyous and golden. At that period he was served not by widow Clemens, but by a man; he dined—if not with friends or relatives—at the best restaurants. At that time, too, he did something magnanimous, which brought reward in the form of great mental profit: He passed a whole year in Italy with Count Alfred, his relative, who was suffering from consumption; Kranitski nursed, amused, and comforted his cousin with patience, attachment, and tenderness which were perfectly sincere, and which came from a heart inclined to warm, almost submissive feelings. In return that year gave him skill in the use of Italian, and a wide acquaintance with the achievements and the schools of art, of which he was an enthusiastic worshipper. Soon after he went with Prince Zeno to Paris, learned France and its capital well, and on his return remained for some time as a reader with the prince, whose eyes were affected. His power of beautiful reading in many languages brought him a wide reputation; he was distinguished in drawing-rooms by the ease of his speech and manners; to some he became a valued assistant in entertaining guests, and a pleasant companion in hours of loneliness; to others he was a master in the domain of amusements, and elegance in the arts of politeness and pleasure. At this period also he made the acquaintance of Darvid, and met his wife, whom he had known from childhood, and who had been his earliest ideal of womanhood. Thenceforth, his relations with other houses were relaxed considerably, for he gave himself to the Darvid house soul and body. Though Malvina's children had many tutors, he taught one of her daughters Italian, and the other English; he did this with devotion, with delight; and, therefore, that house became, as it were, his own, and was ever open to him. Moreover, during the last ten years great changes had happened in that society of which he was the adopted child, and so long the favorite.
Countess Eugenia had given her daughter in marriage to a French count, and resided in Paris; Count Alfred was dead; dead, also, was that dear, kindly Baroness Blauendorf from whom he had received as a gift that mirror with porcelain frame and Cupids. Others, too, were dead, or were living elsewhere. Only Prince Zeno remained, but he had cooled toward his former reader, notably because of the princess, who could not forgive Kranitski; since, as was too well known by all, he was occupied with the wife of that millionaire—the eternally absent.
There were still many acquaintances, and more recent relations, but these had neither the charm nor the certainty of those which time had in various ways broken, brought to an end, or relaxed.
His mother, the foundress of his destiny, had ceased to live some time before that.
"Pauvre maman! pauvre maman!"
How tenderly and unboundedly he had loved her. How long he had hesitated and fought with himself before he left at her persuasion, the house in which she had given birth to him. He regretted immensely the village, the freedom, and that bright-haired maiden in the neighborhood. But the wide world and the great city took on, in his mother's narrative, the outlines of paradise, and his worthy relatives, the forms of demi-gods.
When at last, after long hesitation and struggles, he resolved to go away, how many were the kisses and embraces of his mother! how many were her maxims and advices; how many her predictions of happiness. He began to look at his own form in the mirrors, and to feel in his own person the movement of desires, hopes, ambitions. Once he caught himself bowing and making gestures, almost involuntarily, before the mirrors. He laughed aloud, his mother laughed also, for she had caught him in the act red-handed.
"Pauvre maman! pauvre, chere maman!"
And on the background of that domestic gladness, of those wonderful hopes, only one person by her conduct had raised a cloud on that heaven, beaming serenely. That was widow Clemens, an old servant of the house, and once his nurse, not young even at that time, and a childless widow.
She was morose, grumbling, peevish, but for a long time she said nothing; she did not hinder the thin, gray-haired mother, nor the youth, beautiful as a dream, from rejoicing and imagining; till at last she spoke when alone with the petted stripling. It was the end of an autumn day, twilight had begun to come down on the yard in Lipovka, and the linden grove, in a black line, cut through the evening ruddiness glowing in the western heavens. Widow Clemens, with her eyes fixed on the grove and the red of evening, said: