“I can’t say I was quite pleased with him,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch,
raising his eyebrows and opening his eyes. “And Sitnikov is not satisfied
with him.” (Sitnikov was the tutor to whom Seryozha’s secular education
had been intrusted.) “As I have mentioned to you, there’s a sort of coldness
in him towards the most important questions which ought to touch the heart
of every man and every child….” Alexey Alexandrovitch began expounding
his views on the sole question that interested him besides the service—the
education of his son.
When Alexey Alexandrovitch with Lidia Ivanovna’s help had been
brought back anew to life and activity, he felt it his duty to undertake the
education of the son left on his hands. Having never before taken any
interest in educational questions, Alexey Alexandrovitch devoted some time
to the theoretical study of the subject. After reading several books on
anthropology, education, and didactics, Alexey Alexandrovitch drew up a
plan of education, and engaging the best tutor in Petersburg to superintend
it, he set to work, and the subject continually absorbed him.
“Yes, but the heart. I see in him his father’s heart, and with such a heart a
child cannot go far wrong,” said Lidia Ivanovna with enthusiasm.
“Yes, perhaps…. As for me, I do my duty. It’s all I can do.”
“You’re coming to me,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, after a pause; “we
have to speak of a subject painful for you. I would give anything to have
spared you certain memories, but others are not of the same mind. I have
received a letter from her. She is here in Petersburg.”
Alexey Alexandrovitch shuddered at the allusion to his wife, but
immediately his face assumed the deathlike rigidity which expressed utter
helplessness in the matter.
“I was expecting it,” he said.
Countess Lidia Ivanovna looked at him ecstatically, and tears of rapture
at the greatness of his soul came into her eyes.
Chapter 25
When Alexey Alexandrovitch came into the Countess Lidia Ivanovna’s
snug little boudoir, decorated with old china and hung with portraits, the
lady herself had not yet made her appearance.
She was changing her dress.
A cloth was laid on a round table, and on it stood a china tea service and
a silver spirit-lamp and tea kettle. Alexey Alexandrovitch looked idly about
at the endless familiar portraits which adorned the room, and sitting down
to the table, he opened a New Testament lying upon it. The rustle of the
countess’s silk skirt drew his attention off.
“Well now, we can sit quietly,” said Countess Lidia Ivanovna, slipping
hurriedly with an agitated smile between the table and the sofa, “and talk
over our tea.”
After some words of preparation, Countess Lidia Ivanovna, breathing
hard and flushing crimson, gave into Alexey Alexandrovitch’s hands the
letter she had received.
After reading the letter, he sat a long while in silence.
“I don’t think I have the right to refuse her,” he said, timidly lifting his
eyes.
“Dear friend, you never see evil in anyone!”
“On the contrary, I see that all is evil. But whether it is just….”
His face showed irresolution, and a seeking for counsel, support, and
guidance in a matter he did not understand.
“No,” Countess Lidia Ivanovna interrupted him; “there are limits to
everything. I can understand immorality,” she said, not quite truthfully,
since she never could understand that which leads women to immorality;
“but I don’t understand cruelty: to whom? to you! How can she stay in the
town where you are? No, the longer one lives the more one learns. And I’m
learning to understand your loftiness and her baseness.”
“Who is to throw a stone?” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, unmistakably
pleased with the part he had to play. “I have forgiven all, and so I cannot
deprive her of what is exacted by love in her—by her love for her son….”
“But is that love, my friend? Is it sincere? Admitting that you have
forgiven—that you forgive—have we the right to work on the feelings of
that angel? He looks on her as dead. He prays for her, and beseeches God to
have mercy on her sins. And it is better so. But now what will he think?”
“I had not thought of that,” said Alexey Alexandrovitch, evidently
agreeing.
Countess Lidia Ivanovna hid her face in her hands and was silent. She
was praying.
“If you ask my advice,” she said, having finished her prayer and
uncovered her face, “I do not advise you to do this. Do you suppose I don’t
see how you are suffering, how this has torn open your wounds? But
supposing that, as always, you don’t think of yourself, what can it lead to?
—to fresh suffering for you, to torture for the child. If there were a trace of
humanity left in her, she ought not to wish for it herself. No, I have no
hesitation in saying I advise not, and if you will intrust it to me, I will write
to her.”
And Alexey Alexandrovitch consented, and Countess Lidia Ivanovna sent
the following letter in French:
“Dear Madame,
“To be reminded of you might have results for your son in leading to
questions on his part which could not be answered without implanting
in the child’s soul a spirit of censure towards what should be for him
sacred, and therefore I beg you to interpret your husband’s refusal in
the spirit of Christian love. I pray to Almighty God to have mercy on
you.
“Countess Lidia.”
This letter attained the secret object which Countess Lidia Ivanovna had
concealed from herself. It wounded Anna to the quick.
For his part, Alexey Alexandrovitch, on returning home from Lidia
Ivanovna’s, could not all that day concentrate himself on his usual pursuits,
and find that spiritual peace of one saved and believing which he had felt of
late.
The thought of his wife, who had so greatly sinned against him, and
towards whom he had been so saintly, as Countess Lidia Ivanovna had so
justly told him, ought not to have troubled him; but he was not easy; he
could not understand the book he was reading; he could not drive away
harassing recollections of his relations with her, of the mistake which, as it
