Elena kissed her mother, bowed to all and went away.
Shubin accompanied her to the door. ‘Elena
Nikolaevna,’ he whispered to her in the doorway,
’you trample on Monsieur Paul, you mercilessly
walk over him, but Monsieur Paul blesses you and your
little feet, and the slippers on your little feet,
and the soles of your little slippers.’
Elena shrugged her shoulders, reluctantly held out
her hand to him—not the one Insarov had
kissed—and going up to her room, at once
undressed, got into bed, and fell asleep. She
slept a deep, unstirring sleep, as even children rarely
sleep—the sleep of a child convalescent
after sickness, when its mother sits near its cradle
and watches it, and listens to its breathing.
‘Come to my room for a minute,’ Shubin
said to Bersenyev, directly the latter had taken leave
of Anna Vassilyevna: ’I have something to
show you.’
Bersenyev followed him to his attic. He was surprised
to see a number of studies, statuettes, and busts,
covered with damp cloths, set about in all the corners
of the room.
‘Well I see you have been at work in earnest,’
he observed to Shubin.
‘One must do something,’ he answered.
’If one thing doesn’t do, one must try
another. However, like a true Corsican, I am more
concerned with revenge than with pure art. Trema,
Bisanzia!’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Bersenyev.
’Well, wait a minute. Deign to look this
way, gracious friend and benefactor, my vengeance
number one.’
Shubin uncovered one figure, and Bersenyev saw a capital
bust of Insarov, an excellent likeness. The features
of the face had been correctly caught by Shubin to
the minutest detail, and he had given him a fine expression,
honest, generous, and bold.
Bersenyev went into raptures over it.
‘That’s simply exquisite!’ he cried.
’I congratulate you. You must send it to
the exhibition! Why do you call that magnificent
work your vengeance?’
’Because, sir, I intended to offer this magnificent
work as you call it to Elena Nikolaevna on her name
day. Do you see the allegory? We are not
blind, we see what goes on about us, but we are gentlemen,
my dear sir, and we take our revenge like gentlemen.
. . . But here,’ added Shubin, uncovering
another figure, ’as the artist according to
modern aesthetic principles enjoys the enviable privilege
of embodying in himself every sort of baseness which
he can turn into a gem of creative art, we in the
production of this gem, number two, have taken vengeance
not as gentlemen, but simply en canaille’
He deftly drew off the cloth, and displayed to Bersenyev’s
eyes a statuette in Dantan’s style, also of
Insarov. Anything cleverer and more spiteful
could not be imagined. The young Bulgarian was
represented as a ram standing on his hind-legs, butting
forward with his horns. Dull solemnity and aggressiveness,
obstinacy, clumsiness and narrowness were simply printed
on the visage of the ’sire of the woolly flock,’
and yet the likeness to Insarov was so striking that
Bersenyev could not help laughing.
