Irene Mstinskaia lost her mother early and was brought up by her father, a scientist who spent all his life in his laboratory, disliked society, and received nobody but an occasional friend, as jealously devoted to science as himself. He adored his little Irene, petted and spoiled her; but, like most Russian parents, took very little interest in her spiritual development. The child grew up,[5] lonely, silent, pensive. Books took, in her young life, the place of companions and childish games. She read a great deal without guidance or discrimination, and gained all her ideas on life, all her faith, all her ideals and aims and aspirations from books. Books stood between her and reality, and hid from her those deep truths that can never be learnt from even the greatest literary production, but can only be understood after long years of untiring observation and experience. It was in books also that Irene found her ideal of the man she could love. Her hero was an exceedingly complicated character. He united in himself the stoicism of an ancient Roman, the romanticism of a mediæval knight, the gallantry of a powdered marquis, and the dignified chivalry of the hero of an English novel.
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Do not laugh, reader! Irene was not stupid; she was only young and inexperienced, knew little or nothing of life, and sincerely believed in her fantastic dream hero. Most pathetic of all was the fact that she set about looking for him among the relations and[6] friends of her late mother, who had belonged by birth to the higher government circles—i.e., the most unromantic circles of Russian society. The proximity of the court, the glitter of wealth and social position, transforms almost every young Petrograd official into a mere hunter after honours, money, decorations, caring for nothing but his career and the chance of some brilliant appointment. The distance that separates Petrograd from the rest of Russia destroys in these young people what should be the fundamental idea at the root of all conscientious government service—the good of the country. Their service becomes simply a ladder by which they can mount upwards towards the making of a career, and any means seems justifiable to attain this end. Already in childhood these young people are familiar with conversations about promotions and honours, and their souls early imbibe the poison that makes worldlings and cynics. Their wives also cannot influence them for good, since they, too, in the majority of cases grow up in the same official circles, and see[7] nothing blameworthy in career-hunting. On the contrary, they intrigue and help and encourage their husbands in the rush for advantageous appointments.
To a fresh young soul, such as Irene’s the cynicism of “officialdom’s” conversations and ideals could not but stand out in all its true ugliness, causing her to turn away, sick with disillusionment and disgust. She regarded this whole spirit of self-advancement-at-any-price with the profoundest contempt, and considered it low and vulgar and worthy only of menials. Her father, holding his noble birth in high honour, had instilled into his daughter the assurance that her aristocratic antecedents placed her on a level with all the de Rohans and de Montmorencys in the world. She regarded decorations and titles and social honours with contempt, and could not understand how anybody could attach importance to such toys. Her means were sufficient to ensure lifelong freedom from care; luxury, however, did not attract her, for Irene was an idealist, who looked upon love, pure, sanctified love, as the greatest happiness life could offer.
Had she been English or American, this lonely girl would not have been content with her limited circle of acquaintances, and would have gone in search of her hero through the length and breadth not only of Russia, but of all Europe.
Irene, however, was Russian, and therefore placid and unenterprising! So she not only did not travel, but had not the energy, even at home in Petrograd, to look round and make sure that her hero was not concealed somewhere in the social circles of the capital. She profoundly despised the pitiful types she met in society, and though sick at heart, waited patiently and untiringly for the one man before whom she was destined some day to bow her head. Her own individual faith was largely responsible for this patient, confident expectation. Already in her early childhood, Irene had worked out for herself her own personal credo, in the place of which, without understanding it in the least, most people unthinkingly accept the religion officially adopted by the State. Her faith, of course, rested upon a Christian basis—but[9] her Christianity was of the kind that shapes itself according to the varying idiosyncrasies of every individual believer’s soul and mind.
Irene firmly believed that in spite of the perpetual struggle between good and evil, good is incomparably the stronger of the two, and must always triumph. Therefore, people desirous of attaining happiness, must as a first step be just and honourable, and never offend nor hurt anyone. Then, and then only, can God send them peace and success in all their undertakings, and then only can they be happy without the smallest struggle or effort to attain this natural happiness. Irene believed in this so firmly and deeply, that it always amazed her to see people winning success and worldly goods by means of intrigue and dishonesty.
“The madmen!”—she thought to herself—“how can they not realize that they are building up their well-being on sand, and that each dishonest action may turn out to be the one rotten beam through which the whole edifice will fall to pieces?”
Irene often endeavoured to explain her theory to other people, and was always astonished at their lack of trust in God’s help, and their incomparably greater faith in their own “smartness” and roguery. How did these blind mules manage not to see what was, to her, clear as day? And Irene profoundly regretted that she was not endowed with oratorical gifts, by means of which she might have helped to save these people from needlessly wasting and misdirecting their energies.
The silent, dreamy girl carefully observed the lives of her acquaintances, and every time that any of them achieved some success, or suffered some misfortune, she tried to account for this circumstance by one or other of their preceding actions. I am afraid that in her eagerness to prove, even to herself, the justice of her theory, she often deceived herself, and dragged in irrelevant facts. She was sincerely happy at the sight of virtue rewarded, and, though naturally anything but cruel or revengeful, she nevertheless rejoiced triumphantly when wickedness[11] was laid low! It is true that occasionally, under the influence of scientific books, which, as the years passed, held an ever-increasing attraction for Irene, she said to herself that people were wicked owing to the particular construction of their skulls or spinal cords, and were as innocent of their own vice as the tiger is innocent of his carnivorous nature. In the same way, it followed that it was not only natural and easy for good people to be good, but that it would be exceedingly difficult for them to act dishonestly, or in any way contrary to their natures. There was, indeed, according to this theory, no such thing as the eternal struggle between good and evil—there were only on the one side healthy and therefore honest natures, and on the other, morally diseased and, therefore, cruel or vicious ones. But when Irene began to meditate on these ideas, there arose in her poor head such a confused chaos of tangled thoughts, that she hastily banished all scientific propositions, and returned to her old faith, in which everything was clear and simple.
Irene worked carefully and untiringly at herself and her own moral and mental development. She not only did not admit of any dishonourable action, but severely admonished and persecuted herself for every bad thought, every shade of feeling, that tended towards envy or revenge. And so, as always happens when one works long and obstinately for the achievement of a certain result, Irene really succeeded in raising her own honour and integrity to a point beyond reproach. The loftier grew her own ideal, however, the more difficult she found it to reconcile herself to the weaknesses of others. Day by day, her requirements in connection with her unknown hero increased, and day by day he became always more difficult to find. She submitted every man who crossed her path to so severe an examination that not one passed through it successfully. The young married women of her acquaintance, noticing how wistfully she looked at their children, advised her to marry, even without love, only to become a mother and thus attain the one real aim, the[13] one true happiness that life can give to a woman. Irene listened to their advice with amazement. According to her ideas, a woman had no right to bring a new life into the world unless she had found a man who could pass on to the child only the highest and most irreproachable moral qualities. Such an idea is, of course, fundamentally good and logical—but, unfortunately, it is also somewhat difficult to carry out! Nature is so fantastic and capricious, that sometimes a child may bear no likeness whatever to its ideal parents, but may bear a striking and very unwelcome resemblance to some long-forgotten black sheep great-grandfather! On the whole, indeed, resignation, and faith in God’s mercy, are the most suitable frames of mind in this connection; but these are frames of mind that one could hardly expect from Irene! Idealists who passionately believe in their ideals, hypnotize themselves and become the slaves of their own thoughts.
At thirty, in order to avoid any future moral torment at the appearance of a grey hair or a decayed tooth, Irene decided that[14] she was an old woman, and that there was no longer any occasion to think about love. She began to dress always in black, and assumed with men the air of an old maiden aunt. Her dream now was only of friendship, and she longed for the warmth of a friendly hearth.
Her women friends, however, did not believe in her sincerity, did not consider her as old as she imagined herself to be, and were afraid for their husbands. Year by year, Irene felt herself to be always increasingly lonely and isolated, and then, suddenly, came the Japanese War.
Pride in Russia, and in Russia’s might and wealth and brilliant future, was one of Irene’s greatest joys. The Russian people seemed to her to be a race of chivalrous knights, ever ready to fight for truth and Christianity, and to defend the weak and the persecuted. When the Japanese War broke out, she asked herself, with the sincerest astonishment, how such pitiful monkeys ever could have declared war on such indomitable knights. She even pitied the Japanese for having fallen victims[15] to such madness! Her despair and suffering at the news of our first failures is therefore easy to imagine. None of Irene’s near relations were at the war, but each of our losses, nevertheless, found its echo in her heart, like a personal misfortune. Overwhelmed with grief, she attached no importance either to the Russian revolution, or to the reforms that followed. Like all passionate idealists when their ideal is shattered, Irene rushed to the other extreme—that of a profound contempt for Russia.
Everything became cold and indifferent to her in her homeland. She no longer believed in anybody; she trusted neither the masses nor the educated classes. They were all cowards, they were all narrow, lazy, and ignorant. She began to go abroad more frequently. There, in contrast, everything pleased her immensely. She admired the German peasants for their love of work, the Swiss for their orderliness, the French for their wit. In old days, after having passed three months abroad, she had always grown homesick, and on reaching the Russian frontier, had felt inclined to embrace[16] the very railway porters for their good-humoured Slavonic faces! Now, she returned home with regret, found fault with Russian arrangements, and looked with disgust at the endless, monotonous fields, at the dull, slumbering type of life and nature that slipped placidly along outside the windows of the sleepy train.
Her contempt for Russia was encouraged by the countless critical and scathing articles that appeared in the newspapers as a result of the newly granted freedom of the Press. According to these articles all Russia’s resources had been used up by drink and by robbery, and the whole country was in a state of ruin and primitive savagery. They did not attempt to explain why, all this being so, Russia had not, long ago, died of starvation and famine, why our government stock stood higher than before the war, and why Europe set as much value as ever on Russian opinion. But Irene, like most women, did not measure the rights and wrongs of the newspaper accusations. They were in tune with her pessimistic mood, and she no longer[17] believed in Russia, just as she no longer believed in her own happiness.
The most cruel pain of all, however, was that occasioned by a gradually awakening doubt about the justice of her own beliefs. It seemed to her that, logically, it was time God rewarded her in some way for her scrupulous honesty, and she suffered at the absence of this reward. In observing the lives of others, Irene could persuade herself that if they had no outward success, they enjoyed the greater blessing of inner peace and happiness. It was difficult, however, to deceive her own self in this matter; for, indeed, poor Irene not only had no happiness, but the boon of inner peace had not even been granted to her. Her soul had been wounded, torn, immersed in darkness and despair, from which there seemed no escape. And yet there, before her very eyes, wicked and dishonourable people triumphed and rejoiced. How was this to be explained? Could her credo have been a mistake, could she have been struggling and wandering all her life along the wrong path? Such an[18] admission would have been, for Irene, equal to suicide—for she could never have reconciled herself to a world in which only wickedness and deceit triumph.
Life in Russia grew at last so unbearable that she decided to emigrate. Her first idea was to go and live in England, with which country she was acquainted through the medium of her beloved English novels. By chance, however, Zola’s “Rome,” with its magnificent descriptions of Roman life, fell into her hands, and she suddenly felt drawn towards Italy. It is for this reason that we find her, on this warm autumn day, sitting in the garden of the Monte Pincio.
