In bad company

Chapter Five

I

A few more years passed by.
Nothing had changed at the quiet manor. The beeches still rustled in the garden; only their foliage seemed rather thicker now, and darker. The white house wore the same pleasant, welcoming look as always; only its walls had settled a little, and seemed the least bit out of line. The thatched eaves of the stable frowned down as they always had, and Iochim, still confirmed in his bachelor life, tended the horses as before. The pipe, too, still sounded from the stable doors in the evening hours; only now Iochim preferred to listen, while the blind boy played—be it pipe or piano.
There was more grey than before in Maxim's hair.
No more children had been born to the Popelskys, and the blind firstling remained, as ever, the hub around which all the life of the manor centred. For him, the manor had shut itself up in its own narrow circle, content to live a quiet, secluded life, linked only with the no less quiet life of the possessor's little home. Thus, the boy—now a youth—had grown up much like a hot-house plant, sheltered against any harsh influence that might emanate from distant outer spheres.
He lived, as always, at the centre of a vast world of darkness: darkness above him, darkness around him—everywhere darkness, without end or limit; and, through the darkness, his sensitive nature strained to meet each new impression—like a taut string strains, ready to respond to sound in eager sound. And this taut expectancy noticeably affected his mood. Another moment—just another moment, it kept seeming, and the darkness would reach out its unseen hands and touch some chord within him, a chord still sunk in long and wearisome sleep and waiting, longing to be awakened.
But the familiar darkness of the manor, so kindly and so uneventful, brought to his waiting senses only the caressing murmur of the trees in the old garden, soothing, lulling his mind. Of the distant world, he knew only through songs, and books, and history. It was only by hearsay, here amidst the pensive murmuring of the garden and the quiet peace of the manor, that he learned anything of the storms and passions of that far-off life—picturing what he heard through a mist of enchantment, as he might a song, an epic, a tale of wonder.
All went so well, it might have seemed. The mother, watching, saw that her son's spirit, sheltered as by a high wall, lay plunged in an enchanted semi-slumber—artificial, it might be, but at any rate tranquil. And she did not want this tranquillity to be shattered. She was afraid of anything that might shatter it.
Evelina, too, had grown up, by imperceptible degrees. Her clear eyes, looking out over this enchanted hush, at times held something of perplexity, of inquiry about what life might hold in store; but never did they reveal the slightest hint of impatience.
Pan Popelsky, in these years, had made his estate into a model property; but the question of his blind son's future was not, of course, any affair of this kindly soul's. All that got taken care of, somehow, with no effort on his part.
Only Maxim, constituted as he was, found this hush a difficult thing to bear, even as the temporary state he knew it to be—a compelled phase in his plans for his pupil. The youthful spirit, he reasoned, must be given time to settle itself, to accumulate strength, that it might be able to withstand the harsh contact of life.
But without the magic circle, all this time, life was boiling, surging, seething. And the time came when the blind boy's old preceptor felt that he might, at last, break open this circle, throw wide the hot-house door, and let in a stream of the fresh outer air.