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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13416-0.txt b/13416-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb184d5 --- /dev/null +++ b/13416-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8161 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13416 *** + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 1 + +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE DARLING + ARIADNE + POLINKA + ANYUTA + THE TWO VOLODYAS + THE TROUSSEAU + THE HELPMATE + TALENT + AN ARTIST'S STORY + THREE YEARS + + + + +THE DARLING + +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. + +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. + +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." + +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: + +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." + +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: + +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" + +And next day the same thing. + +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" + +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . + +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: + +"You darling!" + +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. + +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. + +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." + +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. + +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. + +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. + +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" + +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. + +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." + +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: + +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." + +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. + +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" + +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. + +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" + +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. + +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." + +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. + +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. + +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. + +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" + +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. + +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" + +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. + +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." + +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" + +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. + +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." + +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. + +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." + +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: + +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." + +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. + +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. + +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. + +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" + +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: + +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." + +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: + +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." + +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" + +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. + +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. + +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. + +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. + +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: + +"Get along; I don't want you!" + +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. + +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. + +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. + +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." + +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. + +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." + +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" + +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. + +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." + +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: + +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." + +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. + +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. + +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. + +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. + +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. + +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." + +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. + +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." + +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. + +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. + +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: + +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." + +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. + +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? + +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. + +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" + +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." + +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. + +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." + +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. + +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. + +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" + +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. + +"Well, thank God!" she would think. + +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: + +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" + + + + +ARIADNE + +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: + +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." + +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. + +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. + +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: + +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? + +"No, not in the least." + +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: + +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." + +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: + +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." + +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: + +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" + +I told him it would not, and he went on: + +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. + +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. + +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. + +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. + +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Cæsar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" + +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-à -banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. + +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! + +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . + +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. + +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." + +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" + +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. + +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. + +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. + +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." + +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: + +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." + +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: + +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" + +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: + +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." + +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. + +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." + +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. + +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" + +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. + +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: + +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" + +She was angry in earnest, and went on: + +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." + +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. + +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" + +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: + +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" + +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. + +I behaved, I confess, as naïvely as a schoolboy. + +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. + +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. + +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" + +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. + +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" + +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. + +"What can I do?" I inquired. + +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." + +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. + +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. + +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. + +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. + +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dépendance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. + +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. + +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dépendances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters' black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! + +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . + +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. + +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" + +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . + +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." + +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. + +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." + +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. + +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" + +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: + +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" + +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." + +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: + +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." + +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. + +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. + +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. + +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _café complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. + +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. + +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. + +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. + +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" + +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . + +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" + +When I counted over the money I received he said: + +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." + +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. + +I knocked at the door. + +"Entrez!" + +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. + +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. + +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: + +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" + +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: + +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." + +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. + +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. + +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. + +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" + +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" + +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. + +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" + +"But I thought you loved him," I said. + +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." + +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. + +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. + +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: + +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" + +Then my love entered upon its final phase. + +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" + +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. + +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. + +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. + +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennæ. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. + +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." + +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." + +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naïve +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. + +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. + +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. + +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. + +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. + + ---- + +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. + +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." + +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." + +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. + +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" + +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. + +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" + +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. + +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: + +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." + +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. + +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." + +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. + +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" + +And he ran on. + +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" + + ---- + +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. + + + + +POLINKA + +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveauté's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. + +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: + +"What is your pleasure, madam?" + +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. + +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. + +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" + +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." + +"Gimp--for what purpose?" + +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." + +"Certainly." + +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. + +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." + +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" + +"Yes." + +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: + +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" + +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" + +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. + +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. + +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." + +"And how much is it?" + +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. + +"Why?" + +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." + +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. + +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" + +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." + +"What kind would you like?" + +"The best, something fashionable." + +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" + +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: + +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." + +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. + +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. + +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. + +"What kind?" + +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." + +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" + +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." + +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: + +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" + +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: + +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." + +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." + +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" + +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: + +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moiré stripe!" + +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. + +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." + +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. + +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" + +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" + +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." + +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." + +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I . . . I am." + +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" + +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. + +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." + +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: + +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: + +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" + +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: + +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." + + + + +ANYUTA + +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. + +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . + +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulæ_. . ." + +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. + +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." + +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. + +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" + +"Your fingers are cold!" + +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" + +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. + +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" + +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. + +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." + +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . + +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. + +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. + +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. + +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." + +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." + +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. + +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" + +Anyuta began dressing. + +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. + +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." + +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." + +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" + +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." + +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" + +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." + +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. + +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: + +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." + +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. + +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." + +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. + +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. + +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. + +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: + +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." + +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. + +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: + +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" + +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. + +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." + +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" + + + + +THE TWO VOLODYAS + +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." + +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. + +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" + +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. + +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" + +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par dépit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? + +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" + +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. + +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! + +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. + +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. + +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. + +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." + +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par dépit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. + +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. + +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. + +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. + +"_Par dépit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" + +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par dépit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." + +He turned up his collar again. + +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" + +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: + +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." + +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. + +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." + +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. + +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" + +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. + +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. + +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. + +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" + +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: + +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." + +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well?" + +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" + +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." + +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: + +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet." + +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. + +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. + +"Very." + +"Well, thank God for that." + +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: + +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." + +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. + +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. + +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. + +"Mind you come, Olga." + +"I will, I will." + +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. + +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. + +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. + +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" + +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: + +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." + +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. + +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." + +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: + +"Volodya!" + +"What is it?" her husband responded. + +"Nothing." + +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. + +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. + +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. + +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. + +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." + +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. + +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. + +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. + +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" + +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. + +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." + +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." + +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" + +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: + +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" + +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." + +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." + +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." + +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." + +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. + +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" + +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. + +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" + +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. + +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. + +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: + +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: + +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. + +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." + +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. + +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. + +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. + +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. + + + + +THE TROUSSEAU + +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. + +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. + +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . + +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. + +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. + +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. + +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. + +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. + +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. + +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. + +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. + +_"Où est mon cravatte lequel mon père m'avait envoyé de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. + +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." + +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. + +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. + +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. + +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. + +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." + +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" + +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" + +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" + +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. + +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. + +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." + +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. + +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." + +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. + +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. + +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. + +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. + +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. + +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. + +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." + +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." + +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. + +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. + +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. + +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." + +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. + +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." + +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. + +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. + +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. + +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: + +_"Je suis charmée de vous revoir, monsieur."_ + +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. + +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. + +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: + +"We are all alone in the world." + +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . + +I understood, and my heart was heavy. + + + + +THE HELPMATE + +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." + +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. + +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. + +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. + +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" + +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. + +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. + +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. + +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. + +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" + +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. + +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. + +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." + +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . + +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." + +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. + +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" + +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. + +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." + +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. + +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." + +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." + +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. + +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. + +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" + +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. + +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. + +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. + +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." + +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." + +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. + +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." + +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. + +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." + +"I repeat, you are free." + +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. + +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. + +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: + +"When you like." + +"I shall only go for a month." + +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." + +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." + +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" + +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." + +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" + +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. + +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. + +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." + +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the rôle of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naïve, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." + +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. + +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." + + + + +TALENT + +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. + +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: + +"I cannot marry." + +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. + +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." + +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" + +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." + +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." + +"Damn her! I'll pay." + +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. + +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. + +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" + +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" + +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. + +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" + +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. + +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" + +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: + +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" + +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. + +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" + +There followed handshakes, questions. + +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. + +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" + +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. + +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." + +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. + +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" + +The decanter was brought on to the scene. + +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. + +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" + +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: + +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" + +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! + +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. + +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. + +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." + +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. + + + + +AN ARTIST'S STORY + + +I + +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. + +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. + +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. + +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. + +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. + +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. + +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." + +I bowed. + +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. + +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." + +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. + +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." + +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" + +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. + +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. + +It was dark and still as we went home. + +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" + +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er" with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. + +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" + + +II + +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: + +"That's of no interest to you." + +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. + +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. + +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. + +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. + +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. + +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." + +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." + +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" + +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." + +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. + +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" + +"Because she is wrong." + +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. + +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. + +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." + +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. + +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" + +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. + +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." + +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: + +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." + +And again she buried herself in her book. + +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. + +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. + +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" + +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. + +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. + +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. + +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" + +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. + +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." + +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. + + +III + +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." + +I felt irritated. + +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." + +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: + +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" + +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." + +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: + +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." + +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." + +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. + +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." + +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." + +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." + +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." + +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." + +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. + +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." + +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" + +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." + +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." + +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." + +"You are opposed to medicine, too." + +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" + +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. + +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. + +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. + +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." + +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. + + +IV + +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. + +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." + +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. + +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." + +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." + +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. + +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." + +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." + +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. + +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." + +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. + +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" + +She ran to the gates. + +"Good-bye!" she called. + +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. + +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. + +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: + +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. + +"It's I." + +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." + +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" + +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" + +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." + +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: + +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" + +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. + + ---- + +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. + +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . + +Misuce, where are you? + + + + +THREE YEARS + +I + +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. + +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. + +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. + +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" + +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. + +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" + +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." + +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. + +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. + +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." + +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." + +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. + +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" + +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. + +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" + +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. + +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. + +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? + +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. + +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. + +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. + +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." + +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naïve and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? + +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. + +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. + +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. + +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. + +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. + +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: + +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." + +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. + +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." + +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. + +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." + +"What do you think about, dear?" + +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." + +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: + +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" + +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. + +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. + +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. + +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: + +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." + +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. + +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." + +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. + +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." + +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. + +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. + +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." + +"Well, that can easily be managed." + +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-à -brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. + +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. + +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." + +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. + +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. + +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. + +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. + +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. + +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: + +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, + +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. + +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. + +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" + +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. + + +II + +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. + +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. + +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. + +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. + +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." + +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. + +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. + +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." + +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. + +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. + +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." + +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! + +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. + +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. + +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. + +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. + +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." + +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. + +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" + +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." + +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. + +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." + +"I am not disturbing you?" + +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. + +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." + +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." + +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. + +"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is +inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work." + +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: + +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." + +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. + +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." + +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. + +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. + +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" + +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. + + +III + +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. + +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . + +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. + +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." + +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. + +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. + +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. + +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. + +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" + +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. + +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." + +"I refused him." + +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: + +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." + +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. + +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. + +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. + +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: + +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" + +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? + +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. + +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. + +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. + +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. + +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . + +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. + + +IV + +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. + +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: + +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" + +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. + +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." + +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." + +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. + +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. + +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" + +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: + +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" + +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: + +"I beg you to stay." + +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. + +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: + +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." + +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. + +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . + +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: + +"Why has this happened?" + +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. + +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" + +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." + +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. + +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." + +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. + +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" + +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." + +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." + +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: + +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." + +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. + +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. + +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. + +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. + +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." + +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. + +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. + +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: + +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." + +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. + +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." + +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." + + +V + +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: + +"The psychological sequences of the age." + +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. + +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" + +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" + +"Awfully bad." + +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." + +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. + +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" + +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. + +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. + +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." + +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. + +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer: +"'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." + +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. + +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: + +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." + +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. + +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." + +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: + +"Except!" + +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: + +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." + +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: + +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." + +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: + +"Keep on your feet!" + +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: + +"Now then, breathe," he would say. + +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. + +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. + +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employés, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. + +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. + +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. + +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." + +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." + +"I don't go to mass." + +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. + +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." + + +VI + +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. + +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. + +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." + +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. + +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." + +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. + +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. + +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. + +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. + +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" + +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: + +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." + +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: + +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." + +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. + +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." + +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. + +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." + +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: + +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" + + +VII + +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: + +"Have you seen Yartsev?" + +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. + +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. + +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. + +The public applauded and shouted encore. + +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." + +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. + +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. + +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." + +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." + +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." + +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. + +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: + +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" + +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." + +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. + +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." + +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. + +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: + +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." + +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. + +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. + +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" + +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." + +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" + +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. + +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. + +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. + +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" + +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. + +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Does she love you?" + +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. + +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." + +"And yet she takes money from you?" + +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." + +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. + +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." + +"Do you love her?" + +"Desperately." + +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. + +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" + +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. + +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." + +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. + +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." + +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. + +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, + +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." + +"Well, do, dear!" + +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. + +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ + + +VIII + +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. + +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. + +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." + +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. + +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" + +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. + +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." + +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." + +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. + +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." + +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. + +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. + +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" + +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. + +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. + +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. + +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." + +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. + +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. + +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." + +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: + +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." + +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: + +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." + + +IX + +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. + +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. + +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. + +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. + +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." + +Pyotr sighed from politeness. + +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. + +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." + +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. + +"There's no seeing," he said. + +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. + +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" + +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. + +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" + +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. + +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. + +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. + +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." + +"All right." + +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. + +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" + +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. + +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." + +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. + +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." + +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. + +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." + +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. + +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" + +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. + +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. + +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. + +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. + +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. + +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . + +They used to talk at dinner. + +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." + +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. + +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. + +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. + +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." + +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. + +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." + +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. + +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: + +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." + +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. + + +X + +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. + +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. + +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. + +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: + +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" + +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." + +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. + +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" + +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." + +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. + +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" + +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. + +They all laughed, and Kish with them. + +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. + +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." + +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." + +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." + +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. + +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." + +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. + +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. + +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: + +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." + +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." + +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." + +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. + +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." + +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" + +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. + +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." + +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. + +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. + +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." + +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. + +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." + +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. + +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" + +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: + +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." + +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. + +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. + +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." + +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." + +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" + +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. + +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" + +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" + +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. + +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." + +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. + +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. + +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. + + +XI + +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. + +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." + +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. + +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" + +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. + +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." + +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: + +"And have you a lover yet?" + +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. + +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." + +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. + +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." + +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. + +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. + +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" + +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." + +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: + +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." + +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: + +"Catch!" + +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: + +"Naughty girl!" + +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." + +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. + +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." + +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. + +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. + +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. + +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. + +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. + +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. + +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. + +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. + +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" + +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. + +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." + +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. + +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. + +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. + +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. + +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" + +"What is it?" said Yulia. + +"A telegram for you!" + +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." + +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: + +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." + +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. + +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. + + +XII + +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. + +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? + +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. + +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." + +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. + +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. + +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. + +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" + +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: + +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" + +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. + +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. + +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. + +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. + + +XIII + +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. + +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." + +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" + +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. + +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." + +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" + +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." + +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." + +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. + +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. + +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. + +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." + +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." + +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. + +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. + +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." + +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. + +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." + +"Well, I might." + +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. + +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. + +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" + +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. + +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" + +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. + +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" + +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. + +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" + +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. + +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." + +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. + +"Nature be damned," he shouted. + +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." + +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. + +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. + +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. + +"What put that into your head?" + +"I don't know. I love Moscow." + +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. + +At last near the station they took a cab. + +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." + +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. + +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. + +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. + +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. + +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. + +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. + +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. + +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . + +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. + + +XIV + +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. + +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. + +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" + +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. + +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." + +"With pleasure, Polina." + +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." + +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. + +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" + +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. + +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." + +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." + +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. + +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. + +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. + +"Where are you going now?" he asked. + +"To Yartsev's." + +"I'll come with you." + +"But you'll prevent him from writing." + +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. + +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. + +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: + +"Please walk in." + +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" + +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. + +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." + +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. + +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." + +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" + +"Yes, I love it." + +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." + +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" + +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. + +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." + +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a question, a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. + +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: + +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" + +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. + +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" + +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." + +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." + +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. + +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. + +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: + +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." + +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. + + +XV + +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. + +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. + +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. + +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. + +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: + +"M. Laptev, save my children!" + +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. + +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" + +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. + +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." + +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" + +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." + +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. + +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." + +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. + +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. + +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. + +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." + +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. + +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. + +"That's intelligible of itself." + +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." + +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." + +"That's your affair." + +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: + +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." + +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" + +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. + +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" + +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" + +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" + +"University men are not suitable for our business." + +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" + +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." + +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." + +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. + +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" + +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. + +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" + +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." + +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. + +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. + +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." + +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" + +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: + +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." + +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. + +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." + +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. + +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." + +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . + +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. + + +XVI + +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. + +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. + +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." + +He began breathing heavily with excitement. + +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. + +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." + +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. + +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. + +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. + +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. + +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." + +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." + +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." + +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." + +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. + +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." + +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." + +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." + +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." + +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. + +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." + +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." + +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. + +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. + +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. + +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" + +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." + +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. + +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: + +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." + +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. + +When she got home she said to her husband: + +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." + +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: + +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." + +He got up and walked to the window. + +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." + +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. + +"Here it is." + +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. + +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." + +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. + + +XVII + +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. + +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. + +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. + +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: + +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." + +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. + +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." + +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: + +"Except." + +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: + +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" + +"Not a bit of it." + +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" + +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. + +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" + +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. + +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. + +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." + +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" + +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. + +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. + +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. + +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. + +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? + +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . + +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . + +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. + +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" + +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. + +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." + +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. + +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." + +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: + +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." + +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? + +And he thought: + +"Let us live, and we shall see." + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13416 *** diff --git a/13416-h/13416-h.htm b/13416-h/13416-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d876799 --- /dev/null +++ b/13416-h/13416-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,11164 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> + +<head> + +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> + +<title> +The Project Gutenberg E-text of The Darling and Other Stories, +by Anton Chekhov +</title> + +<style type="text/css"> +body { color: black; + background: white; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; + text-align: justify } + +p {text-indent: 4% } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.t1 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 200%; + text-align: center } + +p.t2 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 150%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + text-align: center } + +p.t3b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 100%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t4 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + text-align: center } + +p.t4b {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + font-weight: bold; + text-align: center } + +p.t5 {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 60%; + text-align: center } + +h1 { text-align: center } +h2 { text-align: center } +h3 { text-align: center } +h4 { text-align: center } +h5 { text-align: center } + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; } + +p.contents {text-indent: -3%; + margin-left: 5% } + +p.thought {text-indent: 0% ; + letter-spacing: 4em ; + text-align: center } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.footnote {text-indent: 0% ; + font-size: 80%; + margin-left: 10% ; + margin-right: 10% } + +p.transnote {text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.intro {font-size: 90% ; + text-indent: -5% ; + margin-left: 5% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.quote {text-indent: 4% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +p.finis { font-size: larger ; + text-align: center ; + text-indent: 0% ; + margin-left: 0% ; + margin-right: 0% } + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13416 ***</div> + +<p class="t3b"> +<br /><br /><br /> +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV +</p> + +<p class="t3b"> +VOLUME 1 +</p> + +<h1> +<br /><br /> +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES +</h1> + +<p class="t3"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3b"> +ANTON TCHEKHOV +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="t3b"> + CONTENTS<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + <a href="#darling">THE DARLING</a><br /> + <a href="#ariadne">ARIADNE</a><br /> + <a href="#polinka">POLINKA</a><br /> + <a href="#anyuta">ANYUTA</a><br /> + <a href="#volodyas">THE TWO VOLODYAS</a><br /> + <a href="#trousseau">THE TROUSSEAU</a><br /> + <a href="#helpmate">THE HELPMATE</a><br /> + <a href="#talent">TALENT</a><br /> + <a href="#artist">AN ARTIST'S STORY</a><br /> + <a href="#three">THREE YEARS</a><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="darling"></a> +THE DARLING +</h3> + +<p> +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. +</p> + +<p> +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. +</p> + +<p> +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." +</p> + +<p> +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: +</p> + +<p> +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." +</p> + +<p> +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +And next day the same thing. +</p> + +<p> +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" +</p> + +<p> +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . +</p> + +<p> +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You darling!" +</p> + +<p> +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. +</p> + +<p> +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. +</p> + +<p> +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." +</p> + +<p> +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. +</p> + +<p> +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. +</p> + +<p> +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. +</p> + +<p> +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" +</p> + +<p> +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." +</p> + +<p> +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: +</p> + +<p> +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." +</p> + +<p> +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. +</p> + +<p> +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" +</p> + +<p> +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. +</p> + +<p> +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" +</p> + +<p> +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. +</p> + +<p> +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." +</p> + +<p> +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. +</p> + +<p> +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. +</p> + +<p> +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. +</p> + +<p> +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. +</p> + +<p> +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" +</p> + +<p> +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. +</p> + +<p> +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." +</p> + +<p> +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" +</p> + +<p> +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." +</p> + +<p> +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." +</p> + +<p> +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: +</p> + +<p> +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." +</p> + +<p> +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. +</p> + +<p> +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. +</p> + +<p> +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. +</p> + +<p> +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" +</p> + +<p> +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: +</p> + +<p> +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." +</p> + +<p> +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: +</p> + +<p> +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." +</p> + +<p> +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" +</p> + +<p> +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. +</p> + +<p> +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. +</p> + +<p> +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. +</p> + +<p> +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: +</p> + +<p> +"Get along; I don't want you!" +</p> + +<p> +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. +</p> + +<p> +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. +</p> + +<p> +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." +</p> + +<p> +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. +</p> + +<p> +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." +</p> + +<p> +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" +</p> + +<p> +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." +</p> + +<p> +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: +</p> + +<p> +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." +</p> + +<p> +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. +</p> + +<p> +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. +</p> + +<p> +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. +</p> + +<p> +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. +</p> + +<p> +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. +</p> + +<p> +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." +</p> + +<p> +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. +</p> + +<p> +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. +</p> + +<p> +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. +</p> + +<p> +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: +</p> + +<p> +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." +</p> + +<p> +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? +</p> + +<p> +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" +</p> + +<p> +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." +</p> + +<p> +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. +</p> + +<p> +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. +</p> + +<p> +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" +</p> + +<p> +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, thank God!" she would think. +</p> + +<p> +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: +</p> + +<p> +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="ariadne"></a> +ARIADNE +</h3> + +<p> +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." +</p> + +<p> +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. +</p> + +<p> +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? +</p> + +<p> +"No, not in the least." +</p> + +<p> +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: +</p> + +<p> +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." +</p> + +<p> +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: +</p> + +<p> +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." +</p> + +<p> +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: +</p> + +<p> +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" +</p> + +<p> +I told him it would not, and he went on: +</p> + +<p> +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. +</p> + +<p> +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. +</p> + +<p> +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. +</p> + +<p> +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. +</p> + +<p> +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Cæsar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" +</p> + +<p> +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-à -banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. +</p> + +<p> +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! +</p> + +<p> +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . +</p> + +<p> +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. +</p> + +<p> +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" +</p> + +<p> +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. +</p> + +<p> +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. +</p> + +<p> +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. +</p> + +<p> +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." +</p> + +<p> +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: +</p> + +<p> +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." +</p> + +<p> +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: +</p> + +<p> +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" +</p> + +<p> +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: +</p> + +<p> +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." +</p> + +<p> +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." +</p> + +<p> +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" +</p> + +<p> +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. +</p> + +<p> +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: +</p> + +<p> +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" +</p> + +<p> +She was angry in earnest, and went on: +</p> + +<p> +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" +</p> + +<p> +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" +</p> + +<p> +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. +</p> + +<p> +I behaved, I confess, as naïvely as a schoolboy. +</p> + +<p> +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. +</p> + +<p> +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. +</p> + +<p> +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" +</p> + +<p> +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" +</p> + +<p> +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. +</p> + +<p> +"What can I do?" I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." +</p> + +<p> +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. +</p> + +<p> +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. +</p> + +<p> +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. +</p> + +<p> +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dépendance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. +</p> + +<p> +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. +</p> + +<p> +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dépendances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters' black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! +</p> + +<p> +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . +</p> + +<p> +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. +</p> + +<p> +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" +</p> + +<p> +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." +</p> + +<p> +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. +</p> + +<p> +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." +</p> + +<p> +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. +</p> + +<p> +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: +</p> + +<p> +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" +</p> + +<p> +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." +</p> + +<p> +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: +</p> + +<p> +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." +</p> + +<p> +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. +</p> + +<p> +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. +</p> + +<p> +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _café complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. +</p> + +<p> +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. +</p> + +<p> +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. +</p> + +<p> +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. +</p> + +<p> +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" +</p> + +<p> +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" +</p> + +<p> +When I counted over the money I received he said: +</p> + +<p> +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." +</p> + +<p> +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. +</p> + +<p> +I knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Entrez!" +</p> + +<p> +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. +</p> + +<p> +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. +</p> + +<p> +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: +</p> + +<p> +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" +</p> + +<p> +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." +</p> + +<p> +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. +</p> + +<p> +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. +</p> + +<p> +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. +</p> + +<p> +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" +</p> + +<p> +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" +</p> + +<p> +"But I thought you loved him," I said. +</p> + +<p> +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." +</p> + +<p> +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. +</p> + +<p> +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. +</p> + +<p> +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" +</p> + +<p> +Then my love entered upon its final phase. +</p> + +<p> +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" +</p> + +<p> +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. +</p> + +<p> +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. +</p> + +<p> +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. +</p> + +<p> +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennæ. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. +</p> + +<p> +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." +</p> + +<p> +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." +</p> + +<p> +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naïve +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. +</p> + +<p> +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. +</p> + +<p> +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. +</p> + +<p> +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +----<br /> +</p> + +<p> +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. +</p> + +<p> +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." +</p> + +<p> +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." +</p> + +<p> +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" +</p> + +<p> +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" +</p> + +<p> +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: +</p> + +<p> +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." +</p> + +<p> +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. +</p> + +<p> +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" +</p> + +<p> +And he ran on. +</p> + +<p> +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +----<br /> +</p> + +<p> +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="polinka"></a> +POLINKA +</h3> + +<p> +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveauté's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. +</p> + +<p> +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: +</p> + +<p> +"What is your pleasure, madam?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." +</p> + +<p> +"Gimp--for what purpose?" +</p> + +<p> +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." +</p> + +<p> +"Certainly." +</p> + +<p> +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." +</p> + +<p> +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes." +</p> + +<p> +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: +</p> + +<p> +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" +</p> + +<p> +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" +</p> + +<p> +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. +</p> + +<p> +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. +</p> + +<p> +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." +</p> + +<p> +"And how much is it?" +</p> + +<p> +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. +</p> + +<p> +"Why?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." +</p> + +<p> +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" +</p> + +<p> +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." +</p> + +<p> +"What kind would you like?" +</p> + +<p> +"The best, something fashionable." +</p> + +<p> +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" +</p> + +<p> +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." +</p> + +<p> +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. +</p> + +<p> +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. +</p> + +<p> +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +"What kind?" +</p> + +<p> +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." +</p> + +<p> +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: +</p> + +<p> +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" +</p> + +<p> +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: +</p> + +<p> +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." +</p> + +<p> +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." +</p> + +<p> +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moiré stripe!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. +</p> + +<p> +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." +</p> + +<p> +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. +</p> + +<p> +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" +</p> + +<p> +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." +</p> + +<p> +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." +</p> + +<p> +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes; I . . . I am." +</p> + +<p> +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: +</p> + +<p> +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: +</p> + +<p> +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" +</p> + +<p> +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: +</p> + +<p> +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="anyuta"></a> +ANYUTA +</h3> + +<p> +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. +</p> + +<p> +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulæ_. . ." +</p> + +<p> +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" +</p> + +<p> +"Your fingers are cold!" +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" +</p> + +<p> +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. +</p> + +<p> +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. +</p> + +<p> +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." +</p> + +<p> +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . +</p> + +<p> +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. +</p> + +<p> +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. +</p> + +<p> +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." +</p> + +<p> +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. +</p> + +<p> +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta began dressing. +</p> + +<p> +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. +</p> + +<p> +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." +</p> + +<p> +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" +</p> + +<p> +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" +</p> + +<p> +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." +</p> + +<p> +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. +</p> + +<p> +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. +</p> + +<p> +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. +</p> + +<p> +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. +</p> + +<p> +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. +</p> + +<p> +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." +</p> + +<p> +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. +</p> + +<p> +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: +</p> + +<p> +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. +</p> + +<p> +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." +</p> + +<p> +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="volodyas"></a> +THE TWO VOLODYAS +</h3> + +<p> +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." +</p> + +<p> +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. +</p> + +<p> +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. +</p> + +<p> +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" +</p> + +<p> +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par dépit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" +</p> + +<p> +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! +</p> + +<p> +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. +</p> + +<p> +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. +</p> + +<p> +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." +</p> + +<p> +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par dépit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. +</p> + +<p> +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. +</p> + +<p> +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. +</p> + +<p> +"_Par dépit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" +</p> + +<p> +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par dépit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." +</p> + +<p> +He turned up his collar again. +</p> + +<p> +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." +</p> + +<p> +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." +</p> + +<p> +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. +</p> + +<p> +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" +</p> + +<p> +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. +</p> + +<p> +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: +</p> + +<p> +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" +</p> + +<p> +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet." +</p> + +<p> +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. +</p> + +<p> +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Very." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, thank God for that." +</p> + +<p> +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: +</p> + +<p> +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." +</p> + +<p> +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. +</p> + +<p> +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. +</p> + +<p> +"Mind you come, Olga." +</p> + +<p> +"I will, I will." +</p> + +<p> +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. +</p> + +<p> +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. +</p> + +<p> +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. +</p> + +<p> +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" +</p> + +<p> +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: +</p> + +<p> +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. +</p> + +<p> +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: +</p> + +<p> +"Volodya!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" her husband responded. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing." +</p> + +<p> +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. +</p> + +<p> +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. +</p> + +<p> +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. +</p> + +<p> +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." +</p> + +<p> +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. +</p> + +<p> +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. +</p> + +<p> +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" +</p> + +<p> +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. +</p> + +<p> +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." +</p> + +<p> +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." +</p> + +<p> +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" +</p> + +<p> +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" +</p> + +<p> +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." +</p> + +<p> +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." +</p> + +<p> +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. +</p> + +<p> +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" +</p> + +<p> +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. +</p> + +<p> +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" +</p> + +<p> +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: +</p> + +<p> +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. +</p> + +<p> +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." +</p> + +<p> +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. +</p> + +<p> +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. +</p> + +<p> +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="trousseau"></a> +THE TROUSSEAU +</h3> + +<p> +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. +</p> + +<p> +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. +</p> + +<p> +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . +</p> + +<p> +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. +</p> + +<p> +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. +</p> + +<p> +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. +</p> + +<p> +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. +</p> + +<p> +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. +</p> + +<p> +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. +</p> + +<p> +_"Où est mon cravatte lequel mon père m'avait envoyé de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. +</p> + +<p> +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." +</p> + +<p> +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. +</p> + +<p> +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" +</p> + +<p> +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. +</p> + +<p> +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. +</p> + +<p> +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." +</p> + +<p> +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. +</p> + +<p> +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. +</p> + +<p> +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. +</p> + +<p> +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. +</p> + +<p> +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. +</p> + +<p> +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. +</p> + +<p> +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. +</p> + +<p> +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." +</p> + +<p> +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." +</p> + +<p> +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. +</p> + +<p> +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. +</p> + +<p> +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." +</p> + +<p> +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." +</p> + +<p> +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. +</p> + +<p> +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. +</p> + +<p> +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. +</p> + +<p> +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: +</p> + +<p> +_"Je suis charmée de vous revoir, monsieur."_ +</p> + +<p> +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: +</p> + +<p> +"We are all alone in the world." +</p> + +<p> +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . +</p> + +<p> +I understood, and my heart was heavy. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="helpmate"></a> +THE HELPMATE +</h3> + +<p> +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." +</p> + +<p> +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. +</p> + +<p> +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. +</p> + +<p> +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. +</p> + +<p> +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" +</p> + +<p> +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. +</p> + +<p> +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. +</p> + +<p> +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. +</p> + +<p> +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. +</p> + +<p> +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" +</p> + +<p> +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. +</p> + +<p> +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. +</p> + +<p> +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." +</p> + +<p> +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." +</p> + +<p> +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. +</p> + +<p> +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. +</p> + +<p> +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." +</p> + +<p> +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. +</p> + +<p> +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." +</p> + +<p> +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. +</p> + +<p> +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. +</p> + +<p> +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" +</p> + +<p> +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. +</p> + +<p> +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. +</p> + +<p> +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. +</p> + +<p> +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." +</p> + +<p> +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. +</p> + +<p> +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." +</p> + +<p> +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. +</p> + +<p> +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." +</p> + +<p> +"I repeat, you are free." +</p> + +<p> +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. +</p> + +<p> +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"When you like." +</p> + +<p> +"I shall only go for a month." +</p> + +<p> +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." +</p> + +<p> +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." +</p> + +<p> +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" +</p> + +<p> +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." +</p> + +<p> +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" +</p> + +<p> +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. +</p> + +<p> +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." +</p> + +<p> +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the rôle of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naïve, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." +</p> + +<p> +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. +</p> + +<p> +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="talent"></a> +TALENT +</h3> + +<p> +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. +</p> + +<p> +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot marry." +</p> + +<p> +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. +</p> + +<p> +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." +</p> + +<p> +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" +</p> + +<p> +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." +</p> + +<p> +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"Damn her! I'll pay." +</p> + +<p> +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. +</p> + +<p> +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. +</p> + +<p> +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" +</p> + +<p> +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" +</p> + +<p> +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. +</p> + +<p> +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" +</p> + +<p> +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: +</p> + +<p> +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" +</p> + +<p> +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. +</p> + +<p> +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" +</p> + +<p> +There followed handshakes, questions. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" +</p> + +<p> +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. +</p> + +<p> +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." +</p> + +<p> +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" +</p> + +<p> +The decanter was brought on to the scene. +</p> + +<p> +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. +</p> + +<p> +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" +</p> + +<p> +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: +</p> + +<p> +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" +</p> + +<p> +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! +</p> + +<p> +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. +</p> + +<p> +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. +</p> + +<p> +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="artist"></a> +AN ARTIST'S STORY +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> +I +</p> + +<p> +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. +</p> + +<p> +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. +</p> + +<p> +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. +</p> + +<p> +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. +</p> + +<p> +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. +</p> + +<p> +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." +</p> + +<p> +I bowed. +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. +</p> + +<p> +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. +</p> + +<p> +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." +</p> + +<p> +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." +</p> + +<p> +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" +</p> + +<p> +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. +</p> + +<p> +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark and still as we went home. +</p> + +<p> +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" +</p> + +<p> +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er" with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. +</p> + +<p> +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +II +</p> + +<p> +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: +</p> + +<p> +"That's of no interest to you." +</p> + +<p> +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. +</p> + +<p> +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. +</p> + +<p> +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. +</p> + +<p> +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." +</p> + +<p> +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." +</p> + +<p> +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" +</p> + +<p> +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." +</p> + +<p> +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. +</p> + +<p> +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because she is wrong." +</p> + +<p> +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." +</p> + +<p> +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. +</p> + +<p> +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. +</p> + +<p> +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" +</p> + +<p> +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. +</p> + +<p> +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." +</p> + +<p> +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: +</p> + +<p> +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." +</p> + +<p> +And again she buried herself in her book. +</p> + +<p> +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. +</p> + +<p> +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" +</p> + +<p> +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. +</p> + +<p> +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. +</p> + +<p> +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. +</p> + +<p> +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" +</p> + +<p> +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. +</p> + +<p> +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." +</p> + +<p> +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +III +</p> + +<p> +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." +</p> + +<p> +I felt irritated. +</p> + +<p> +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." +</p> + +<p> +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: +</p> + +<p> +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" +</p> + +<p> +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." +</p> + +<p> +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: +</p> + +<p> +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." +</p> + +<p> +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." +</p> + +<p> +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. +</p> + +<p> +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." +</p> + +<p> +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." +</p> + +<p> +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." +</p> + +<p> +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." +</p> + +<p> +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." +</p> + +<p> +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. +</p> + +<p> +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." +</p> + +<p> +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." +</p> + +<p> +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." +</p> + +<p> +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." +</p> + +<p> +"You are opposed to medicine, too." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" +</p> + +<p> +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. +</p> + +<p> +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. +</p> + +<p> +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." +</p> + +<p> +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. +</p> + +<p> +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." +</p> + +<p> +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +IV +</p> + +<p> +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. +</p> + +<p> +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." +</p> + +<p> +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. +</p> + +<p> +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." +</p> + +<p> +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." +</p> + +<p> +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." +</p> + +<p> +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. +</p> + +<p> +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." +</p> + +<p> +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. +</p> + +<p> +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" +</p> + +<p> +She ran to the gates. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-bye!" she called. +</p> + +<p> +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. +</p> + +<p> +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: +</p> + +<p> +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. +</p> + +<p> +"It's I." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." +</p> + +<p> +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" +</p> + +<p> +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." +</p> + +<p> +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: +</p> + +<p> +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" +</p> + +<p> +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +----<br /> +</p> + +<p> +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. +</p> + +<p> +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . +</p> + +<p> +Misuce, where are you? +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="three"></a> +THREE YEARS +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +I +</p> + +<p> +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. +</p> + +<p> +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. +</p> + +<p> +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. +</p> + +<p> +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" +</p> + +<p> +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" +</p> + +<p> +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." +</p> + +<p> +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. +</p> + +<p> +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. +</p> + +<p> +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. +</p> + +<p> +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. +</p> + +<p> +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" +</p> + +<p> +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" +</p> + +<p> +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? +</p> + +<p> +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." +</p> + +<p> +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naïve and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? +</p> + +<p> +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. +</p> + +<p> +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. +</p> + +<p> +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. +</p> + +<p> +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: +</p> + +<p> +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. +</p> + +<p> +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." +</p> + +<p> +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you think about, dear?" +</p> + +<p> +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: +</p> + +<p> +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" +</p> + +<p> +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. +</p> + +<p> +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. +</p> + +<p> +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." +</p> + +<p> +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. +</p> + +<p> +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. +</p> + +<p> +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, that can easily be managed." +</p> + +<p> +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-à -brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. +</p> + +<p> +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. +</p> + +<p> +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. +</p> + +<p> +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. +</p> + +<p> +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. +</p> + +<p> +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. +</p> + +<p> +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: +</p> + +<p> +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, +</p> + +<p> +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. +</p> + +<p> +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. +</p> + +<p> +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" +</p> + +<p> +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +II +</p> + +<p> +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. +</p> + +<p> +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. +</p> + +<p> +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. +</p> + +<p> +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. +</p> + +<p> +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." +</p> + +<p> +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." +</p> + +<p> +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. +</p> + +<p> +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." +</p> + +<p> +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! +</p> + +<p> +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. +</p> + +<p> +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. +</p> + +<p> +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. +</p> + +<p> +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." +</p> + +<p> +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. +</p> + +<p> +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" +</p> + +<p> +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. +</p> + +<p> +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." +</p> + +<p> +"I am not disturbing you?" +</p> + +<p> +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. +</p> + +<p> +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." +</p> + +<p> +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." +</p> + +<p> +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. +</p> + +<p> +"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is +inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work." +</p> + +<p> +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: +</p> + +<p> +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." +</p> + +<p> +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. +</p> + +<p> +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." +</p> + +<p> +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. +</p> + +<p> +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" +</p> + +<p> +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +III +</p> + +<p> +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. +</p> + +<p> +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . +</p> + +<p> +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. +</p> + +<p> +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. +</p> + +<p> +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. +</p> + +<p> +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. +</p> + +<p> +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" +</p> + +<p> +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." +</p> + +<p> +"I refused him." +</p> + +<p> +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. +</p> + +<p> +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. +</p> + +<p> +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: +</p> + +<p> +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" +</p> + +<p> +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? +</p> + +<p> +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. +</p> + +<p> +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. +</p> + +<p> +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . +</p> + +<p> +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +IV +</p> + +<p> +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. +</p> + +<p> +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: +</p> + +<p> +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" +</p> + +<p> +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. +</p> + +<p> +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." +</p> + +<p> +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. +</p> + +<p> +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. +</p> + +<p> +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" +</p> + +<p> +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: +</p> + +<p> +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" +</p> + +<p> +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: +</p> + +<p> +"I beg you to stay." +</p> + +<p> +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. +</p> + +<p> +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: +</p> + +<p> +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." +</p> + +<p> +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. +</p> + +<p> +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . +</p> + +<p> +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: +</p> + +<p> +"Why has this happened?" +</p> + +<p> +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." +</p> + +<p> +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. +</p> + +<p> +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." +</p> + +<p> +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." +</p> + +<p> +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." +</p> + +<p> +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. +</p> + +<p> +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. +</p> + +<p> +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. +</p> + +<p> +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." +</p> + +<p> +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. +</p> + +<p> +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: +</p> + +<p> +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." +</p> + +<p> +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +V +</p> + +<p> +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: +</p> + +<p> +"The psychological sequences of the age." +</p> + +<p> +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. +</p> + +<p> +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" +</p> + +<p> +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" +</p> + +<p> +"Awfully bad." +</p> + +<p> +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. +</p> + +<p> +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." +</p> + +<p> +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer: +"'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." +</p> + +<p> +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." +</p> + +<p> +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. +</p> + +<p> +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." +</p> + +<p> +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: +</p> + +<p> +"Except!" +</p> + +<p> +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: +</p> + +<p> +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." +</p> + +<p> +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." +</p> + +<p> +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: +</p> + +<p> +"Keep on your feet!" +</p> + +<p> +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: +</p> + +<p> +"Now then, breathe," he would say. +</p> + +<p> +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. +</p> + +<p> +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employés, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. +</p> + +<p> +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. +</p> + +<p> +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." +</p> + +<p> +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't go to mass." +</p> + +<p> +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +VI +</p> + +<p> +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. +</p> + +<p> +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." +</p> + +<p> +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. +</p> + +<p> +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." +</p> + +<p> +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. +</p> + +<p> +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. +</p> + +<p> +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. +</p> + +<p> +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: +</p> + +<p> +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." +</p> + +<p> +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." +</p> + +<p> +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. +</p> + +<p> +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. +</p> + +<p> +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." +</p> + +<p> +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: +</p> + +<p> +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +VII +</p> + +<p> +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: +</p> + +<p> +"Have you seen Yartsev?" +</p> + +<p> +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. +</p> + +<p> +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. +</p> + +<p> +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. +</p> + +<p> +The public applauded and shouted encore. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." +</p> + +<p> +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. +</p> + +<p> +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." +</p> + +<p> +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." +</p> + +<p> +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: +</p> + +<p> +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" +</p> + +<p> +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. +</p> + +<p> +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." +</p> + +<p> +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. +</p> + +<p> +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. +</p> + +<p> +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" +</p> + +<p> +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." +</p> + +<p> +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. +</p> + +<p> +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. +</p> + +<p> +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" +</p> + +<p> +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. +</p> + +<p> +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. +</p> + +<p> +"No." +</p> + +<p> +"Does she love you?" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. +</p> + +<p> +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." +</p> + +<p> +"And yet she takes money from you?" +</p> + +<p> +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." +</p> + +<p> +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you love her?" +</p> + +<p> +"Desperately." +</p> + +<p> +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. +</p> + +<p> +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" +</p> + +<p> +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. +</p> + +<p> +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." +</p> + +<p> +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. +</p> + +<p> +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." +</p> + +<p> +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. +</p> + +<p> +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, +</p> + +<p> +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, do, dear!" +</p> + +<p> +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +VIII +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. +</p> + +<p> +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" +</p> + +<p> +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. +</p> + +<p> +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." +</p> + +<p> +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." +</p> + +<p> +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. +</p> + +<p> +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." +</p> + +<p> +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. +</p> + +<p> +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. +</p> + +<p> +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" +</p> + +<p> +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. +</p> + +<p> +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. +</p> + +<p> +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. +</p> + +<p> +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. +</p> + +<p> +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. +</p> + +<p> +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." +</p> + +<p> +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: +</p> + +<p> +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." +</p> + +<p> +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +IX +</p> + +<p> +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. +</p> + +<p> +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. +</p> + +<p> +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. +</p> + +<p> +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr sighed from politeness. +</p> + +<p> +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. +</p> + +<p> +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." +</p> + +<p> +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. +</p> + +<p> +"There's no seeing," he said. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. +</p> + +<p> +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" +</p> + +<p> +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. +</p> + +<p> +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" +</p> + +<p> +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. +</p> + +<p> +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. +</p> + +<p> +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. +</p> + +<p> +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." +</p> + +<p> +"All right." +</p> + +<p> +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" +</p> + +<p> +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. +</p> + +<p> +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." +</p> + +<p> +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. +</p> + +<p> +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." +</p> + +<p> +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. +</p> + +<p> +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" +</p> + +<p> +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. +</p> + +<p> +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. +</p> + +<p> +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. +</p> + +<p> +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. +</p> + +<p> +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. +</p> + +<p> +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . +</p> + +<p> +They used to talk at dinner. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." +</p> + +<p> +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. +</p> + +<p> +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." +</p> + +<p> +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. +</p> + +<p> +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." +</p> + +<p> +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. +</p> + +<p> +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: +</p> + +<p> +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." +</p> + +<p> +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +X +</p> + +<p> +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. +</p> + +<p> +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. +</p> + +<p> +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: +</p> + +<p> +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" +</p> + +<p> +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." +</p> + +<p> +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. +</p> + +<p> +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" +</p> + +<p> +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." +</p> + +<p> +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. +</p> + +<p> +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" +</p> + +<p> +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. +</p> + +<p> +They all laughed, and Kish with them. +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. +</p> + +<p> +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. +</p> + +<p> +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. +</p> + +<p> +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. +</p> + +<p> +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: +</p> + +<p> +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." +</p> + +<p> +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." +</p> + +<p> +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." +</p> + +<p> +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. +</p> + +<p> +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." +</p> + +<p> +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" +</p> + +<p> +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. +</p> + +<p> +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." +</p> + +<p> +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. +</p> + +<p> +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. +</p> + +<p> +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." +</p> + +<p> +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. +</p> + +<p> +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. +</p> + +<p> +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" +</p> + +<p> +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: +</p> + +<p> +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." +</p> + +<p> +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg your pardon," she said. +</p> + +<p> +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. +</p> + +<p> +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." +</p> + +<p> +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." +</p> + +<p> +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. +</p> + +<p> +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" +</p> + +<p> +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" +</p> + +<p> +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. +</p> + +<p> +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." +</p> + +<p> +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. +</p> + +<p> +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. +</p> + +<p> +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XI +</p> + +<p> +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." +</p> + +<p> +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: +</p> + +<p> +"And have you a lover yet?" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." +</p> + +<p> +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." +</p> + +<p> +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. +</p> + +<p> +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" +</p> + +<p> +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." +</p> + +<p> +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: +</p> + +<p> +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." +</p> + +<p> +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: +</p> + +<p> +"Catch!" +</p> + +<p> +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: +</p> + +<p> +"Naughty girl!" +</p> + +<p> +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." +</p> + +<p> +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. +</p> + +<p> +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." +</p> + +<p> +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. +</p> + +<p> +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. +</p> + +<p> +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. +</p> + +<p> +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. +</p> + +<p> +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. +</p> + +<p> +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" +</p> + +<p> +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. +</p> + +<p> +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." +</p> + +<p> +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. +</p> + +<p> +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. +</p> + +<p> +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" said Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +"A telegram for you!" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: +</p> + +<p> +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. +</p> + +<p> +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XII +</p> + +<p> +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. +</p> + +<p> +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." +</p> + +<p> +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. +</p> + +<p> +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. +</p> + +<p> +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" +</p> + +<p> +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" +</p> + +<p> +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. +</p> + +<p> +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. +</p> + +<p> +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. +</p> + +<p> +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XIII +</p> + +<p> +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. +</p> + +<p> +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." +</p> + +<p> +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." +</p> + +<p> +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. +</p> + +<p> +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. +</p> + +<p> +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. +</p> + +<p> +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." +</p> + +<p> +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." +</p> + +<p> +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. +</p> + +<p> +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. +</p> + +<p> +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." +</p> + +<p> +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. +</p> + +<p> +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I might." +</p> + +<p> +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. +</p> + +<p> +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. +</p> + +<p> +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" +</p> + +<p> +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" +</p> + +<p> +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. +</p> + +<p> +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. +</p> + +<p> +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." +</p> + +<p> +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. +</p> + +<p> +"Nature be damned," he shouted. +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." +</p> + +<p> +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. +</p> + +<p> +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. +</p> + +<p> +"What put that into your head?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know. I love Moscow." +</p> + +<p> +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. +</p> + +<p> +At last near the station they took a cab. +</p> + +<p> +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." +</p> + +<p> +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. +</p> + +<p> +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. +</p> + +<p> +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. +</p> + +<p> +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. +</p> + +<p> +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. +</p> + +<p> +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. +</p> + +<p> +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . +</p> + +<p> +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XIV +</p> + +<p> +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. +</p> + +<p> +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. +</p> + +<p> +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" +</p> + +<p> +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." +</p> + +<p> +"With pleasure, Polina." +</p> + +<p> +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. +</p> + +<p> +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." +</p> + +<p> +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. +</p> + +<p> +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. +</p> + +<p> +"Where are you going now?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"To Yartsev's." +</p> + +<p> +"I'll come with you." +</p> + +<p> +"But you'll prevent him from writing." +</p> + +<p> +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. +</p> + +<p> +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. +</p> + +<p> +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: +</p> + +<p> +"Please walk in." +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. +</p> + +<p> +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. +</p> + +<p> +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." +</p> + +<p> +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. +</p> + +<p> +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." +</p> + +<p> +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I love it." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." +</p> + +<p> +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." +</p> + +<p> +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a question, a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. +</p> + +<p> +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" +</p> + +<p> +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. +</p> + +<p> +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" +</p> + +<p> +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." +</p> + +<p> +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." +</p> + +<p> +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. +</p> + +<p> +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. +</p> + +<p> +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." +</p> + +<p> +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XV +</p> + +<p> +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. +</p> + +<p> +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. +</p> + +<p> +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: +</p> + +<p> +"M. Laptev, save my children!" +</p> + +<p> +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. +</p> + +<p> +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" +</p> + +<p> +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. +</p> + +<p> +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." +</p> + +<p> +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" +</p> + +<p> +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." +</p> + +<p> +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. +</p> + +<p> +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. +</p> + +<p> +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. +</p> + +<p> +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. +</p> + +<p> +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." +</p> + +<p> +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. +</p> + +<p> +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"That's intelligible of itself." +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." +</p> + +<p> +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." +</p> + +<p> +"That's your affair." +</p> + +<p> +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: +</p> + +<p> +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. +</p> + +<p> +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" +</p> + +<p> +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" +</p> + +<p> +"University men are not suitable for our business." +</p> + +<p> +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." +</p> + +<p> +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" +</p> + +<p> +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. +</p> + +<p> +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. +</p> + +<p> +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" +</p> + +<p> +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: +</p> + +<p> +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. +</p> + +<p> +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." +</p> + +<p> +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." +</p> + +<p> +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . +</p> + +<p> +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XVI +</p> + +<p> +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." +</p> + +<p> +He began breathing heavily with excitement. +</p> + +<p> +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. +</p> + +<p> +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." +</p> + +<p> +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. +</p> + +<p> +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. +</p> + +<p> +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. +</p> + +<p> +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." +</p> + +<p> +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." +</p> + +<p> +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." +</p> + +<p> +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." +</p> + +<p> +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." +</p> + +<p> +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." +</p> + +<p> +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. +</p> + +<p> +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." +</p> + +<p> +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." +</p> + +<p> +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. +</p> + +<p> +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. +</p> + +<p> +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. +</p> + +<p> +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" +</p> + +<p> +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." +</p> + +<p> +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. +</p> + +<p> +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: +</p> + +<p> +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." +</p> + +<p> +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. +</p> + +<p> +When she got home she said to her husband: +</p> + +<p> +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." +</p> + +<p> +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: +</p> + +<p> +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." +</p> + +<p> +He got up and walked to the window. +</p> + +<p> +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." +</p> + +<p> +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +"Here it is." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. +</p> + +<p> +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." +</p> + +<p> +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XVII +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. +</p> + +<p> +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. +</p> + +<p> +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. +</p> + +<p> +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." +</p> + +<p> +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." +</p> + +<p> +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Except." +</p> + +<p> +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" +</p> + +<p> +"Not a bit of it." +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" +</p> + +<p> +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. +</p> + +<p> +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" +</p> + +<p> +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. +</p> + +<p> +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." +</p> + +<p> +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" +</p> + +<p> +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. +</p> + +<p> +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. +</p> + +<p> +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. +</p> + +<p> +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. +</p> + +<p> +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? +</p> + +<p> +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . +</p> + +<p> +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . +</p> + +<p> +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. +</p> + +<p> +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" +</p> + +<p> +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. +</p> + +<p> +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." +</p> + +<p> +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. +</p> + +<p> +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." +</p> + +<p> +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." +</p> + +<p> +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? +</p> + +<p> +And he thought: +</p> + +<p> +"Let us live, and we shall see." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13416 ***</div> +</body> + +</html> + + diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5bb34a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13416 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13416) diff --git a/old/13416-8.txt b/old/13416-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c1c965 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13416-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8549 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Darling and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: February 23, 2014 [EBook #13416] +First Posted: September 9, 2004 +Last Updated: February 23, 2014 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk. HTML version by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 1 + +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE DARLING + ARIADNE + POLINKA + ANYUTA + THE TWO VOLODYAS + THE TROUSSEAU + THE HELPMATE + TALENT + AN ARTIST'S STORY + THREE YEARS + + + + +THE DARLING + +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. + +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. + +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." + +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: + +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." + +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: + +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" + +And next day the same thing. + +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" + +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . + +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: + +"You darling!" + +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. + +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. + +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." + +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. + +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. + +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. + +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" + +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. + +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." + +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: + +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." + +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. + +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" + +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. + +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" + +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. + +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." + +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. + +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. + +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. + +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" + +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. + +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" + +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. + +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." + +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" + +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. + +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." + +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. + +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." + +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: + +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." + +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. + +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. + +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. + +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" + +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: + +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." + +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: + +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." + +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" + +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. + +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. + +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. + +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. + +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: + +"Get along; I don't want you!" + +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. + +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. + +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. + +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." + +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. + +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." + +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" + +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. + +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." + +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: + +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." + +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. + +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. + +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. + +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. + +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. + +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." + +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. + +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." + +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. + +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. + +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: + +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." + +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. + +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? + +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. + +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" + +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." + +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. + +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." + +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. + +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. + +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" + +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. + +"Well, thank God!" she would think. + +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: + +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" + + + + +ARIADNE + +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: + +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." + +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. + +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. + +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: + +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? + +"No, not in the least." + +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: + +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." + +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: + +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." + +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: + +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" + +I told him it would not, and he went on: + +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. + +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. + +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. + +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. + +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Cæsar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" + +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-à-banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. + +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! + +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . + +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. + +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." + +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" + +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. + +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. + +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. + +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." + +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: + +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." + +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: + +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" + +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: + +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." + +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. + +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." + +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. + +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" + +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. + +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: + +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" + +She was angry in earnest, and went on: + +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." + +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. + +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" + +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: + +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" + +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. + +I behaved, I confess, as naïvely as a schoolboy. + +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. + +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. + +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" + +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. + +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" + +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. + +"What can I do?" I inquired. + +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." + +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. + +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. + +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. + +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. + +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dépendance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. + +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. + +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dépendances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters' black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! + +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . + +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. + +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" + +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . + +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." + +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. + +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." + +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. + +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" + +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: + +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" + +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." + +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: + +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." + +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. + +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. + +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. + +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _café complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. + +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. + +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. + +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. + +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" + +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . + +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" + +When I counted over the money I received he said: + +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." + +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. + +I knocked at the door. + +"Entrez!" + +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. + +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. + +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: + +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" + +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: + +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." + +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. + +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. + +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. + +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" + +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" + +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. + +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" + +"But I thought you loved him," I said. + +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." + +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. + +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. + +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: + +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" + +Then my love entered upon its final phase. + +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" + +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. + +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. + +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. + +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennæ. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. + +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." + +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." + +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naïve +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. + +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. + +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. + +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. + +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. + + ---- + +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. + +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." + +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." + +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. + +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" + +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. + +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" + +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. + +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: + +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." + +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. + +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." + +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. + +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" + +And he ran on. + +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" + + ---- + +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. + + + + +POLINKA + +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveauté's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. + +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: + +"What is your pleasure, madam?" + +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. + +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. + +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" + +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." + +"Gimp--for what purpose?" + +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." + +"Certainly." + +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. + +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." + +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" + +"Yes." + +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: + +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" + +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" + +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. + +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. + +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." + +"And how much is it?" + +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. + +"Why?" + +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." + +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. + +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" + +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." + +"What kind would you like?" + +"The best, something fashionable." + +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" + +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: + +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." + +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. + +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. + +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. + +"What kind?" + +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." + +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" + +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." + +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: + +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" + +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: + +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." + +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." + +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" + +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: + +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moiré stripe!" + +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. + +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." + +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. + +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" + +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" + +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." + +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." + +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I . . . I am." + +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" + +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. + +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." + +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: + +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: + +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" + +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: + +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." + + + + +ANYUTA + +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. + +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . + +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulæ_. . ." + +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. + +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." + +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. + +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" + +"Your fingers are cold!" + +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" + +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. + +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" + +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. + +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." + +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . + +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. + +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. + +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. + +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." + +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." + +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. + +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" + +Anyuta began dressing. + +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. + +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." + +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." + +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" + +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." + +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" + +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." + +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. + +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: + +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." + +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. + +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." + +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. + +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. + +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. + +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: + +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." + +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. + +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: + +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" + +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. + +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." + +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" + + + + +THE TWO VOLODYAS + +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." + +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. + +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" + +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. + +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" + +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par dépit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? + +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" + +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. + +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! + +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. + +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. + +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. + +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." + +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par dépit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. + +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. + +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. + +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. + +"_Par dépit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" + +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par dépit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." + +He turned up his collar again. + +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" + +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: + +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." + +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. + +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." + +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. + +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" + +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. + +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. + +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. + +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" + +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: + +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." + +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well?" + +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" + +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." + +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: + +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet." + +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. + +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. + +"Very." + +"Well, thank God for that." + +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: + +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." + +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. + +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. + +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. + +"Mind you come, Olga." + +"I will, I will." + +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. + +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. + +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. + +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" + +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: + +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." + +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. + +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." + +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: + +"Volodya!" + +"What is it?" her husband responded. + +"Nothing." + +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. + +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. + +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. + +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. + +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." + +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. + +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. + +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. + +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" + +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. + +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." + +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." + +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" + +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: + +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" + +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." + +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." + +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." + +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." + +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. + +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" + +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. + +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" + +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. + +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. + +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: + +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: + +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. + +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." + +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. + +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. + +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. + +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. + + + + +THE TROUSSEAU + +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. + +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. + +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . + +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. + +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. + +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. + +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. + +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. + +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. + +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. + +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. + +_"Où est mon cravatte lequel mon père m'avait envoyé de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. + +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." + +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. + +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. + +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. + +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. + +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." + +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" + +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" + +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" + +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. + +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. + +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." + +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. + +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." + +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. + +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. + +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. + +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. + +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. + +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. + +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." + +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." + +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. + +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. + +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. + +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." + +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. + +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." + +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. + +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. + +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. + +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: + +_"Je suis charmée de vous revoir, monsieur."_ + +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. + +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. + +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: + +"We are all alone in the world." + +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . + +I understood, and my heart was heavy. + + + + +THE HELPMATE + +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." + +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. + +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. + +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. + +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" + +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. + +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. + +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. + +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. + +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" + +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. + +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. + +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." + +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . + +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." + +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. + +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" + +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. + +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." + +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. + +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." + +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." + +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. + +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. + +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" + +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. + +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. + +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. + +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." + +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." + +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. + +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." + +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. + +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." + +"I repeat, you are free." + +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. + +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. + +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: + +"When you like." + +"I shall only go for a month." + +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." + +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." + +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" + +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." + +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" + +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. + +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. + +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." + +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the rôle of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naïve, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." + +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. + +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." + + + + +TALENT + +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. + +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: + +"I cannot marry." + +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. + +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." + +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" + +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." + +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." + +"Damn her! I'll pay." + +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. + +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. + +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" + +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" + +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. + +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" + +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. + +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" + +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: + +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" + +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. + +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" + +There followed handshakes, questions. + +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. + +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" + +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. + +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." + +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. + +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" + +The decanter was brought on to the scene. + +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. + +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" + +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: + +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" + +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! + +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. + +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. + +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." + +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. + + + + +AN ARTIST'S STORY + + +I + +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. + +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. + +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. + +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. + +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. + +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. + +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." + +I bowed. + +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. + +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." + +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. + +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." + +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" + +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. + +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. + +It was dark and still as we went home. + +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" + +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er" with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. + +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" + + +II + +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: + +"That's of no interest to you." + +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. + +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. + +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. + +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. + +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. + +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." + +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." + +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" + +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." + +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. + +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" + +"Because she is wrong." + +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. + +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. + +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." + +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. + +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" + +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. + +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." + +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: + +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." + +And again she buried herself in her book. + +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. + +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. + +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" + +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. + +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. + +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. + +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" + +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. + +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." + +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. + + +III + +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." + +I felt irritated. + +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." + +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: + +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" + +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." + +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: + +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." + +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." + +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. + +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." + +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." + +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." + +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." + +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." + +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. + +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." + +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" + +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." + +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." + +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." + +"You are opposed to medicine, too." + +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" + +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. + +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. + +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. + +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." + +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. + + +IV + +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. + +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." + +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. + +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." + +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." + +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. + +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." + +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." + +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. + +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." + +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. + +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" + +She ran to the gates. + +"Good-bye!" she called. + +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. + +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. + +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: + +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. + +"It's I." + +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." + +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" + +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" + +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." + +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: + +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" + +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. + + ---- + +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. + +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . + +Misuce, where are you? + + + + +THREE YEARS + +I + +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. + +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. + +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. + +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" + +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. + +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" + +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." + +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. + +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. + +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." + +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." + +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. + +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" + +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. + +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" + +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. + +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. + +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? + +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. + +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. + +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. + +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." + +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naïve and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? + +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. + +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. + +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. + +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. + +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. + +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: + +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." + +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. + +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." + +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. + +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." + +"What do you think about, dear?" + +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." + +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: + +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" + +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. + +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. + +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. + +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: + +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." + +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. + +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." + +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. + +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." + +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. + +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. + +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." + +"Well, that can easily be managed." + +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-à-brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. + +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. + +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." + +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. + +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. + +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. + +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. + +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. + +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: + +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, + +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. + +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. + +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" + +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. + + +II + +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. + +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. + +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. + +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. + +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." + +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. + +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. + +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." + +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. + +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. + +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." + +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! + +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. + +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. + +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. + +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. + +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." + +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. + +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" + +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." + +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. + +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." + +"I am not disturbing you?" + +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. + +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." + +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." + +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. + +"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is +inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work." + +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: + +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." + +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. + +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." + +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. + +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. + +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" + +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. + + +III + +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. + +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . + +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. + +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." + +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. + +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. + +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. + +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. + +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" + +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. + +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." + +"I refused him." + +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: + +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." + +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. + +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. + +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. + +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: + +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" + +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? + +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. + +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. + +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. + +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. + +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . + +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. + + +IV + +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. + +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: + +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" + +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. + +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." + +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." + +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. + +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. + +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" + +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: + +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" + +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: + +"I beg you to stay." + +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. + +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: + +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." + +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. + +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . + +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: + +"Why has this happened?" + +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. + +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" + +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." + +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. + +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." + +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. + +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" + +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." + +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." + +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: + +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." + +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. + +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. + +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. + +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. + +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." + +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. + +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. + +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: + +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." + +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. + +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." + +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." + + +V + +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: + +"The psychological sequences of the age." + +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. + +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" + +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" + +"Awfully bad." + +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." + +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. + +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" + +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. + +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. + +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." + +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. + +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer: +"'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." + +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. + +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: + +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." + +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. + +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." + +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: + +"Except!" + +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: + +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." + +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: + +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." + +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: + +"Keep on your feet!" + +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: + +"Now then, breathe," he would say. + +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. + +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. + +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employés, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. + +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. + +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. + +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." + +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." + +"I don't go to mass." + +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. + +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." + + +VI + +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. + +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. + +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." + +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. + +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." + +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. + +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. + +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. + +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. + +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" + +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: + +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." + +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: + +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." + +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. + +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." + +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. + +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." + +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: + +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" + + +VII + +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: + +"Have you seen Yartsev?" + +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. + +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. + +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. + +The public applauded and shouted encore. + +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." + +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. + +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. + +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." + +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." + +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." + +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. + +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: + +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" + +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." + +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. + +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." + +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. + +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: + +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." + +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. + +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. + +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" + +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." + +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" + +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. + +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. + +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. + +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" + +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. + +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Does she love you?" + +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. + +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." + +"And yet she takes money from you?" + +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." + +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. + +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." + +"Do you love her?" + +"Desperately." + +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. + +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" + +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. + +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." + +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. + +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." + +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. + +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, + +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." + +"Well, do, dear!" + +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. + +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ + + +VIII + +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. + +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. + +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." + +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. + +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" + +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. + +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." + +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." + +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. + +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." + +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. + +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. + +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" + +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. + +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. + +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. + +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." + +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. + +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. + +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." + +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: + +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." + +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: + +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." + + +IX + +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. + +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. + +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. + +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. + +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." + +Pyotr sighed from politeness. + +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. + +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." + +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. + +"There's no seeing," he said. + +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. + +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" + +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. + +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" + +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. + +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. + +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. + +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." + +"All right." + +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. + +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" + +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. + +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." + +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. + +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." + +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. + +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." + +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. + +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" + +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. + +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. + +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. + +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. + +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. + +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . + +They used to talk at dinner. + +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." + +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. + +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. + +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. + +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." + +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. + +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." + +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. + +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: + +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." + +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. + + +X + +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. + +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. + +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. + +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: + +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" + +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." + +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. + +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" + +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." + +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. + +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" + +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. + +They all laughed, and Kish with them. + +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. + +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." + +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." + +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." + +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. + +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." + +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. + +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. + +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: + +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." + +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." + +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." + +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. + +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." + +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" + +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. + +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." + +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. + +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. + +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." + +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. + +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." + +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. + +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" + +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: + +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." + +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. + +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. + +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." + +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." + +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" + +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. + +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" + +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" + +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. + +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." + +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. + +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. + +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. + + +XI + +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. + +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." + +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. + +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" + +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. + +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." + +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: + +"And have you a lover yet?" + +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. + +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." + +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. + +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." + +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. + +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. + +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" + +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." + +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: + +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." + +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: + +"Catch!" + +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: + +"Naughty girl!" + +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." + +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. + +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." + +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. + +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. + +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. + +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. + +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. + +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. + +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. + +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. + +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" + +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. + +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." + +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. + +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. + +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. + +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. + +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" + +"What is it?" said Yulia. + +"A telegram for you!" + +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." + +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: + +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." + +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. + +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. + + +XII + +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. + +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? + +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. + +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." + +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. + +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. + +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. + +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" + +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: + +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" + +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. + +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. + +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. + +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. + + +XIII + +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. + +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." + +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" + +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. + +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." + +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" + +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." + +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." + +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. + +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. + +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. + +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." + +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." + +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. + +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. + +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." + +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. + +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." + +"Well, I might." + +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. + +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. + +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" + +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. + +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" + +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. + +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" + +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. + +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" + +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. + +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." + +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. + +"Nature be damned," he shouted. + +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." + +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. + +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. + +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. + +"What put that into your head?" + +"I don't know. I love Moscow." + +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. + +At last near the station they took a cab. + +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." + +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. + +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. + +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. + +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. + +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. + +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. + +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. + +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . + +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. + + +XIV + +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. + +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. + +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" + +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. + +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." + +"With pleasure, Polina." + +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." + +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. + +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" + +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. + +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." + +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." + +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. + +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. + +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. + +"Where are you going now?" he asked. + +"To Yartsev's." + +"I'll come with you." + +"But you'll prevent him from writing." + +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. + +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. + +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: + +"Please walk in." + +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" + +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. + +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." + +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. + +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." + +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" + +"Yes, I love it." + +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." + +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" + +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. + +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." + +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a question, a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. + +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: + +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" + +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. + +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" + +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." + +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." + +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. + +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. + +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: + +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." + +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. + + +XV + +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. + +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. + +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. + +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. + +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: + +"M. Laptev, save my children!" + +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. + +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" + +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. + +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." + +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" + +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." + +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. + +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." + +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. + +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. + +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. + +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." + +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. + +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. + +"That's intelligible of itself." + +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." + +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." + +"That's your affair." + +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: + +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." + +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" + +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. + +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" + +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" + +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" + +"University men are not suitable for our business." + +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" + +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." + +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." + +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. + +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" + +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. + +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" + +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." + +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. + +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. + +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." + +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" + +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: + +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." + +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. + +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." + +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. + +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." + +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . + +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. + + +XVI + +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. + +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. + +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." + +He began breathing heavily with excitement. + +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. + +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." + +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. + +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. + +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. + +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. + +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." + +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." + +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." + +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." + +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. + +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." + +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." + +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." + +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." + +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. + +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." + +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." + +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. + +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. + +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. + +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" + +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." + +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. + +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: + +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." + +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. + +When she got home she said to her husband: + +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." + +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: + +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." + +He got up and walked to the window. + +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." + +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. + +"Here it is." + +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. + +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." + +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. + + +XVII + +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. + +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. + +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. + +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: + +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." + +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. + +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." + +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: + +"Except." + +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: + +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" + +"Not a bit of it." + +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" + +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. + +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" + +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. + +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. + +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." + +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" + +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. + +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. + +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. + +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. + +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? + +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . + +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . + +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. + +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" + +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. + +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." + +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. + +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." + +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: + +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." + +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? + +And he thought: + +"Let us live, and we shall see." + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13416-8.txt or 13416-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13416/ + +Produced by James Rusk. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Darling and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: February 23, 2014 [EBook #13416] +First Posted: September 9, 2004 +Last Updated: February 23, 2014 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk. HTML version by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="t3b"> +<br /><br /><br /> +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV +</p> + +<p class="t3b"> +VOLUME 1 +</p> + +<h1> +<br /><br /> +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES +</h1> + +<p class="t3"> +BY +</p> + +<p class="t3b"> +ANTON TCHEKHOV +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<p class="t3b"> + CONTENTS<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> + <a href="#darling">THE DARLING</a><br /> + <a href="#ariadne">ARIADNE</a><br /> + <a href="#polinka">POLINKA</a><br /> + <a href="#anyuta">ANYUTA</a><br /> + <a href="#volodyas">THE TWO VOLODYAS</a><br /> + <a href="#trousseau">THE TROUSSEAU</a><br /> + <a href="#helpmate">THE HELPMATE</a><br /> + <a href="#talent">TALENT</a><br /> + <a href="#artist">AN ARTIST'S STORY</a><br /> + <a href="#three">THREE YEARS</a><br /> +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="darling"></a> +THE DARLING +</h3> + +<p> +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. +</p> + +<p> +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. +</p> + +<p> +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." +</p> + +<p> +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: +</p> + +<p> +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." +</p> + +<p> +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: +</p> + +<p> +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +And next day the same thing. +</p> + +<p> +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" +</p> + +<p> +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . +</p> + +<p> +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You darling!" +</p> + +<p> +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. +</p> + +<p> +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. +</p> + +<p> +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." +</p> + +<p> +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. +</p> + +<p> +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. +</p> + +<p> +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. +</p> + +<p> +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" +</p> + +<p> +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." +</p> + +<p> +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: +</p> + +<p> +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." +</p> + +<p> +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. +</p> + +<p> +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" +</p> + +<p> +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. +</p> + +<p> +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" +</p> + +<p> +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. +</p> + +<p> +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." +</p> + +<p> +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. +</p> + +<p> +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. +</p> + +<p> +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. +</p> + +<p> +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. +</p> + +<p> +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" +</p> + +<p> +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. +</p> + +<p> +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." +</p> + +<p> +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" +</p> + +<p> +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." +</p> + +<p> +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." +</p> + +<p> +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: +</p> + +<p> +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." +</p> + +<p> +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. +</p> + +<p> +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. +</p> + +<p> +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. +</p> + +<p> +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" +</p> + +<p> +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: +</p> + +<p> +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." +</p> + +<p> +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: +</p> + +<p> +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." +</p> + +<p> +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" +</p> + +<p> +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. +</p> + +<p> +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. +</p> + +<p> +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. +</p> + +<p> +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: +</p> + +<p> +"Get along; I don't want you!" +</p> + +<p> +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. +</p> + +<p> +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. +</p> + +<p> +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." +</p> + +<p> +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. +</p> + +<p> +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." +</p> + +<p> +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" +</p> + +<p> +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. +</p> + +<p> +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." +</p> + +<p> +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: +</p> + +<p> +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." +</p> + +<p> +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. +</p> + +<p> +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. +</p> + +<p> +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. +</p> + +<p> +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. +</p> + +<p> +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. +</p> + +<p> +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." +</p> + +<p> +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. +</p> + +<p> +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. +</p> + +<p> +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. +</p> + +<p> +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: +</p> + +<p> +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." +</p> + +<p> +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? +</p> + +<p> +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" +</p> + +<p> +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." +</p> + +<p> +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. +</p> + +<p> +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. +</p> + +<p> +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. +</p> + +<p> +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" +</p> + +<p> +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, thank God!" she would think. +</p> + +<p> +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: +</p> + +<p> +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="ariadne"></a> +ARIADNE +</h3> + +<p> +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." +</p> + +<p> +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. +</p> + +<p> +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? +</p> + +<p> +"No, not in the least." +</p> + +<p> +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: +</p> + +<p> +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." +</p> + +<p> +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: +</p> + +<p> +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." +</p> + +<p> +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: +</p> + +<p> +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" +</p> + +<p> +I told him it would not, and he went on: +</p> + +<p> +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. +</p> + +<p> +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. +</p> + +<p> +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. +</p> + +<p> +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. +</p> + +<p> +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Cæsar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" +</p> + +<p> +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-à-banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. +</p> + +<p> +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! +</p> + +<p> +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . +</p> + +<p> +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. +</p> + +<p> +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" +</p> + +<p> +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. +</p> + +<p> +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. +</p> + +<p> +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. +</p> + +<p> +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." +</p> + +<p> +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: +</p> + +<p> +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." +</p> + +<p> +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: +</p> + +<p> +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" +</p> + +<p> +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: +</p> + +<p> +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." +</p> + +<p> +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." +</p> + +<p> +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" +</p> + +<p> +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. +</p> + +<p> +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: +</p> + +<p> +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" +</p> + +<p> +She was angry in earnest, and went on: +</p> + +<p> +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. +</p> + +<p> +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" +</p> + +<p> +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" +</p> + +<p> +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. +</p> + +<p> +I behaved, I confess, as naïvely as a schoolboy. +</p> + +<p> +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. +</p> + +<p> +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. +</p> + +<p> +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" +</p> + +<p> +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" +</p> + +<p> +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. +</p> + +<p> +"What can I do?" I inquired. +</p> + +<p> +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." +</p> + +<p> +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. +</p> + +<p> +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. +</p> + +<p> +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. +</p> + +<p> +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. +</p> + +<p> +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dépendance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. +</p> + +<p> +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. +</p> + +<p> +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dépendances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters' black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! +</p> + +<p> +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . +</p> + +<p> +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. +</p> + +<p> +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" +</p> + +<p> +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." +</p> + +<p> +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. +</p> + +<p> +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." +</p> + +<p> +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. +</p> + +<p> +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: +</p> + +<p> +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" +</p> + +<p> +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." +</p> + +<p> +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: +</p> + +<p> +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." +</p> + +<p> +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. +</p> + +<p> +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. +</p> + +<p> +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _café complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. +</p> + +<p> +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. +</p> + +<p> +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. +</p> + +<p> +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. +</p> + +<p> +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" +</p> + +<p> +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" +</p> + +<p> +When I counted over the money I received he said: +</p> + +<p> +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." +</p> + +<p> +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. +</p> + +<p> +I knocked at the door. +</p> + +<p> +"Entrez!" +</p> + +<p> +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. +</p> + +<p> +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. +</p> + +<p> +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: +</p> + +<p> +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" +</p> + +<p> +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." +</p> + +<p> +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. +</p> + +<p> +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. +</p> + +<p> +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. +</p> + +<p> +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" +</p> + +<p> +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" +</p> + +<p> +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" +</p> + +<p> +"But I thought you loved him," I said. +</p> + +<p> +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." +</p> + +<p> +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. +</p> + +<p> +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. +</p> + +<p> +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" +</p> + +<p> +Then my love entered upon its final phase. +</p> + +<p> +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" +</p> + +<p> +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. +</p> + +<p> +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. +</p> + +<p> +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. +</p> + +<p> +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennæ. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. +</p> + +<p> +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." +</p> + +<p> +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." +</p> + +<p> +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naïve +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. +</p> + +<p> +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. +</p> + +<p> +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. +</p> + +<p> +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. +</p> + +<p> +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +----<br /> +</p> + +<p> +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. +</p> + +<p> +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." +</p> + +<p> +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." +</p> + +<p> +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" +</p> + +<p> +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" +</p> + +<p> +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: +</p> + +<p> +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." +</p> + +<p> +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. +</p> + +<p> +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" +</p> + +<p> +And he ran on. +</p> + +<p> +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +----<br /> +</p> + +<p> +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="polinka"></a> +POLINKA +</h3> + +<p> +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveauté's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. +</p> + +<p> +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: +</p> + +<p> +"What is your pleasure, madam?" +</p> + +<p> +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. +</p> + +<p> +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." +</p> + +<p> +"Gimp--for what purpose?" +</p> + +<p> +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." +</p> + +<p> +"Certainly." +</p> + +<p> +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." +</p> + +<p> +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes." +</p> + +<p> +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: +</p> + +<p> +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" +</p> + +<p> +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" +</p> + +<p> +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. +</p> + +<p> +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. +</p> + +<p> +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." +</p> + +<p> +"And how much is it?" +</p> + +<p> +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. +</p> + +<p> +"Why?" +</p> + +<p> +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." +</p> + +<p> +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. +</p> + +<p> +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" +</p> + +<p> +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." +</p> + +<p> +"What kind would you like?" +</p> + +<p> +"The best, something fashionable." +</p> + +<p> +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" +</p> + +<p> +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: +</p> + +<p> +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." +</p> + +<p> +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. +</p> + +<p> +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. +</p> + +<p> +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +"What kind?" +</p> + +<p> +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." +</p> + +<p> +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: +</p> + +<p> +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" +</p> + +<p> +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: +</p> + +<p> +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." +</p> + +<p> +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." +</p> + +<p> +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moiré stripe!" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. +</p> + +<p> +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." +</p> + +<p> +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. +</p> + +<p> +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" +</p> + +<p> +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" +</p> + +<p> +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." +</p> + +<p> +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." +</p> + +<p> +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes; I . . . I am." +</p> + +<p> +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: +</p> + +<p> +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: +</p> + +<p> +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" +</p> + +<p> +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: +</p> + +<p> +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="anyuta"></a> +ANYUTA +</h3> + +<p> +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. +</p> + +<p> +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulæ_. . ." +</p> + +<p> +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. +</p> + +<p> +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" +</p> + +<p> +"Your fingers are cold!" +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" +</p> + +<p> +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. +</p> + +<p> +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. +</p> + +<p> +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." +</p> + +<p> +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . +</p> + +<p> +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. +</p> + +<p> +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. +</p> + +<p> +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." +</p> + +<p> +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. +</p> + +<p> +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta began dressing. +</p> + +<p> +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. +</p> + +<p> +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." +</p> + +<p> +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" +</p> + +<p> +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" +</p> + +<p> +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." +</p> + +<p> +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. +</p> + +<p> +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. +</p> + +<p> +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. +</p> + +<p> +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. +</p> + +<p> +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. +</p> + +<p> +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." +</p> + +<p> +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. +</p> + +<p> +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: +</p> + +<p> +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" +</p> + +<p> +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. +</p> + +<p> +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." +</p> + +<p> +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="volodyas"></a> +THE TWO VOLODYAS +</h3> + +<p> +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." +</p> + +<p> +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. +</p> + +<p> +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" +</p> + +<p> +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. +</p> + +<p> +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" +</p> + +<p> +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par dépit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" +</p> + +<p> +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! +</p> + +<p> +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. +</p> + +<p> +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. +</p> + +<p> +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." +</p> + +<p> +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par dépit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. +</p> + +<p> +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. +</p> + +<p> +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. +</p> + +<p> +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. +</p> + +<p> +"_Par dépit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" +</p> + +<p> +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par dépit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." +</p> + +<p> +He turned up his collar again. +</p> + +<p> +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." +</p> + +<p> +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." +</p> + +<p> +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. +</p> + +<p> +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" +</p> + +<p> +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. +</p> + +<p> +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: +</p> + +<p> +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" +</p> + +<p> +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet." +</p> + +<p> +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. +</p> + +<p> +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. +</p> + +<p> +"Very." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, thank God for that." +</p> + +<p> +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: +</p> + +<p> +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." +</p> + +<p> +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. +</p> + +<p> +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. +</p> + +<p> +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. +</p> + +<p> +"Mind you come, Olga." +</p> + +<p> +"I will, I will." +</p> + +<p> +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. +</p> + +<p> +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. +</p> + +<p> +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. +</p> + +<p> +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" +</p> + +<p> +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: +</p> + +<p> +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. +</p> + +<p> +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: +</p> + +<p> +"Volodya!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" her husband responded. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing." +</p> + +<p> +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. +</p> + +<p> +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. +</p> + +<p> +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. +</p> + +<p> +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." +</p> + +<p> +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. +</p> + +<p> +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. +</p> + +<p> +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" +</p> + +<p> +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. +</p> + +<p> +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." +</p> + +<p> +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." +</p> + +<p> +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" +</p> + +<p> +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" +</p> + +<p> +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." +</p> + +<p> +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." +</p> + +<p> +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. +</p> + +<p> +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" +</p> + +<p> +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. +</p> + +<p> +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" +</p> + +<p> +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. +</p> + +<p> +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: +</p> + +<p> +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: +</p> + +<p> +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. +</p> + +<p> +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." +</p> + +<p> +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. +</p> + +<p> +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. +</p> + +<p> +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. +</p> + +<p> +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="trousseau"></a> +THE TROUSSEAU +</h3> + +<p> +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. +</p> + +<p> +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. +</p> + +<p> +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . +</p> + +<p> +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. +</p> + +<p> +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. +</p> + +<p> +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. +</p> + +<p> +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. +</p> + +<p> +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. +</p> + +<p> +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. +</p> + +<p> +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. +</p> + +<p> +_"Où est mon cravatte lequel mon père m'avait envoyé de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. +</p> + +<p> +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." +</p> + +<p> +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. +</p> + +<p> +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" +</p> + +<p> +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" +</p> + +<p> +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. +</p> + +<p> +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. +</p> + +<p> +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." +</p> + +<p> +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. +</p> + +<p> +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." +</p> + +<p> +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. +</p> + +<p> +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. +</p> + +<p> +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. +</p> + +<p> +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. +</p> + +<p> +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. +</p> + +<p> +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. +</p> + +<p> +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." +</p> + +<p> +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." +</p> + +<p> +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. +</p> + +<p> +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. +</p> + +<p> +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. +</p> + +<p> +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." +</p> + +<p> +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. +</p> + +<p> +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." +</p> + +<p> +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. +</p> + +<p> +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. +</p> + +<p> +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. +</p> + +<p> +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: +</p> + +<p> +_"Je suis charmée de vous revoir, monsieur."_ +</p> + +<p> +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. +</p> + +<p> +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: +</p> + +<p> +"We are all alone in the world." +</p> + +<p> +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . +</p> + +<p> +I understood, and my heart was heavy. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="helpmate"></a> +THE HELPMATE +</h3> + +<p> +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." +</p> + +<p> +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. +</p> + +<p> +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. +</p> + +<p> +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. +</p> + +<p> +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" +</p> + +<p> +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. +</p> + +<p> +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. +</p> + +<p> +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. +</p> + +<p> +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. +</p> + +<p> +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" +</p> + +<p> +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. +</p> + +<p> +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. +</p> + +<p> +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." +</p> + +<p> +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . +</p> + +<p> +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." +</p> + +<p> +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. +</p> + +<p> +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" +</p> + +<p> +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. +</p> + +<p> +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." +</p> + +<p> +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. +</p> + +<p> +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." +</p> + +<p> +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. +</p> + +<p> +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. +</p> + +<p> +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" +</p> + +<p> +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. +</p> + +<p> +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. +</p> + +<p> +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. +</p> + +<p> +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." +</p> + +<p> +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." +</p> + +<p> +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. +</p> + +<p> +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." +</p> + +<p> +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. +</p> + +<p> +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." +</p> + +<p> +"I repeat, you are free." +</p> + +<p> +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. +</p> + +<p> +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. +</p> + +<p> +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"When you like." +</p> + +<p> +"I shall only go for a month." +</p> + +<p> +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." +</p> + +<p> +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." +</p> + +<p> +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" +</p> + +<p> +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." +</p> + +<p> +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" +</p> + +<p> +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. +</p> + +<p> +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." +</p> + +<p> +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the rôle of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naïve, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." +</p> + +<p> +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. +</p> + +<p> +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="talent"></a> +TALENT +</h3> + +<p> +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. +</p> + +<p> +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: +</p> + +<p> +"I cannot marry." +</p> + +<p> +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. +</p> + +<p> +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." +</p> + +<p> +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" +</p> + +<p> +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." +</p> + +<p> +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"Damn her! I'll pay." +</p> + +<p> +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. +</p> + +<p> +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. +</p> + +<p> +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" +</p> + +<p> +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" +</p> + +<p> +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" +</p> + +<p> +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. +</p> + +<p> +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" +</p> + +<p> +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: +</p> + +<p> +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" +</p> + +<p> +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. +</p> + +<p> +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" +</p> + +<p> +There followed handshakes, questions. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" +</p> + +<p> +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. +</p> + +<p> +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." +</p> + +<p> +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. +</p> + +<p> +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" +</p> + +<p> +The decanter was brought on to the scene. +</p> + +<p> +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. +</p> + +<p> +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" +</p> + +<p> +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: +</p> + +<p> +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" +</p> + +<p> +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! +</p> + +<p> +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. +</p> + +<p> +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. +</p> + +<p> +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="artist"></a> +AN ARTIST'S STORY +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> +I +</p> + +<p> +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. +</p> + +<p> +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. +</p> + +<p> +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. +</p> + +<p> +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. +</p> + +<p> +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. +</p> + +<p> +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. +</p> + +<p> +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." +</p> + +<p> +I bowed. +</p> + +<p> +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. +</p> + +<p> +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." +</p> + +<p> +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. +</p> + +<p> +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." +</p> + +<p> +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." +</p> + +<p> +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" +</p> + +<p> +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. +</p> + +<p> +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. +</p> + +<p> +It was dark and still as we went home. +</p> + +<p> +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" +</p> + +<p> +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er" with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. +</p> + +<p> +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +II +</p> + +<p> +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: +</p> + +<p> +"That's of no interest to you." +</p> + +<p> +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. +</p> + +<p> +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. +</p> + +<p> +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. +</p> + +<p> +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." +</p> + +<p> +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." +</p> + +<p> +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" +</p> + +<p> +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." +</p> + +<p> +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. +</p> + +<p> +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" +</p> + +<p> +"Because she is wrong." +</p> + +<p> +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." +</p> + +<p> +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. +</p> + +<p> +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. +</p> + +<p> +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" +</p> + +<p> +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. +</p> + +<p> +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." +</p> + +<p> +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: +</p> + +<p> +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." +</p> + +<p> +And again she buried herself in her book. +</p> + +<p> +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. +</p> + +<p> +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" +</p> + +<p> +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. +</p> + +<p> +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. +</p> + +<p> +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. +</p> + +<p> +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" +</p> + +<p> +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. +</p> + +<p> +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." +</p> + +<p> +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +III +</p> + +<p> +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." +</p> + +<p> +I felt irritated. +</p> + +<p> +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." +</p> + +<p> +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: +</p> + +<p> +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" +</p> + +<p> +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." +</p> + +<p> +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: +</p> + +<p> +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." +</p> + +<p> +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." +</p> + +<p> +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. +</p> + +<p> +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." +</p> + +<p> +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." +</p> + +<p> +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." +</p> + +<p> +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." +</p> + +<p> +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." +</p> + +<p> +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. +</p> + +<p> +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." +</p> + +<p> +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." +</p> + +<p> +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." +</p> + +<p> +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." +</p> + +<p> +"You are opposed to medicine, too." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" +</p> + +<p> +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. +</p> + +<p> +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. +</p> + +<p> +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." +</p> + +<p> +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. +</p> + +<p> +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." +</p> + +<p> +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +IV +</p> + +<p> +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. +</p> + +<p> +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." +</p> + +<p> +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. +</p> + +<p> +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." +</p> + +<p> +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." +</p> + +<p> +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." +</p> + +<p> +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. +</p> + +<p> +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." +</p> + +<p> +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. +</p> + +<p> +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" +</p> + +<p> +She ran to the gates. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-bye!" she called. +</p> + +<p> +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. +</p> + +<p> +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. +</p> + +<p> +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: +</p> + +<p> +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. +</p> + +<p> +"It's I." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." +</p> + +<p> +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" +</p> + +<p> +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." +</p> + +<p> +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: +</p> + +<p> +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" +</p> + +<p> +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +----<br /> +</p> + +<p> +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. +</p> + +<p> +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . +</p> + +<p> +Misuce, where are you? +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /></p> + +<h3> +<a id="three"></a> +THREE YEARS +</h3> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +I +</p> + +<p> +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. +</p> + +<p> +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. +</p> + +<p> +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. +</p> + +<p> +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" +</p> + +<p> +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" +</p> + +<p> +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." +</p> + +<p> +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. +</p> + +<p> +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. +</p> + +<p> +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. +</p> + +<p> +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. +</p> + +<p> +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" +</p> + +<p> +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" +</p> + +<p> +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. +</p> + +<p> +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? +</p> + +<p> +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. +</p> + +<p> +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." +</p> + +<p> +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naïve and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? +</p> + +<p> +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. +</p> + +<p> +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. +</p> + +<p> +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. +</p> + +<p> +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: +</p> + +<p> +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. +</p> + +<p> +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." +</p> + +<p> +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you think about, dear?" +</p> + +<p> +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: +</p> + +<p> +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" +</p> + +<p> +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. +</p> + +<p> +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. +</p> + +<p> +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: +</p> + +<p> +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." +</p> + +<p> +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. +</p> + +<p> +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. +</p> + +<p> +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, that can easily be managed." +</p> + +<p> +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-à-brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. +</p> + +<p> +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. +</p> + +<p> +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. +</p> + +<p> +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. +</p> + +<p> +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. +</p> + +<p> +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. +</p> + +<p> +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: +</p> + +<p> +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, +</p> + +<p> +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. +</p> + +<p> +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. +</p> + +<p> +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" +</p> + +<p> +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +II +</p> + +<p> +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. +</p> + +<p> +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. +</p> + +<p> +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. +</p> + +<p> +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. +</p> + +<p> +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." +</p> + +<p> +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." +</p> + +<p> +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. +</p> + +<p> +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. +</p> + +<p> +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." +</p> + +<p> +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! +</p> + +<p> +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. +</p> + +<p> +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. +</p> + +<p> +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. +</p> + +<p> +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." +</p> + +<p> +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. +</p> + +<p> +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" +</p> + +<p> +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." +</p> + +<p> +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. +</p> + +<p> +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." +</p> + +<p> +"I am not disturbing you?" +</p> + +<p> +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. +</p> + +<p> +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." +</p> + +<p> +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." +</p> + +<p> +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. +</p> + +<p> +"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is +inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work." +</p> + +<p> +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: +</p> + +<p> +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." +</p> + +<p> +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. +</p> + +<p> +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." +</p> + +<p> +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. +</p> + +<p> +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" +</p> + +<p> +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +III +</p> + +<p> +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. +</p> + +<p> +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . +</p> + +<p> +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. +</p> + +<p> +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. +</p> + +<p> +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. +</p> + +<p> +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. +</p> + +<p> +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" +</p> + +<p> +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." +</p> + +<p> +"I refused him." +</p> + +<p> +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: +</p> + +<p> +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. +</p> + +<p> +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. +</p> + +<p> +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: +</p> + +<p> +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" +</p> + +<p> +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? +</p> + +<p> +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. +</p> + +<p> +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. +</p> + +<p> +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . +</p> + +<p> +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +IV +</p> + +<p> +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. +</p> + +<p> +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: +</p> + +<p> +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" +</p> + +<p> +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. +</p> + +<p> +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." +</p> + +<p> +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. +</p> + +<p> +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. +</p> + +<p> +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" +</p> + +<p> +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: +</p> + +<p> +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" +</p> + +<p> +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: +</p> + +<p> +"I beg you to stay." +</p> + +<p> +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. +</p> + +<p> +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: +</p> + +<p> +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." +</p> + +<p> +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. +</p> + +<p> +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . +</p> + +<p> +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: +</p> + +<p> +"Why has this happened?" +</p> + +<p> +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" +</p> + +<p> +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." +</p> + +<p> +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. +</p> + +<p> +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." +</p> + +<p> +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." +</p> + +<p> +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: +</p> + +<p> +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." +</p> + +<p> +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. +</p> + +<p> +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. +</p> + +<p> +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. +</p> + +<p> +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." +</p> + +<p> +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. +</p> + +<p> +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. +</p> + +<p> +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: +</p> + +<p> +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." +</p> + +<p> +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +V +</p> + +<p> +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: +</p> + +<p> +"The psychological sequences of the age." +</p> + +<p> +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. +</p> + +<p> +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" +</p> + +<p> +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" +</p> + +<p> +"Awfully bad." +</p> + +<p> +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. +</p> + +<p> +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." +</p> + +<p> +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer: +"'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." +</p> + +<p> +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: +</p> + +<p> +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." +</p> + +<p> +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. +</p> + +<p> +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." +</p> + +<p> +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: +</p> + +<p> +"Except!" +</p> + +<p> +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: +</p> + +<p> +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." +</p> + +<p> +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: +</p> + +<p> +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." +</p> + +<p> +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: +</p> + +<p> +"Keep on your feet!" +</p> + +<p> +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: +</p> + +<p> +"Now then, breathe," he would say. +</p> + +<p> +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. +</p> + +<p> +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employés, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. +</p> + +<p> +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. +</p> + +<p> +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. +</p> + +<p> +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." +</p> + +<p> +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." +</p> + +<p> +"I don't go to mass." +</p> + +<p> +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. +</p> + +<p> +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +VI +</p> + +<p> +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. +</p> + +<p> +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. +</p> + +<p> +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." +</p> + +<p> +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. +</p> + +<p> +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." +</p> + +<p> +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. +</p> + +<p> +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. +</p> + +<p> +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. +</p> + +<p> +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: +</p> + +<p> +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." +</p> + +<p> +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." +</p> + +<p> +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. +</p> + +<p> +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. +</p> + +<p> +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." +</p> + +<p> +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: +</p> + +<p> +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +VII +</p> + +<p> +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: +</p> + +<p> +"Have you seen Yartsev?" +</p> + +<p> +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. +</p> + +<p> +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. +</p> + +<p> +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. +</p> + +<p> +The public applauded and shouted encore. +</p> + +<p> +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." +</p> + +<p> +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. +</p> + +<p> +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." +</p> + +<p> +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." +</p> + +<p> +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." +</p> + +<p> +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: +</p> + +<p> +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" +</p> + +<p> +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. +</p> + +<p> +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: +</p> + +<p> +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." +</p> + +<p> +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. +</p> + +<p> +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. +</p> + +<p> +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" +</p> + +<p> +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." +</p> + +<p> +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. +</p> + +<p> +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. +</p> + +<p> +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" +</p> + +<p> +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. +</p> + +<p> +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. +</p> + +<p> +"No." +</p> + +<p> +"Does she love you?" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. +</p> + +<p> +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." +</p> + +<p> +"And yet she takes money from you?" +</p> + +<p> +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." +</p> + +<p> +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you love her?" +</p> + +<p> +"Desperately." +</p> + +<p> +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. +</p> + +<p> +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" +</p> + +<p> +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. +</p> + +<p> +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." +</p> + +<p> +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. +</p> + +<p> +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." +</p> + +<p> +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. +</p> + +<p> +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, +</p> + +<p> +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, do, dear!" +</p> + +<p> +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. +</p> + +<p> +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +VIII +</p> + +<p> +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. +</p> + +<p> +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" +</p> + +<p> +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. +</p> + +<p> +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." +</p> + +<p> +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." +</p> + +<p> +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. +</p> + +<p> +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." +</p> + +<p> +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. +</p> + +<p> +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. +</p> + +<p> +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" +</p> + +<p> +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. +</p> + +<p> +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. +</p> + +<p> +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. +</p> + +<p> +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. +</p> + +<p> +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. +</p> + +<p> +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." +</p> + +<p> +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: +</p> + +<p> +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." +</p> + +<p> +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: +</p> + +<p> +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +IX +</p> + +<p> +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. +</p> + +<p> +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. +</p> + +<p> +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. +</p> + +<p> +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr sighed from politeness. +</p> + +<p> +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. +</p> + +<p> +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." +</p> + +<p> +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. +</p> + +<p> +"There's no seeing," he said. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. +</p> + +<p> +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" +</p> + +<p> +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. +</p> + +<p> +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" +</p> + +<p> +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. +</p> + +<p> +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. +</p> + +<p> +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. +</p> + +<p> +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." +</p> + +<p> +"All right." +</p> + +<p> +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. +</p> + +<p> +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" +</p> + +<p> +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. +</p> + +<p> +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." +</p> + +<p> +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. +</p> + +<p> +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." +</p> + +<p> +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. +</p> + +<p> +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. +</p> + +<p> +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" +</p> + +<p> +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. +</p> + +<p> +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. +</p> + +<p> +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. +</p> + +<p> +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. +</p> + +<p> +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. +</p> + +<p> +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . +</p> + +<p> +They used to talk at dinner. +</p> + +<p> +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." +</p> + +<p> +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. +</p> + +<p> +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." +</p> + +<p> +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. +</p> + +<p> +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." +</p> + +<p> +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. +</p> + +<p> +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: +</p> + +<p> +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." +</p> + +<p> +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +X +</p> + +<p> +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. +</p> + +<p> +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. +</p> + +<p> +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: +</p> + +<p> +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" +</p> + +<p> +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." +</p> + +<p> +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. +</p> + +<p> +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" +</p> + +<p> +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." +</p> + +<p> +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. +</p> + +<p> +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" +</p> + +<p> +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. +</p> + +<p> +They all laughed, and Kish with them. +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. +</p> + +<p> +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." +</p> + +<p> +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. +</p> + +<p> +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. +</p> + +<p> +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. +</p> + +<p> +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: +</p> + +<p> +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." +</p> + +<p> +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." +</p> + +<p> +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." +</p> + +<p> +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. +</p> + +<p> +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." +</p> + +<p> +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" +</p> + +<p> +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. +</p> + +<p> +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." +</p> + +<p> +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. +</p> + +<p> +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. +</p> + +<p> +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." +</p> + +<p> +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. +</p> + +<p> +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. +</p> + +<p> +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" +</p> + +<p> +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: +</p> + +<p> +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." +</p> + +<p> +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg your pardon," she said. +</p> + +<p> +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. +</p> + +<p> +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." +</p> + +<p> +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." +</p> + +<p> +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. +</p> + +<p> +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" +</p> + +<p> +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" +</p> + +<p> +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. +</p> + +<p> +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." +</p> + +<p> +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. +</p> + +<p> +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. +</p> + +<p> +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XI +</p> + +<p> +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" +</p> + +<p> +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. +</p> + +<p> +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." +</p> + +<p> +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: +</p> + +<p> +"And have you a lover yet?" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. +</p> + +<p> +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." +</p> + +<p> +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." +</p> + +<p> +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. +</p> + +<p> +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. +</p> + +<p> +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" +</p> + +<p> +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." +</p> + +<p> +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: +</p> + +<p> +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." +</p> + +<p> +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: +</p> + +<p> +"Catch!" +</p> + +<p> +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: +</p> + +<p> +"Naughty girl!" +</p> + +<p> +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." +</p> + +<p> +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. +</p> + +<p> +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." +</p> + +<p> +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. +</p> + +<p> +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. +</p> + +<p> +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. +</p> + +<p> +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. +</p> + +<p> +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. +</p> + +<p> +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. +</p> + +<p> +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. +</p> + +<p> +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" +</p> + +<p> +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. +</p> + +<p> +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." +</p> + +<p> +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. +</p> + +<p> +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. +</p> + +<p> +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. +</p> + +<p> +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" +</p> + +<p> +"What is it?" said Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +"A telegram for you!" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: +</p> + +<p> +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." +</p> + +<p> +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. +</p> + +<p> +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XII +</p> + +<p> +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. +</p> + +<p> +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. +</p> + +<p> +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." +</p> + +<p> +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. +</p> + +<p> +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. +</p> + +<p> +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" +</p> + +<p> +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" +</p> + +<p> +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. +</p> + +<p> +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. +</p> + +<p> +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. +</p> + +<p> +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XIII +</p> + +<p> +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. +</p> + +<p> +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." +</p> + +<p> +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." +</p> + +<p> +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. +</p> + +<p> +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. +</p> + +<p> +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. +</p> + +<p> +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." +</p> + +<p> +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." +</p> + +<p> +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. +</p> + +<p> +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. +</p> + +<p> +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." +</p> + +<p> +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. +</p> + +<p> +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." +</p> + +<p> +"Well, I might." +</p> + +<p> +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. +</p> + +<p> +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. +</p> + +<p> +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" +</p> + +<p> +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. +</p> + +<p> +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" +</p> + +<p> +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. +</p> + +<p> +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" +</p> + +<p> +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. +</p> + +<p> +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." +</p> + +<p> +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. +</p> + +<p> +"Nature be damned," he shouted. +</p> + +<p> +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." +</p> + +<p> +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. +</p> + +<p> +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. +</p> + +<p> +"What put that into your head?" +</p> + +<p> +"I don't know. I love Moscow." +</p> + +<p> +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. +</p> + +<p> +At last near the station they took a cab. +</p> + +<p> +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." +</p> + +<p> +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. +</p> + +<p> +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. +</p> + +<p> +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. +</p> + +<p> +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. +</p> + +<p> +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. +</p> + +<p> +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. +</p> + +<p> +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. +</p> + +<p> +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . +</p> + +<p> +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XIV +</p> + +<p> +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. +</p> + +<p> +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. +</p> + +<p> +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" +</p> + +<p> +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." +</p> + +<p> +"With pleasure, Polina." +</p> + +<p> +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. +</p> + +<p> +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. +</p> + +<p> +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." +</p> + +<p> +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. +</p> + +<p> +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. +</p> + +<p> +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. +</p> + +<p> +"Where are you going now?" he asked. +</p> + +<p> +"To Yartsev's." +</p> + +<p> +"I'll come with you." +</p> + +<p> +"But you'll prevent him from writing." +</p> + +<p> +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. +</p> + +<p> +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. +</p> + +<p> +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: +</p> + +<p> +"Please walk in." +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. +</p> + +<p> +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. +</p> + +<p> +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." +</p> + +<p> +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. +</p> + +<p> +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." +</p> + +<p> +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, I love it." +</p> + +<p> +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." +</p> + +<p> +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" +</p> + +<p> +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. +</p> + +<p> +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." +</p> + +<p> +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a question, a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. +</p> + +<p> +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" +</p> + +<p> +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. +</p> + +<p> +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" +</p> + +<p> +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." +</p> + +<p> +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." +</p> + +<p> +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. +</p> + +<p> +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. +</p> + +<p> +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" +</p> + +<p> +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." +</p> + +<p> +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XV +</p> + +<p> +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. +</p> + +<p> +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. +</p> + +<p> +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. +</p> + +<p> +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. +</p> + +<p> +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: +</p> + +<p> +"M. Laptev, save my children!" +</p> + +<p> +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. +</p> + +<p> +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" +</p> + +<p> +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. +</p> + +<p> +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." +</p> + +<p> +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" +</p> + +<p> +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." +</p> + +<p> +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. +</p> + +<p> +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. +</p> + +<p> +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. +</p> + +<p> +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. +</p> + +<p> +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." +</p> + +<p> +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. +</p> + +<p> +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"That's intelligible of itself." +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." +</p> + +<p> +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." +</p> + +<p> +"That's your affair." +</p> + +<p> +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: +</p> + +<p> +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." +</p> + +<p> +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" +</p> + +<p> +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. +</p> + +<p> +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" +</p> + +<p> +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" +</p> + +<p> +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" +</p> + +<p> +"University men are not suitable for our business." +</p> + +<p> +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" +</p> + +<p> +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." +</p> + +<p> +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." +</p> + +<p> +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. +</p> + +<p> +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" +</p> + +<p> +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. +</p> + +<p> +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" +</p> + +<p> +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." +</p> + +<p> +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. +</p> + +<p> +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. +</p> + +<p> +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" +</p> + +<p> +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: +</p> + +<p> +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." +</p> + +<p> +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. +</p> + +<p> +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." +</p> + +<p> +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. +</p> + +<p> +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." +</p> + +<p> +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . +</p> + +<p> +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XVI +</p> + +<p> +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. +</p> + +<p> +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. +</p> + +<p> +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." +</p> + +<p> +He began breathing heavily with excitement. +</p> + +<p> +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. +</p> + +<p> +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." +</p> + +<p> +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. +</p> + +<p> +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. +</p> + +<p> +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. +</p> + +<p> +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. +</p> + +<p> +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." +</p> + +<p> +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." +</p> + +<p> +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." +</p> + +<p> +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." +</p> + +<p> +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." +</p> + +<p> +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." +</p> + +<p> +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." +</p> + +<p> +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. +</p> + +<p> +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." +</p> + +<p> +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." +</p> + +<p> +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. +</p> + +<p> +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. +</p> + +<p> +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. +</p> + +<p> +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" +</p> + +<p> +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." +</p> + +<p> +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. +</p> + +<p> +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: +</p> + +<p> +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." +</p> + +<p> +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. +</p> + +<p> +When she got home she said to her husband: +</p> + +<p> +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." +</p> + +<p> +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: +</p> + +<p> +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." +</p> + +<p> +He got up and walked to the window. +</p> + +<p> +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." +</p> + +<p> +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +"Here it is." +</p> + +<p> +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. +</p> + +<p> +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." +</p> + +<p> +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. +</p> + +<p class="t3"> +<br /><br /> +XVII +</p> + +<p> +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. +</p> + +<p> +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. +</p> + +<p> +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. +</p> + +<p> +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." +</p> + +<p> +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. +</p> + +<p> +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." +</p> + +<p> +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Except." +</p> + +<p> +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" +</p> + +<p> +"Not a bit of it." +</p> + +<p> +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" +</p> + +<p> +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. +</p> + +<p> +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" +</p> + +<p> +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. +</p> + +<p> +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. +</p> + +<p> +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." +</p> + +<p> +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" +</p> + +<p> +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. +</p> + +<p> +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. +</p> + +<p> +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. +</p> + +<p> +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. +</p> + +<p> +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? +</p> + +<p> +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . +</p> + +<p> +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . +</p> + +<p> +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. +</p> + +<p> +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" +</p> + +<p> +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. +</p> + +<p> +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." +</p> + +<p> +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. +</p> + +<p> +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." +</p> + +<p> +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: +</p> + +<p> +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." +</p> + +<p> +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? +</p> + +<p> +And he thought: +</p> + +<p> +"Let us live, and we shall see." +</p> + +<p><br /><br /><br /><br /></p> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13416-h.htm or 13416-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13416/ + +Produced by James Rusk. HTML version by Al Haines + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> + +</html> + + diff --git a/old/13416.txt b/old/13416.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7309b1c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13416.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8549 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Darling and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Translator: Constance Garnett + +Release Date: February 23, 2014 [EBook #13416] +First Posted: September 9, 2004 +Last Updated: February 23, 2014 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk. HTML version by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 1 + +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + + CONTENTS + + + THE DARLING + ARIADNE + POLINKA + ANYUTA + THE TWO VOLODYAS + THE TROUSSEAU + THE HELPMATE + TALENT + AN ARTIST'S STORY + THREE YEARS + + + + +THE DARLING + +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. + +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. + +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." + +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: + +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." + +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: + +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" + +And next day the same thing. + +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naive smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" + +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . + +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: + +"You darling!" + +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. + +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naive, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. + +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." + +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. + +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. + +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. + +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" + +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. + +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." + +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: + +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." + +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. + +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" + +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. + +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" + +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. + +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." + +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. + +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. + +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. + +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" + +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. + +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" + +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. + +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." + +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" + +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. + +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." + +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. + +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." + +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: + +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." + +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. + +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. + +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. + +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" + +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: + +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." + +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: + +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." + +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" + +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. + +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. + +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. + +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. + +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: + +"Get along; I don't want you!" + +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. + +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. + +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. + +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." + +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. + +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." + +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" + +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. + +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." + +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: + +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." + +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. + +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. + +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. + +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. + +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. + +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." + +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. + +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." + +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. + +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. + +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: + +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." + +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. + +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? + +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. + +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" + +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." + +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. + +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." + +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. + +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. + +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" + +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. + +"Well, thank God!" she would think. + +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: + +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" + + + + +ARIADNE + +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: + +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." + +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. + +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. + +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: + +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? + +"No, not in the least." + +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: + +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." + +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: + +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." + +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: + +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" + +I told him it would not, and he went on: + +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. + +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. + +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. + +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. + +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Caesar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" + +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-a-banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. + +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! + +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . + +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. + +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." + +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" + +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. + +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. + +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. + +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." + +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: + +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." + +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: + +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" + +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: + +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." + +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. + +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." + +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. + +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" + +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. + +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: + +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" + +She was angry in earnest, and went on: + +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." + +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. + +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" + +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: + +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" + +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. + +I behaved, I confess, as naively as a schoolboy. + +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. + +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. + +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" + +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. + +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" + +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. + +"What can I do?" I inquired. + +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." + +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. + +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. + +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. + +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. + +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dependance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. + +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. + +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dependances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters' black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! + +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . + +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. + +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" + +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . + +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." + +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. + +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." + +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. + +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" + +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: + +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" + +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." + +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: + +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." + +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. + +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. + +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. + +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _cafe complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. + +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. + +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. + +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. + +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" + +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . + +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" + +When I counted over the money I received he said: + +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." + +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. + +I knocked at the door. + +"Entrez!" + +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. + +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. + +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: + +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" + +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: + +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." + +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. + +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. + +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. + +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" + +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" + +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. + +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" + +"But I thought you loved him," I said. + +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." + +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. + +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. + +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: + +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" + +Then my love entered upon its final phase. + +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" + +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. + +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. + +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. + +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennae. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. + +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." + +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." + +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naive +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. + +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. + +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. + +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. + +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. + + ---- + +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. + +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." + +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." + +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. + +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" + +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. + +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" + +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. + +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: + +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." + +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. + +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." + +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. + +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" + +And he ran on. + +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" + + ---- + +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. + + + + +POLINKA + +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveaute's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. + +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: + +"What is your pleasure, madam?" + +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. + +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. + +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" + +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." + +"Gimp--for what purpose?" + +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." + +"Certainly." + +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. + +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." + +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" + +"Yes." + +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: + +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" + +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" + +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. + +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. + +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." + +"And how much is it?" + +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. + +"Why?" + +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." + +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. + +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" + +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." + +"What kind would you like?" + +"The best, something fashionable." + +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" + +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: + +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." + +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. + +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. + +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. + +"What kind?" + +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." + +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" + +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." + +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: + +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" + +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: + +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." + +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." + +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" + +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: + +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moire stripe!" + +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. + +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." + +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. + +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" + +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" + +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." + +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." + +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I . . . I am." + +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" + +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. + +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." + +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: + +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: + +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" + +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: + +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." + + + + +ANYUTA + +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. + +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . + +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulae_. . ." + +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. + +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." + +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. + +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" + +"Your fingers are cold!" + +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" + +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. + +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" + +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. + +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." + +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . + +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. + +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. + +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. + +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." + +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." + +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. + +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" + +Anyuta began dressing. + +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. + +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." + +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." + +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" + +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." + +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" + +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." + +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. + +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: + +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." + +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. + +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." + +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. + +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. + +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. + +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: + +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." + +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. + +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: + +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" + +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. + +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." + +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" + + + + +THE TWO VOLODYAS + +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." + +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. + +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" + +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. + +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" + +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par depit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? + +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" + +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. + +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! + +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. + +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. + +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. + +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." + +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par depit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. + +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. + +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. + +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. + +"_Par depit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par depit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" + +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par depit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." + +He turned up his collar again. + +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" + +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: + +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." + +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. + +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." + +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. + +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" + +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. + +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. + +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. + +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" + +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: + +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." + +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well?" + +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" + +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." + +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: + +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet." + +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. + +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. + +"Very." + +"Well, thank God for that." + +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: + +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." + +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. + +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. + +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. + +"Mind you come, Olga." + +"I will, I will." + +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. + +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. + +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. + +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" + +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: + +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." + +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. + +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." + +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: + +"Volodya!" + +"What is it?" her husband responded. + +"Nothing." + +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. + +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. + +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. + +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. + +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." + +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. + +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. + +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. + +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" + +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. + +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." + +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." + +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" + +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: + +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" + +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." + +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." + +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." + +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." + +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. + +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" + +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. + +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" + +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. + +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. + +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: + +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: + +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. + +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." + +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. + +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. + +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. + +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. + + + + +THE TROUSSEAU + +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. + +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. + +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . + +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. + +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. + +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. + +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. + +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. + +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. + +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. + +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. + +_"Ou est mon cravatte lequel mon pere m'avait envoye de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. + +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." + +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. + +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. + +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. + +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. + +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." + +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" + +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" + +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" + +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. + +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. + +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." + +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. + +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." + +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. + +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. + +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. + +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. + +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. + +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. + +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." + +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." + +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. + +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. + +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. + +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." + +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. + +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." + +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. + +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. + +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. + +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: + +_"Je suis charmee de vous revoir, monsieur."_ + +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. + +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. + +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: + +"We are all alone in the world." + +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . + +I understood, and my heart was heavy. + + + + +THE HELPMATE + +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." + +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. + +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. + +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. + +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" + +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. + +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. + +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. + +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. + +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" + +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. + +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. + +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." + +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . + +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." + +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. + +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" + +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. + +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." + +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. + +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." + +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." + +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. + +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. + +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" + +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. + +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. + +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. + +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." + +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." + +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. + +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." + +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. + +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." + +"I repeat, you are free." + +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. + +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. + +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: + +"When you like." + +"I shall only go for a month." + +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." + +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." + +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" + +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." + +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" + +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. + +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. + +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." + +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the role of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naive, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." + +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. + +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." + + + + +TALENT + +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. + +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: + +"I cannot marry." + +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. + +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." + +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" + +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." + +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." + +"Damn her! I'll pay." + +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. + +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. + +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" + +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" + +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. + +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" + +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. + +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" + +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: + +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" + +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. + +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" + +There followed handshakes, questions. + +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. + +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" + +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. + +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." + +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. + +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" + +The decanter was brought on to the scene. + +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. + +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" + +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: + +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" + +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! + +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. + +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. + +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." + +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. + + + + +AN ARTIST'S STORY + + +I + +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. + +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. + +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. + +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. + +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. + +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. + +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." + +I bowed. + +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. + +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." + +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. + +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." + +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" + +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. + +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. + +It was dark and still as we went home. + +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" + +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er" with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. + +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" + + +II + +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: + +"That's of no interest to you." + +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. + +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. + +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. + +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. + +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. + +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." + +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." + +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" + +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." + +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. + +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" + +"Because she is wrong." + +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. + +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. + +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." + +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. + +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" + +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. + +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." + +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: + +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." + +And again she buried herself in her book. + +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. + +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. + +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" + +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. + +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. + +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. + +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" + +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. + +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." + +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. + + +III + +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." + +I felt irritated. + +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." + +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: + +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" + +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." + +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: + +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." + +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." + +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. + +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." + +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." + +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." + +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." + +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." + +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. + +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." + +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" + +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." + +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." + +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." + +"You are opposed to medicine, too." + +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" + +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. + +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. + +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. + +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." + +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. + + +IV + +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. + +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." + +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. + +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." + +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." + +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. + +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." + +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." + +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. + +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." + +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. + +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" + +She ran to the gates. + +"Good-bye!" she called. + +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. + +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. + +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: + +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. + +"It's I." + +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." + +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" + +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" + +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." + +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: + +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" + +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. + + ---- + +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. + +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . + +Misuce, where are you? + + + + +THREE YEARS + +I + +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. + +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. + +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. + +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" + +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. + +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" + +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." + +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. + +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. + +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." + +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." + +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. + +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" + +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. + +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" + +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. + +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. + +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? + +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. + +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. + +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. + +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." + +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naive and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? + +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. + +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. + +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. + +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. + +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. + +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: + +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." + +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. + +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." + +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. + +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." + +"What do you think about, dear?" + +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." + +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: + +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" + +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. + +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. + +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. + +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: + +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." + +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. + +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." + +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. + +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." + +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. + +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. + +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." + +"Well, that can easily be managed." + +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-a-brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. + +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. + +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." + +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. + +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. + +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. + +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. + +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. + +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: + +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, + +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. + +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. + +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" + +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. + + +II + +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naive, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. + +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. + +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her proteges, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. + +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. + +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." + +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. + +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. + +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." + +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. + +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. + +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." + +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! + +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. + +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. + +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. + +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. + +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." + +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. + +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" + +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." + +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. + +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." + +"I am not disturbing you?" + +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. + +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." + +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." + +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. + +"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is +inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work." + +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: + +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." + +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. + +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." + +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. + +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. + +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" + +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. + + +III + +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. + +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . + +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. + +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." + +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. + +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. + +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. + +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. + +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" + +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. + +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." + +"I refused him." + +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: + +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." + +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. + +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. + +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. + +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: + +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" + +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? + +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. + +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. + +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. + +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. + +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . + +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. + + +IV + +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. + +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: + +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" + +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. + +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." + +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." + +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. + +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. + +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" + +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: + +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" + +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: + +"I beg you to stay." + +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. + +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: + +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." + +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. + +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . + +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: + +"Why has this happened?" + +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. + +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" + +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." + +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. + +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." + +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. + +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" + +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." + +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." + +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: + +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." + +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. + +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. + +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. + +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. + +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." + +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. + +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. + +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: + +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." + +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. + +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." + +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." + + +V + +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: + +"The psychological sequences of the age." + +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. + +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" + +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" + +"Awfully bad." + +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." + +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. + +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" + +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. + +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. + +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." + +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. + +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer: +"'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." + +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. + +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: + +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." + +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. + +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." + +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: + +"Except!" + +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: + +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." + +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: + +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." + +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: + +"Keep on your feet!" + +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: + +"Now then, breathe," he would say. + +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. + +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. + +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employes, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. + +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. + +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. + +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." + +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." + +"I don't go to mass." + +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. + +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." + + +VI + +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. + +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. + +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." + +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. + +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." + +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. + +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. + +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. + +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. + +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" + +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: + +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." + +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: + +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." + +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. + +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." + +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. + +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." + +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: + +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" + + +VII + +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: + +"Have you seen Yartsev?" + +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. + +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. + +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. + +The public applauded and shouted encore. + +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." + +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. + +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. + +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." + +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." + +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." + +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. + +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: + +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" + +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." + +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. + +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." + +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. + +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: + +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." + +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. + +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. + +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" + +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." + +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" + +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. + +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. + +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. + +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" + +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. + +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Does she love you?" + +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. + +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." + +"And yet she takes money from you?" + +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." + +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. + +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." + +"Do you love her?" + +"Desperately." + +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. + +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" + +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. + +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." + +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. + +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." + +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. + +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, + +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." + +"Well, do, dear!" + +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. + +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ + + +VIII + +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. + +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. + +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." + +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. + +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" + +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. + +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." + +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." + +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. + +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." + +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. + +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. + +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" + +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. + +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. + +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. + +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." + +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. + +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. + +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." + +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: + +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." + +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: + +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." + + +IX + +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. + +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. + +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. + +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. + +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." + +Pyotr sighed from politeness. + +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. + +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." + +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. + +"There's no seeing," he said. + +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. + +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" + +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. + +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" + +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. + +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. + +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. + +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." + +"All right." + +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. + +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" + +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. + +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." + +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. + +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." + +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. + +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." + +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. + +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" + +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. + +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. + +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. + +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. + +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. + +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, aesthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . + +They used to talk at dinner. + +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." + +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. + +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. + +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. + +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." + +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. + +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." + +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. + +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: + +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." + +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. + + +X + +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. + +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. + +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. + +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: + +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" + +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." + +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. + +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" + +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." + +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. + +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" + +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. + +They all laughed, and Kish with them. + +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. + +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." + +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." + +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." + +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. + +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." + +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. + +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. + +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: + +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." + +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." + +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." + +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. + +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." + +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" + +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. + +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." + +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. + +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. + +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." + +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. + +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." + +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. + +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" + +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: + +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." + +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. + +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. + +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." + +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." + +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" + +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. + +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" + +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" + +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. + +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." + +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. + +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. + +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. + + +XI + +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. + +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." + +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. + +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" + +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. + +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." + +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: + +"And have you a lover yet?" + +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. + +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." + +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. + +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." + +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. + +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. + +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" + +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." + +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: + +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." + +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: + +"Catch!" + +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: + +"Naughty girl!" + +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." + +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. + +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." + +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. + +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. + +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. + +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. + +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. + +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. + +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. + +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. + +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" + +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. + +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." + +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. + +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. + +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. + +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. + +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" + +"What is it?" said Yulia. + +"A telegram for you!" + +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." + +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: + +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." + +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. + +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. + + +XII + +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. + +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? + +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. + +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." + +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. + +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. + +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. + +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" + +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: + +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" + +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. + +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. + +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. + +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. + + +XIII + +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. + +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." + +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" + +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. + +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." + +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" + +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." + +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." + +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. + +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. + +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. + +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." + +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." + +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. + +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. + +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." + +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. + +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." + +"Well, I might." + +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. + +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. + +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" + +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. + +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" + +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. + +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" + +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. + +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" + +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. + +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." + +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. + +"Nature be damned," he shouted. + +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." + +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. + +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. + +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. + +"What put that into your head?" + +"I don't know. I love Moscow." + +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. + +At last near the station they took a cab. + +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." + +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. + +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. + +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. + +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. + +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. + +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. + +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. + +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . + +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. + + +XIV + +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. + +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. + +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" + +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. + +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." + +"With pleasure, Polina." + +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." + +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. + +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" + +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. + +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." + +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." + +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. + +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. + +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. + +"Where are you going now?" he asked. + +"To Yartsev's." + +"I'll come with you." + +"But you'll prevent him from writing." + +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. + +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. + +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: + +"Please walk in." + +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" + +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. + +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." + +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. + +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." + +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" + +"Yes, I love it." + +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." + +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" + +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. + +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." + +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a question, a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. + +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: + +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" + +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. + +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" + +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." + +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." + +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. + +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. + +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: + +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." + +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. + + +XV + +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. + +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. + +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. + +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. + +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: + +"M. Laptev, save my children!" + +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. + +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" + +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. + +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." + +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" + +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." + +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. + +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." + +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. + +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. + +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. + +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." + +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. + +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. + +"That's intelligible of itself." + +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." + +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." + +"That's your affair." + +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: + +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." + +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" + +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. + +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" + +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" + +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" + +"University men are not suitable for our business." + +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" + +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." + +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." + +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. + +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" + +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. + +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" + +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." + +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. + +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. + +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." + +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" + +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: + +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." + +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. + +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." + +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. + +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." + +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . + +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. + + +XVI + +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. + +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. + +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." + +He began breathing heavily with excitement. + +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. + +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." + +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. + +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. + +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. + +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. + +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." + +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." + +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." + +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." + +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. + +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." + +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." + +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." + +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." + +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. + +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." + +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." + +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. + +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. + +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. + +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" + +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." + +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. + +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: + +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." + +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. + +When she got home she said to her husband: + +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." + +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: + +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." + +He got up and walked to the window. + +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." + +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. + +"Here it is." + +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. + +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." + +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. + + +XVII + +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. + +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. + +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. + +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: + +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." + +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. + +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." + +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: + +"Except." + +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: + +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" + +"Not a bit of it." + +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" + +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. + +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" + +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. + +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. + +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." + +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" + +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. + +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. + +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. + +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. + +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? + +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . + +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . + +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. + +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" + +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. + +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." + +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. + +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." + +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: + +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." + +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? + +And he thought: + +"Let us live, and we shall see." + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13416.txt or 13416.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/4/1/13416/ + +Produced by James Rusk. 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Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/13416.zip b/old/13416.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7def926 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13416.zip diff --git a/old/old/20040909-13416-8.txt b/old/old/20040909-13416-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..992cb34 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/old/20040909-13416-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8503 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Darling and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 1 + +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE DARLING +ARIADNE +POLINKA +ANYUTA +THE TWO VOLODYAS +THE TROUSSEAU +THE HELPMATE +TALENT +AN ARTIST'S STORY +THREE YEARS + + + + +THE DARLING + +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. + +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. + +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." + +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: + +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." + +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: + +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" + +And next day the same thing. + +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" + +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . + +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: + +"You darling!" + +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. + +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naïve, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. + +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." + +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. + +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. + +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. + +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" + +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. + +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." + +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: + +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." + +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. + +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" + +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. + +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" + +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. + +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." + +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. + +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. + +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. + +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" + +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. + +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" + +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. + +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." + +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" + +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. + +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." + +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. + +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." + +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: + +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." + +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. + +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. + +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. + +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" + +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: + +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." + +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: + +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." + +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" + +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. + +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. + +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. + +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. + +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: + +"Get along; I don't want you!" + +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. + +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. + +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. + +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." + +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. + +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." + +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" + +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. + +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." + +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: + +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." + +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. + +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. + +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. + +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. + +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. + +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." + +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. + +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." + +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. + +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. + +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: + +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." + +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. + +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? + +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. + +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" + +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." + +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. + +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." + +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. + +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. + +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" + +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. + +"Well, thank God!" she would think. + +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: + +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" + + +ARIADNE + +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: + +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." + +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. + +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. + +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: + +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? + +"No, not in the least." + +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: + +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." + +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: + +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." + +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: + +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" + +I told him it would not, and he went on: + +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. + +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. + +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. + +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. + +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Cæsar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" + +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-à-banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. + +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! + +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . + +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. + +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." + +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" + +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. + +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. + +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. + +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." + +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: + +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." + +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: + +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" + +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: + +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." + +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. + +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." + +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. + +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" + +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. + +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: + +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" + +She was angry in earnest, and went on: + +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." + +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. + +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" + +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: + +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" + +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. + +I behaved, I confess, as naïvely as a schoolboy. + +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. + +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. + +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" + +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. + +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" + +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. + +"What can I do?" I inquired. + +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." + +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. + +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. + +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. + +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. + +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dépendance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. + +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. + +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dépendances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! + +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . + +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. + +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" + +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . + +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." + +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. + +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." + +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. + +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" + +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: + +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" + +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." + +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: + +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." + +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. + +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. + +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. + +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _café complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. + +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. + +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. + +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. + +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" + +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . + +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" + +When I counted over the money I received he said: + +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." + +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. + +I knocked at the door. + +"Entrez!" + +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. + +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. + +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: + +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" + +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: + +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." + +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. + +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. + +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. + +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" + +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" + +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. + +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" + +"But I thought you loved him," I said. + +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." + +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. + +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. + +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: + +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" + +Then my love entered upon its final phase. + +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" + +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. + +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. + +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. + +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennæ. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. + +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." + +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." + +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naïve +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. + +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. + +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. + +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. + +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. + + ---- + +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. + +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." + +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." + +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. + +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" + +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. + +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" + +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. + +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: + +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." + +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. + +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." + +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. + +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" + +And he ran on. + +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" + + ---- + +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. + + +POLINKA + +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveauté's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. + +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: + +"What is your pleasure, madam?" + +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. + +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. + +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" + +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." + +"Gimp--for what purpose?" + +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." + +"Certainly." + +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. + +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." + +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" + +"Yes." + +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: + +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" + +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" + +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. + +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. + +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." + +"And how much is it?" + +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. + +"Why?" + +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." + +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. + +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" + +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." + +"What kind would you like?" + +"The best, something fashionable." + +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" + +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: + +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." + +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. + +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. + +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. + +"What kind?" + +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." + +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" + +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." + +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: + +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" + +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: + +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." + +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." + +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" + +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: + +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moiré stripe!" + +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. + +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." + +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. + +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" + +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" + +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." + +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." + +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I . . . I am." + +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" + +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. + +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." + +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: + +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: + +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" + +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: + +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." + + +ANYUTA + +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. + +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . + +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulæ_. . ." + +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. + +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." + +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. + +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" + +"Your fingers are cold!" + +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" + +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. + +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" + +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. + +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." + +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . + +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. + +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. + +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. + +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." + +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." + +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. + +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" + +Anyuta began dressing. + +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. + +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." + +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." + +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" + +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." + +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" + +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." + +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. + +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: + +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." + +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. + +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." + +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. + +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. + +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. + +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: + +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." + +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. + +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: + +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" + +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. + +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." + +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" + + +THE TWO VOLODYAS + +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." + +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. + +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" + +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. + +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" + +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par dépit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? + +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" + +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. + +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! + +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. + +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. + +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. + +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." + +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par dépit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. + +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. + +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. + +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. + +"_Par dépit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par dépit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" + +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par dépit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." + +He turned up his collar again. + +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" + +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: + +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." + +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. + +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." + +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. + +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" + +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. + +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. + +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. + +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" + +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: + +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." + +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well? + +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" + +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." + +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: + +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet.'' + +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. + +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. + +"Very." + +"Well, thank God for that." + +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: + +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." + +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. + +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. + +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. + +"Mind you come, Olga." + +"I will, I will." + +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. + +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. + +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. + +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" + +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: + +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." + +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. + +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." + +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: + +"Volodya!" + +"What is it?" her husband responded. + +"Nothing." + +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. + +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. + +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. + +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. + +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." + +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. + +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. + +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. + +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" + +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. + +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." + +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." + +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" + +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: + +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" + +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." + +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." + +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." + +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." + +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. + +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" + +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. + +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" + +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. + +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. + +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: + +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: + +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. + +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." + +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. + +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. + +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. + +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. + + +THE TROUSSEAU + +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. + +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. + +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . + +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. + +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. + +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. + +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. + +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. + +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. + +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. + +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. + +_"Où est mon cravatte lequel mon père m'avait envoyé de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. + +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." + +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. + +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. + +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. + +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. + +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." + +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" + +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" + +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" + +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. + +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. + +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." + +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. + +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." + +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. + +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. + +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. + +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. + +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. + +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. + +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." + +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." + +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. + +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. + +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. + +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." + +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. + +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." + +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. + +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. + +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. + +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: + +_"Je suis charmée de vous revoir, monsieur."_ + +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. + +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. + +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: + +"We are all alone in the world." + +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . + +I understood, and my heart was heavy. + + +THE HELPMATE + +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." + +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. + +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. + +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. + +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" + +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. + +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. + +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. + +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. + +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" + +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. + +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. + +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." + +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . + +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." + +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. + +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" + +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. + +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." + +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. + +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." + +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." + +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. + +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. + +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" + +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. + +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. + +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. + +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." + +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." + +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. + +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." + +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. + +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." + +"I repeat, you are free." + +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. + +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. + +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: + +"When you like." + +"I shall only go for a month." + +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." + +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." + +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" + +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." + +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" + +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. + +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. + +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." + +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the rôle of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naïve, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." + +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. + +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." + + +TALENT + +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. + +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: + +"I cannot marry." + +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. + +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." + +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" + +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." + +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." + +"Damn her! I'll pay." + +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. + +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. + +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" + +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" + +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. + +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" + +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. + +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" + +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: + +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" + +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. + +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" + +There followed handshakes, questions. + +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. + +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" + +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. + +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." + +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. + +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" + +The decanter was brought on to the scene. + +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. + +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" + +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: + +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" + +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! + +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. + +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. + +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." + +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. + + +AN ARTIST'S STORY + +I + +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. + +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. + +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. + +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. + +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. + +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. + +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." + +I bowed. + +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. + +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." + +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. + +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." + +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" + +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. + +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. + +It was dark and still as we went home. + +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" + +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. + +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" + +II + +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: + +"That's of no interest to you." + +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. + +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. + +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. + +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. + +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. + +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." + +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." + +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" + +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." + +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. + +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" + +"Because she is wrong." + +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. + +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. + +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." + +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. + +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" + +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. + +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." + +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: + +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." + +And again she buried herself in her book. + +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. + +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. + +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" + +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. + +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. + +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. + +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" + +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. + +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." + +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. + +III + +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." + +I felt irritated. + +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." + +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: + +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" + +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." + +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: + +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." + +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." + +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. + +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." + +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." + +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." + +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." + +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." + +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. + +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." + +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" + +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." + +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." + +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." + +"You are opposed to medicine, too." + +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" + +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. + +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. + +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. + +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." + +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. + +IV + +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. + +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." + +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. + +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." + +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." + +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. + +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." + +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." + +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. + +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." + +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. + +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" + +She ran to the gates. + +"Good-bye!" she called. + +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. + +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. + +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: + +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. + +"It's I." + +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." + +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" + +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" + +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." + +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: + +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" + +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. + + ---- + +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. + +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . + +Misuce, where are you? + + +THREE YEARS + +I + +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. + +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. + +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. + +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" + +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. + +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" + +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." + +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. + +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. + +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." + +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." + +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. + +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" + +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. + +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" + +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. + +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. + +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? + +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. + +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. + +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. + +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." + +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naïve and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? + +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. + +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. + +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. + +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. + +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. + +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: + +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." + +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. + +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." + +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. + +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." + +"What do you think about, dear?" + +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." + +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: + +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" + +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. + +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. + +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. + +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: + +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." + +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. + +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's Just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." + +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. + +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." + +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. + +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. + +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." + +"Well, that can easily be managed." + +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-à-brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. + +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. + +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." + +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. + +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. + +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. + +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. + +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. + +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: + +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, + +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. + +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. + +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" + +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. + +II + +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. + +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. + +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. + +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. + +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." + +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. + +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. + +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." + +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. + +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. + +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." + +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! + +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. + +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. + +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. + +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. + +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." + +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. + +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" + +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." + +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. + +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." + +"I am not disturbing you?" + +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. + +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." + +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." + +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. "One has to arrange one's +life under such conditions, that work is inevitable. There can be +no clean and happy life without work." + +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: + +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." + +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. + +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." + +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. + +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. + +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" + +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. + +III + +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. + +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . + +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. + +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." + +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. + +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. + +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. + +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. + +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" + +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. + +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." + +"I refused him." + +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: + +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." + +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. + +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. + +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. + +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: + +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" + +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? + +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. + +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. + +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. + +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. + +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . + +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. + +IV + +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. + +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: + +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" + +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. + +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." + +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." + +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. + +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. + +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" + +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: + +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" + +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: + +"I beg you to stay." + +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. + +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: + +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." + +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. + +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . + +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: + +"Why has this happened?" + +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. + +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" + +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." + +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. + +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." + +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. + +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" + +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." + +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." + +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: + +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." + +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. + +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. + +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. + +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. + +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." + +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. + +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. + +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: + +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." + +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. + +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." + +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." + +V + +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: + +"The psychological sequences of the age." + +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. + +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" + +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" + +"Awfully bad." + +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." + +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. + +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" + +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. + +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. + +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." + +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. + +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer:" +'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." + +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. + +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: + +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." + +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. + +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." + +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: + +"Except!" + +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: + +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." + +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: + +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." + +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: + +"Keep on your feet!" + +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: + +"Now then, breathe," he would say. + +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. + +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. + +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employés, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. + +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. + +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. + +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." + +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." + +"I don't go to mass." + +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. + +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." + +VI + +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. + +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. + +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." + +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. + +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." + +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. + +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. + +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. + +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. + +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" + +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: + +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." + +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: + +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." + +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. + +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." + +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. + +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." + +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: + +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" + +VII + +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: + +"Have you seen Yartsev?" + +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. + +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. + +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. + +The public applauded and shouted encore. + +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." + +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. + +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. + +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." + +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." + +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." + +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. + +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: + +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" + +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." + +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. + +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." + +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. + +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: + +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." + +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. + +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. + +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" + +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." + +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" + +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. + +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. + +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. + +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" + +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. + +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Does she love you?" + +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. + +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." + +"And yet she takes money from you?" + +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." + +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. + +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." + +"Do you love her?" + +"Desperately." + +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. + +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" + +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. + +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." + +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. + +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." + +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. + +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, + +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." + +"Well, do, dear!" + +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. + +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ + +VIII + +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. + +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. + +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." + +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. + +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" + +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. + +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." + +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." + +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. + +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." + +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. + +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. + +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" + +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. + +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. + +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. + +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." + +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. + +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. + +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." + +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: + +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." + +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: + +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." + +IX + +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. + +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. + +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. + +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. + +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." + +Pyotr sighed from politeness. + +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. + +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." + +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. + +"There's no seeing," he said. + +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. + +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" + +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. + +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" + +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. + +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. + +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. + +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." + +"All right." + +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. + +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" + +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. + +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." + +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. + +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." + +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. + +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." + +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. + +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" + +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. + +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. + +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. + +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. + +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. + +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, æsthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . + +They used to talk at dinner. + +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." + +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. + +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. + +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. + +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." + +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. + +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." + +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. + +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: + +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." + +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. + +X + +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. + +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. + +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. + +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: + +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" + +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." + +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. + +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" + +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." + +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. + +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" + +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. + +They all laughed, and Kish with them. + +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. + +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." + +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." + +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." + +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. + +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." + +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. + +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. + +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: + +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." + +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." + +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." + +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. + +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." + +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" + +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. + +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." + +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. + +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. + +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." + +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. + +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." + +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. + +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" + +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: + +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." + +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. + +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. + +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." + +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." + +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" + +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. + +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" + +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" + +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. + +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." + +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. + +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. + +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. + +XI + +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. + +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." + +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. + +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" + +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. + +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." + +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: + +"And have you a lover yet?" + +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. + +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." + +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. + +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." + +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. + +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. + +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" + +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." + +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: + +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." + +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: + +"Catch!" + +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: + +"Naughty girl!" + +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." + +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. + +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." + +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. + +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. + +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. + +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. + +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. + +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. + +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. + +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. + +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" + +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. + +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." + +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. + +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. + +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. + +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. + +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" + +"What is it?" said Yulia. + +"A telegram for you!" + +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." + +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: + +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." + +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. + +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. + +XII + +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. + +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? + +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. + +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." + +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. + +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. + +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. + +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" + +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: + +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" + +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. + +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. + +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. + +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. + +XIII + +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. + +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." + +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" + +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. + +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." + +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" + +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." + +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." + +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. + +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. + +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. + +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." + +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." + +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. + +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. + +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." + +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. + +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." + +"Well, I might." + +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. + +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. + +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" + +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. + +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" + +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. + +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" + +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. + +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" + +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. + +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." + +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. + +"Nature be damned," he shouted. + +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." + +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. + +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. + +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. + +"What put that into your head?" + +"I don't know. I love Moscow." + +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. + +At last near the station they took a cab. + +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." + +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. + +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. + +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. + +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. + +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. + +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. + +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. + +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . + +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. + +XIV + +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. + +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. + +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" + +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. + +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." + +"With pleasure, Polina." + +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." + +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. + +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" + +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. + +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." + +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." + +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. + +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. + +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. + +"Where are you going now?" he asked. + +"To Yartsev's." + +"I'll come with you." + +"But you'll prevent him from writing." + +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. + +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. + +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: + +"Please walk in." + +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" + +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. + +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." + +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. + +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." + +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" + +"Yes, I love it." + +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." + +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" + +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. + +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." + +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a questions a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. + +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: + +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" + +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. + +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" + +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." + +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." + +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. + +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. + +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: + +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." + +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. + +XV + +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. + +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. + +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. + +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. + +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: + +"M. Laptev, save my children!" + +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. + +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" + +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. + +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." + +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" + +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." + +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. + +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." + +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. + +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. + +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. + +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." + +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. + +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. + +"That's intelligible of itself." + +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." + +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." + +"That's your affair." + +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: + +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." + +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" + +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. + +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" + +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" + +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" + +"University men are not suitable for our business." + +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" + +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." + +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." + +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. + +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" + +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. + +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" + +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." + +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. + +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. + +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." + +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" + +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: + +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." + +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. + +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." + +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. + +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." + +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . + +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. + +XVI + +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. + +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. + +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." + +He began breathing heavily with excitement. + +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. + +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." + +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. + +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. + +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. + +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. + +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." + +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." + +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." + +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." + +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. + +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." + +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." + +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." + +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." + +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. + +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." + +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." + +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. + +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. + +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. + +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" + +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." + +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. + +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: + +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." + +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. + +When she got home she said to her husband: + +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." + +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: + +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." + +He got up and walked to the window. + +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." + +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. + +"Here it is." + +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. + +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." + +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. + +XVII + +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. + +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. + +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. + +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: + +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." + +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. + +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." + +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: + +"Except." + +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: + +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" + +"Not a bit of it." + +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" + +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. + +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" + +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. + +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. + +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." + +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" + +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. + +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. + +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. + +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. + +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? + +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . + +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . + +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. + +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" + +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. + +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." + +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. + +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." + +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: + +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." + +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? + +And he thought: + +"Let us live, and we shall see." + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13416-8.txt or 13416-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/4/1/13416/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Darling and Other Stories + +Author: Anton Chekhov + +Release Date: September 9, 2004 [EBook #13416] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + + + + +Produced by James Rusk + + + + + +THE TALES OF CHEKHOV + +VOLUME 1 + +THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES + +BY + +ANTON TCHEKHOV + +Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT + + + + +CONTENTS + + +THE DARLING +ARIADNE +POLINKA +ANYUTA +THE TWO VOLODYAS +THE TROUSSEAU +THE HELPMATE +TALENT +AN ARTIST'S STORY +THREE YEARS + + + + +THE DARLING + +OLENKA, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor, Plemyanniakov, +was sitting in her back porch, lost in thought. It was hot, the +flies were persistent and teasing, and it was pleasant to reflect +that it would soon be evening. Dark rainclouds were gathering from +the east, and bringing from time to time a breath of moisture in +the air. + +Kukin, who was the manager of an open-air theatre called the Tivoli, +and who lived in the lodge, was standing in the middle of the garden +looking at the sky. + +"Again!" he observed despairingly. "It's going to rain again! Rain +every day, as though to spite me. I might as well hang myself! It's +ruin! Fearful losses every day." + +He flung up his hands, and went on, addressing Olenka: + +"There! that's the life we lead, Olga Semyonovna. It's enough to +make one cry. One works and does one's utmost, one wears oneself +out, getting no sleep at night, and racks one's brain what to do +for the best. And then what happens? To begin with, one's public +is ignorant, boorish. I give them the very best operetta, a dainty +masque, first rate music-hall artists. But do you suppose that's +what they want! They don't understand anything of that sort. They +want a clown; what they ask for is vulgarity. And then look at the +weather! Almost every evening it rains. It started on the tenth of +May, and it's kept it up all May and June. It's simply awful! The +public doesn't come, but I've to pay the rent just the same, and +pay the artists." + +The next evening the clouds would gather again, and Kukin would say +with an hysterical laugh: + +"Well, rain away, then! Flood the garden, drown me! Damn my luck +in this world and the next! Let the artists have me up! Send me to +prison!--to Siberia!--the scaffold! Ha, ha, ha!" + +And next day the same thing. + +Olenka listened to Kukin with silent gravity, and sometimes tears +came into her eyes. In the end his misfortunes touched her; she +grew to love him. He was a small thin man, with a yellow face, and +curls combed forward on his forehead. He spoke in a thin tenor; as +he talked his mouth worked on one side, and there was always an +expression of despair on his face; yet he aroused a deep and genuine +affection in her. She was always fond of some one, and could not +exist without loving. In earlier days she had loved her papa, who +now sat in a darkened room, breathing with difficulty; she had loved +her aunt who used to come every other year from Bryansk; and before +that, when she was at school, she had loved her French master. She +was a gentle, soft-hearted, compassionate girl, with mild, tender +eyes and very good health. At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, +her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, +naive smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything +pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while +lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle +of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!" + +The house in which she had lived from her birth upwards, and which +was left her in her father's will, was at the extreme end of the +town, not far from the Tivoli. In the evenings and at night she +could head the band playing, and the crackling and banging of +fireworks, and it seemed to her that it was Kukin struggling with +his destiny, storming the entrenchments of his chief foe, the +indifferent public; there was a sweet thrill at her heart, she had +no desire to sleep, and when he returned home at day-break, she +tapped softly at her bedroom window, and showing him only her face +and one shoulder through the curtain, she gave him a friendly +smile. . . . + +He proposed to her, and they were married. And when he had a closer +view of her neck and her plump, fine shoulders, he threw up his +hands, and said: + +"You darling!" + +He was happy, but as it rained on the day and night of his wedding, +his face still retained an expression of despair. + +They got on very well together. She used to sit in his office, to +look after things in the Tivoli, to put down the accounts and pay +the wages. And her rosy cheeks, her sweet, naive, radiant smile, +were to be seen now at the office window, now in the refreshment +bar or behind the scenes of the theatre. And already she used to +say to her acquaintances that the theatre was the chief and most +important thing in life and that it was only through the drama that +one could derive true enjoyment and become cultivated and humane. + +"But do you suppose the public understands that?" she used to say. +"What they want is a clown. Yesterday we gave 'Faust Inside Out,' +and almost all the boxes were empty; but if Vanitchka and I had +been producing some vulgar thing, I assure you the theatre would +have been packed. Tomorrow Vanitchka and I are doing 'Orpheus in +Hell.' Do come." + +And what Kukin said about the theatre and the actors she repeated. +Like him she despised the public for their ignorance and their +indifference to art; she took part in the rehearsals, she corrected +the actors, she kept an eye on the behaviour of the musicians, and +when there was an unfavourable notice in the local paper, she shed +tears, and then went to the editor's office to set things right. + +The actors were fond of her and used to call her "Vanitchka and I," +and "the darling"; she was sorry for them and used to lend them +small sums of money, and if they deceived her, she used to shed a +few tears in private, but did not complain to her husband. + +They got on well in the winter too. They took the theatre in the +town for the whole winter, and let it for short terms to a Little +Russian company, or to a conjurer, or to a local dramatic society. +Olenka grew stouter, and was always beaming with satisfaction, while +Kukin grew thinner and yellower, and continually complained of their +terrible losses, although he had not done badly all the winter. He +used to cough at night, and she used to give him hot raspberry tea +or lime-flower water, to rub him with eau-de-Cologne and to wrap +him in her warm shawls. + +"You're such a sweet pet!" she used to say with perfect sincerity, +stroking his hair. "You're such a pretty dear!" + +Towards Lent he went to Moscow to collect a new troupe, and without +him she could not sleep, but sat all night at her window, looking +at the stars, and she compared herself with the hens, who are awake +all night and uneasy when the cock is not in the hen-house. Kukin +was detained in Moscow, and wrote that he would be back at Easter, +adding some instructions about the Tivoli. But on the Sunday before +Easter, late in the evening, came a sudden ominous knock at the +gate; some one was hammering on the gate as though on a barrel-- +boom, boom, boom! The drowsy cook went flopping with her bare feet +through the puddles, as she ran to open the gate. + +"Please open," said some one outside in a thick bass. "There is a +telegram for you." + +Olenka had received telegrams from her husband before, but this +time for some reason she felt numb with terror. With shaking hands +she opened the telegram and read as follows: + +"IVAN PETROVITCH DIED SUDDENLY TO-DAY. AWAITING IMMATE INSTRUCTIONS +FUFUNERAL TUESDAY." + +That was how it was written in the telegram--"fufuneral," and the +utterly incomprehensible word "immate." It was signed by the stage +manager of the operatic company. + +"My darling!" sobbed Olenka. "Vanka, my precious, my darling! Why +did I ever meet you! Why did I know you and love you! Your poor +heart-broken Olenka is alone without you!" + +Kukin's funeral took place on Tuesday in Moscow, Olenka returned +home on Wednesday, and as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself +on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, +and in the street. + +"Poor darling!" the neighbours said, as they crossed themselves. +"Olga Semyonovna, poor darling! How she does take on!" + +Three months later Olenka was coming home from mass, melancholy and +in deep mourning. It happened that one of her neighbours, Vassily +Andreitch Pustovalov, returning home from church, walked back beside +her. He was the manager at Babakayev's, the timber merchant's. He +wore a straw hat, a white waistcoat, and a gold watch-chain, and +looked more a country gentleman than a man in trade. + +"Everything happens as it is ordained, Olga Semyonovna," he said +gravely, with a sympathetic note in his voice; "and if any of our +dear ones die, it must be because it is the will of God, so we ought +have fortitude and bear it submissively." + +After seeing Olenka to her gate, he said good-bye and went on. All +day afterwards she heard his sedately dignified voice, and whenever +she shut her eyes she saw his dark beard. She liked him very much. +And apparently she had made an impression on him too, for not long +afterwards an elderly lady, with whom she was only slightly acquainted, +came to drink coffee with her, and as soon as she was seated at +table began to talk about Pustovalov, saying that he was an excellent +man whom one could thoroughly depend upon, and that any girl would +be glad to marry him. Three days later Pustovalov came himself. He +did not stay long, only about ten minutes, and he did not say much, +but when he left, Olenka loved him--loved him so much that she +lay awake all night in a perfect fever, and in the morning she sent +for the elderly lady. The match was quickly arranged, and then came +the wedding. + +Pustovalov and Olenka got on very well together when they were +married. + +Usually he sat in the office till dinner-time, then he went out on +business, while Olenka took his place, and sat in the office till +evening, making up accounts and booking orders. + +"Timber gets dearer every year; the price rises twenty per cent," +she would say to her customers and friends. "Only fancy we used to +sell local timber, and now Vassitchka always has to go for wood to +the Mogilev district. And the freight!" she would add, covering her +cheeks with her hands in horror. "The freight!" + +It seemed to her that she had been in the timber trade for ages and +ages, and that the most important and necessary thing in life was +timber; and there was something intimate and touching to her in the +very sound of words such as "baulk," "post," "beam," "pole," +"scantling," "batten," "lath," "plank," etc. + +At night when she was asleep she dreamed of perfect mountains of +planks and boards, and long strings of wagons, carting timber +somewhere far away. She dreamed that a whole regiment of six-inch +beams forty feet high, standing on end, was marching upon the +timber-yard; that logs, beams, and boards knocked together with the +resounding crash of dry wood, kept falling and getting up again, +piling themselves on each other. Olenka cried out in her sleep, and +Pustovalov said to her tenderly: "Olenka, what's the matter, darling? +Cross yourself!" + +Her husband's ideas were hers. If he thought the room was too hot, +or that business was slack, she thought the same. Her husband did +not care for entertainments, and on holidays he stayed at home. She +did likewise. + +"You are always at home or in the office," her friends said to her. +"You should go to the theatre, darling, or to the circus." + +"Vassitchka and I have no time to go to theatres," she would answer +sedately. "We have no time for nonsense. What's the use of these +theatres?" + +On Saturdays Pustovalov and she used to go to the evening service; +on holidays to early mass, and they walked side by side with softened +faces as they came home from church. There was a pleasant fragrance +about them both, and her silk dress rustled agreeably. At home they +drank tea, with fancy bread and jams of various kinds, and afterwards +they ate pie. Every day at twelve o'clock there was a savoury smell +of beet-root soup and of mutton or duck in their yard, and on +fast-days of fish, and no one could pass the gate without feeling +hungry. In the office the samovar was always boiling, and customers +were regaled with tea and cracknels. Once a week the couple went +to the baths and returned side by side, both red in the face. + +"Yes, we have nothing to complain of, thank God," Olenka used to +say to her acquaintances. "I wish every one were as well off as +Vassitchka and I." + +When Pustovalov went away to buy wood in the Mogilev district, she +missed him dreadfully, lay awake and cried. A young veterinary +surgeon in the army, called Smirnin, to whom they had let their +lodge, used sometimes to come in in the evening. He used to talk +to her and play cards with her, and this entertained her in her +husband's absence. She was particularly interested in what he told +her of his home life. He was married and had a little boy, but was +separated from his wife because she had been unfaithful to him, and +now he hated her and used to send her forty roubles a month for the +maintenance of their son. And hearing of all this, Olenka sighed +and shook her head. She was sorry for him. + +"Well, God keep you," she used to say to him at parting, as she +lighted him down the stairs with a candle. "Thank you for coming +to cheer me up, and may the Mother of God give you health." + +And she always expressed herself with the same sedateness and +dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As +the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she +would say: + +"You know, Vladimir Platonitch, you'd better make it up with your +wife. You should forgive her for the sake of your son. You may be +sure the little fellow understands." + +And when Pustovalov came back, she told him in a low voice about +the veterinary surgeon and his unhappy home life, and both sighed +and shook their heads and talked about the boy, who, no doubt, +missed his father, and by some strange connection of ideas, they +went up to the holy ikons, bowed to the ground before them and +prayed that God would give them children. + +And so the Pustovalovs lived for six years quietly and peaceably +in love and complete harmony. + +But behold! one winter day after drinking hot tea in the office, +Vassily Andreitch went out into the yard without his cap on to see +about sending off some timber, caught cold and was taken ill. He +had the best doctors, but he grew worse and died after four months' +illness. And Olenka was a widow once more. + +"I've nobody, now you've left me, my darling," she sobbed, after +her husband's funeral. "How can I live without you, in wretchedness +and misery! Pity me, good people, all alone in the world!" + +She went about dressed in black with long "weepers," and gave up +wearing hat and gloves for good. She hardly ever went out, except +to church, or to her husband's grave, and led the life of a nun. +It was not till six months later that she took off the weepers and +opened the shutters of the windows. She was sometimes seen in the +mornings, going with her cook to market for provisions, but what +went on in her house and how she lived now could only be surmised. +People guessed, from seeing her drinking tea in her garden with the +veterinary surgeon, who read the newspaper aloud to her, and from +the fact that, meeting a lady she knew at the post-office, she said +to her: + +"There is no proper veterinary inspection in our town, and that's +the cause of all sorts of epidemics. One is always hearing of +people's getting infection from the milk supply, or catching diseases +from horses and cows. The health of domestic animals ought to be +as well cared for as the health of human beings." + +She repeated the veterinary surgeon's words, and was of the same +opinion as he about everything. It was evident that she could not +live a year without some attachment, and had found new happiness +in the lodge. In any one else this would have been censured, but +no one could think ill of Olenka; everything she did was so natural. +Neither she nor the veterinary surgeon said anything to other people +of the change in their relations, and tried, indeed, to conceal it, +but without success, for Olenka could not keep a secret. When he +had visitors, men serving in his regiment, and she poured out tea +or served the supper, she would begin talking of the cattle plague, +of the foot and mouth disease, and of the municipal slaughterhouses. +He was dreadfully embarrassed, and when the guests had gone, he +would seize her by the hand and hiss angrily: + +"I've asked you before not to talk about what you don't understand. +When we veterinary surgeons are talking among ourselves, please +don't put your word in. It's really annoying." + +And she would look at him with astonishment and dismay, and ask him +in alarm: "But, Voloditchka, what _am_ I to talk about?" + +And with tears in her eyes she would embrace him, begging him not +to be angry, and they were both happy. + +But this happiness did not last long. The veterinary surgeon departed, +departed for ever with his regiment, when it was transferred to a +distant place--to Siberia, it may be. And Olenka was left alone. + +Now she was absolutely alone. Her father had long been dead, and +his armchair lay in the attic, covered with dust and lame of one +leg. She got thinner and plainer, and when people met her in the +street they did not look at her as they used to, and did not smile +to her; evidently her best years were over and left behind, and now +a new sort of life had begun for her, which did not bear thinking +about. In the evening Olenka sat in the porch, and heard the band +playing and the fireworks popping in the Tivoli, but now the sound +stirred no response. She looked into her yard without interest, +thought of nothing, wished for nothing, and afterwards, when night +came on she went to bed and dreamed of her empty yard. She ate and +drank as it were unwillingly. + +And what was worst of all, she had no opinions of any sort. She saw +the objects about her and understood what she saw, but could not +form any opinion about them, and did not know what to talk about. +And how awful it is not to have any opinions! One sees a bottle, +for instance, or the rain, or a peasant driving in his cart, but +what the bottle is for, or the rain, or the peasant, and what is +the meaning of it, one can't say, and could not even for a thousand +roubles. When she had Kukin, or Pustovalov, or the veterinary +surgeon, Olenka could explain everything, and give her opinion about +anything you like, but now there was the same emptiness in her brain +and in her heart as there was in her yard outside. And it was as +harsh and as bitter as wormwood in the mouth. + +Little by little the town grew in all directions. The road became +a street, and where the Tivoli and the timber-yard had been, there +were new turnings and houses. How rapidly time passes! Olenka's +house grew dingy, the roof got rusty, the shed sank on one side, +and the whole yard was overgrown with docks and stinging-nettles. +Olenka herself had grown plain and elderly; in summer she sat in +the porch, and her soul, as before, was empty and dreary and full +of bitterness. In winter she sat at her window and looked at the +snow. When she caught the scent of spring, or heard the chime of +the church bells, a sudden rush of memories from the past came over +her, there was a tender ache in her heart, and her eyes brimmed +over with tears; but this was only for a minute, and then came +emptiness again and the sense of the futility of life. The black +kitten, Briska, rubbed against her and purred softly, but Olenka +was not touched by these feline caresses. That was not what she +needed. She wanted a love that would absorb her whole being, her +whole soul and reason--that would give her ideas and an object +in life, and would warm her old blood. And she would shake the +kitten off her skirt and say with vexation: + +"Get along; I don't want you!" + +And so it was, day after day and year after year, and no joy, and +no opinions. Whatever Mavra, the cook, said she accepted. + +One hot July day, towards evening, just as the cattle were being +driven away, and the whole yard was full of dust, some one suddenly +knocked at the gate. Olenka went to open it herself and was dumbfounded +when she looked out: she saw Smirnin, the veterinary surgeon, +grey-headed, and dressed as a civilian. She suddenly remembered +everything. She could not help crying and letting her head fall on +his breast without uttering a word, and in the violence of her +feeling she did not notice how they both walked into the house and +sat down to tea. + +"My dear Vladimir Platonitch! What fate has brought you?" she +muttered, trembling with joy. + +"I want to settle here for good, Olga Semyonovna," he told her. "I +have resigned my post, and have come to settle down and try my luck +on my own account. Besides, it's time for my boy to go to school. +He's a big boy. I am reconciled with my wife, you know." + +"Where is she?' asked Olenka. + +"She's at the hotel with the boy, and I'm looking for lodgings." + +"Good gracious, my dear soul! Lodgings? Why not have my house? Why +shouldn't that suit you? Why, my goodness, I wouldn't take any +rent!" cried Olenka in a flutter, beginning to cry again. "You live +here, and the lodge will do nicely for me. Oh dear! how glad I am!" + +Next day the roof was painted and the walls were whitewashed, and +Olenka, with her arms akimbo walked about the yard giving directions. +Her face was beaming with her old smile, and she was brisk and alert +as though she had waked from a long sleep. The veterinary's wife +arrived--a thin, plain lady, with short hair and a peevish +expression. With her was her little Sasha, a boy of ten, small for +his age, blue-eyed, chubby, with dimples in his cheeks. And scarcely +had the boy walked into the yard when he ran after the cat, and at +once there was the sound of his gay, joyous laugh. + +"Is that your puss, auntie?" he asked Olenka. "When she has little +ones, do give us a kitten. Mamma is awfully afraid of mice." + +Olenka talked to him, and gave him tea. Her heart warmed and there +was a sweet ache in her bosom, as though the boy had been her own +child. And when he sat at the table in the evening, going over his +lessons, she looked at him with deep tenderness and pity as she +murmured to herself: + +"You pretty pet! . . . my precious! . . . Such a fair little thing, +and so clever." + +"'An island is a piece of land which is entirely surrounded by +water,'" he read aloud. + +"An island is a piece of land," she repeated, and this was the first +opinion to which she gave utterance with positive conviction after +so many years of silence and dearth of ideas. + +Now she had opinions of her own, and at supper she talked to Sasha's +parents, saying how difficult the lessons were at the high schools, +but that yet the high school was better than a commercial one, since +with a high-school education all careers were open to one, such as +being a doctor or an engineer. + +Sasha began going to the high school. His mother departed to Harkov +to her sister's and did not return; his father used to go off every +day to inspect cattle, and would often be away from home for three +days together, and it seemed to Olenka as though Sasha was entirely +abandoned, that he was not wanted at home, that he was being starved, +and she carried him off to her lodge and gave him a little room +there. + +And for six months Sasha had lived in the lodge with her. Every +morning Olenka came into his bedroom and found him fast asleep, +sleeping noiselessly with his hand under his cheek. She was sorry +to wake him. + +"Sashenka," she would say mournfully, "get up, darling. It's time +for school." + +He would get up, dress and say his prayers, and then sit down to +breakfast, drink three glasses of tea, and eat two large cracknels +and a half a buttered roll. All this time he was hardly awake and +a little ill-humoured in consequence. + +"You don't quite know your fable, Sashenka," Olenka would say, +looking at him as though he were about to set off on a long journey. +"What a lot of trouble I have with you! You must work and do your +best, darling, and obey your teachers." + +"Oh, do leave me alone!" Sasha would say. + +Then he would go down the street to school, a little figure, wearing +a big cap and carrying a satchel on his shoulder. Olenka would +follow him noiselessly. + +"Sashenka!" she would call after him, and she would pop into his +hand a date or a caramel. When he reached the street where the +school was, he would feel ashamed of being followed by a tall, stout +woman, he would turn round and say: + +"You'd better go home, auntie. I can go the rest of the way alone." + +She would stand still and look after him fixedly till he had +disappeared at the school-gate. + +Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been +so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, +so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts +were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and +the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would +have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell +why? + +When she had seen the last of Sasha, she returned home, contented +and serene, brimming over with love; her face, which had grown +younger during the last six months, smiled and beamed; people meeting +her looked at her with pleasure. + +"Good-morning, Olga Semyonovna, darling. How are you, darling?" + +"The lessons at the high school are very difficult now," she would +relate at the market. "It's too much; in the first class yesterday +they gave him a fable to learn by heart, and a Latin translation +and a problem. You know it's too much for a little chap." + +And she would begin talking about the teachers, the lessons, and +the school books, saying just what Sasha said. + +At three o'clock they had dinner together: in the evening they +learned their lessons together and cried. When she put him to bed, +she would stay a long time making the Cross over him and murmuring +a prayer; then she would go to bed and dream of that far-away misty +future when Sasha would finish his studies and become a doctor or +an engineer, would have a big house of his own with horses and a +carriage, would get married and have children. . . . She would fall +asleep still thinking of the same thing, and tears would run down +her cheeks from her closed eyes, while the black cat lay purring +beside her: "Mrr, mrr, mrr." + +Suddenly there would come a loud knock at the gate. + +Olenka would wake up breathless with alarm, her heart throbbing. +Half a minute later would come another knock. + +"It must be a telegram from Harkov," she would think, beginning to +tremble from head to foot. "Sasha's mother is sending for him from +Harkov. . . . Oh, mercy on us!" + +She was in despair. Her head, her hands, and her feet would turn +chill, and she would feel that she was the most unhappy woman in +the world. But another minute would pass, voices would be heard: +it would turn out to be the veterinary surgeon coming home from the +club. + +"Well, thank God!" she would think. + +And gradually the load in her heart would pass off, and she would +feel at ease. She would go back to bed thinking of Sasha, who lay +sound asleep in the next room, sometimes crying out in his sleep: + +"I'll give it you! Get away! Shut up!" + + +ARIADNE + +ON the deck of a steamer sailing from Odessa to Sevastopol, a rather +good-looking gentleman, with a little round beard, came up to me +to smoke, and said: + +"Notice those Germans sitting near the shelter? Whenever Germans +or Englishmen get together, they talk about the crops, the price +of wool, or their personal affairs. But for some reason or other +when we Russians get together we never discuss anything but women +and abstract subjects--but especially women." + +This gentleman's face was familiar to me already. We had returned +from abroad the evening before in the same train, and at Volotchisk +when the luggage was being examined by the Customs, I saw him +standing with a lady, his travelling companion, before a perfect +mountain of trunks and baskets filled with ladies' clothes, and I +noticed how embarrassed and downcast he was when he had to pay duty +on some piece of silk frippery, and his companion protested and +threatened to make a complaint. Afterwards, on the way to Odessa, +I saw him carrying little pies and oranges to the ladies' compartment. + +It was rather damp; the vessel swayed a little, and the ladies had +retired to their cabins. + +The gentleman with the little round beard sat down beside me and +continued: + +"Yes, when Russians come together they discuss nothing but abstract +subjects and women. We are so intellectual, so solemn, that we utter +nothing but truths and can discuss only questions of a lofty order. +The Russian actor does not know how to be funny; he acts with +profundity even in a farce. We're just the same: when we have got +to talk of trifles we treat them only from an exalted point of view. +It comes from a lack of boldness, sincerity, and simplicity. We +talk so often about women, I fancy, because we are dissatisfied. +We take too ideal a view of women, and make demands out of all +proportion with what reality can give us; we get something utterly +different from what we want, and the result is dissatisfaction, +shattered hopes, and inward suffering, and if any one is suffering, +he's bound to talk of it. It does not bore you to go on with this +conversation? + +"No, not in the least." + +"In that case, allow me to introduce myself," said my companion, +rising from his seat a little: + +"Ivan Ilyitch Shamohin, a Moscow landowner of a sort. . . . You I +know very well." + +He sat down and went on, looking at me with a genuine and friendly +expression: + +"A mediocre philosopher, like Max Nordau, would explain these +incessant conversations about women as a form of erotic madness, +or would put it down to our having been slave-owners and so on; I +take quite a different view of it. I repeat, we are dissatisfied +because we are idealists. We want the creatures who bear us and our +children to be superior to us and to everything in the world. When +we are young we adore and poeticize those with whom we are in love: +love and happiness with us are synonyms. Among us in Russia marriage +without love is despised, sensuality is ridiculed and inspires +repulsion, and the greatest success is enjoyed by those tales and +novels in which women are beautiful, poetical, and exalted; and if +the Russian has been for years in ecstasies over Raphael's Madonna, +or is eager for the emancipation of women, I assure you there is +no affectation about it. But the trouble is that when we have been +married or been intimate with a woman for some two or three years, +we begin to feel deceived and disillusioned: we pair off with others, +and again--disappointment, again--repulsion, and in the long +run we become convinced that women are lying, trivial, fussy, unfair, +undeveloped, cruel--in fact, far from being superior, are +immeasurably inferior to us men. And in our dissatisfaction and +disappointment there is nothing left for us but to grumble and talk +about what we've been so cruelly deceived in." + +While Shamohin was talking I noticed that the Russian language and +our Russian surroundings gave him great pleasure. This was probably +because he had been very homesick abroad. Though he praised the +Russians and ascribed to them a rare idealism, he did not disparage +foreigners, and that I put down to his credit. It could be seen, +too, that there was some uneasiness in his soul, that he wanted to +talk more of himself than of women, and that I was in for a long +story in the nature of a confession. And when we had asked for a +bottle of wine and had each of us drunk a glass, this was how he +did in fact begin: + +"I remember in a novel of Weltmann's some one says, 'So that's the +story!' and some one else answers, 'No, that's not the story-- +that's only the introduction to the story.' In the same way what +I've said so far is only the introduction; what I really want to +tell you is my own love story. Excuse me, I must ask you again; it +won't bore you to listen?" + +I told him it would not, and he went on: + +The scene of my story is laid in the Moscow province in one of its +northern districts. The scenery there, I must tell you, is exquisite. +Our homestead is on the high bank of a rapid stream, where the water +chatters noisily day and night: imagine a big old garden, neat +flower-beds, beehives, a kitchen-garden, and below it a river with +leafy willows, which, when there is a heavy dew on them, have a +lustreless look as though they had turned grey; and on the other +side a meadow, and beyond the meadow on the upland a terrible, dark +pine forest. In that forest delicious, reddish agarics grow in +endless profusion, and elks still live in its deepest recesses. +When I am nailed up in my coffin I believe I shall still dream of +those early mornings, you know, when the sun hurts your eyes: or +the wonderful spring evenings when the nightingales and the landrails +call in the garden and beyond the garden, and sounds of the harmonica +float across from the village, while they play the piano indoors +and the stream babbles . . . when there is such music, in fact, +that one wants at the same time to cry and to sing aloud. + +We have not much arable land, but our pasture makes up for it, and +with the forest yields about two thousand roubles a year. I am the +only son of my father; we are both modest persons, and with my +father's pension that sum was amply sufficient for us. + +The first three years after finishing at the university I spent in +the country, looking after the estate and constantly expecting to +be elected on some local assembly; but what was most important, I +was violently in love with an extraordinarily beautiful and fascinating +girl. She was the sister of our neighbour, Kotlovitch, a ruined +landowner who had on his estate pine-apples, marvellous peaches, +lightning conductors, a fountain in the courtyard, and at the same +time not a farthing in his pocket. He did nothing and knew how to +do nothing. He was as flabby as though he had been made of boiled +turnip; he used to doctor the peasants by homeopathy and was +interested in spiritualism. He was, however, a man of great delicacy +and mildness, and by no means a fool, but I have no fondness for +these gentlemen who converse with spirits and cure peasant women +by magnetism. In the first place, the ideas of people who are not +intellectually free are always in a muddle, and it's extremely +difficult to talk to them; and, secondly, they usually love no one, +and have nothing to do with women, and their mysticism has an +unpleasant effect on sensitive people. I did not care for his +appearance either. He was tall, stout, white-skinned, with a little +head, little shining eyes, and chubby white fingers. He did not +shake hands, but kneaded one's hands in his. And he was always +apologising. If he asked for anything it was "Excuse me"; if he +gave you anything it was "Excuse me" too. + +As for his sister, she was a character out of a different opera. I +must explain that I had not been acquainted with the Kotlovitches +in my childhood and early youth, for my father had been a professor +at N., and we had for many years lived away. When I did make their +acquaintance the girl was twenty-two, had left school long before, +and had spent two or three years in Moscow with a wealthy aunt who +brought her out into society. When I was introduced and first had +to talk to her, what struck me most of all was her rare and beautiful +name--Ariadne. It suited her so wonderfully! She was a brunette, +very thin, very slender, supple, elegant, and extremely graceful, +with refined and exceedingly noble features. Her eyes were shining, +too, but her brother's shone with a cold sweetness, mawkish as +sugar-candy, while hers had the glow of youth, proud and beautiful. +She conquered me on the first day of our acquaintance, and indeed +it was inevitable. My first impression was so overwhelming that to +this day I cannot get rid of my illusions; I am still tempted to +imagine that nature had some grand, marvellous design when she +created that girl. + +Ariadne's voice, her walk, her hat, even her footprints on the sandy +bank where she used to angle for gudgeon, filled me with delight +and a passionate hunger for life. I judged of her spiritual being +from her lovely face and lovely figure, and every word, every smile +of Ariadne's bewitched me, conquered me and forced me to believe +in the loftiness of her soul. She was friendly, ready to talk, gay +and simple in her manners. She had a poetic belief in God, made +poetic reflections about death, and there was such a wealth of +varying shades in her spiritual organisation that even her faults +seemed in her to carry with them peculiar, charming qualities. +Suppose she wanted a new horse and had no money--what did that +matter? Something might be sold or pawned, or if the steward swore +that nothing could possibly be sold or pawned, the iron roofs might +be torn off the lodges and taken to the factory, or at the very +busiest time the farm-horses might be driven to the market and sold +there for next to nothing. These unbridled desires reduced the whole +household to despair at times, but she expressed them with such +refinement that everything was forgiven her; all things were permitted +her as to a goddess or to Caesar's wife. My love was pathetic and +was soon noticed by every one--my father, the neighbours, and the +peasants--and they all sympathised with me. When I stood the +workmen vodka, they would bow and say: "May the Kotlovitch young +lady be your bride, please God!" + +And Ariadne herself knew that I loved her. She would often ride +over on horseback or drive in the char-a-banc to see us, and would +spend whole days with me and my father. She made great friends with +the old man, and he even taught her to bicycle, which was his +favourite amusement. + +I remember helping her to get on the bicycle one evening, and she +looked so lovely that I felt as though I were burning my hands when +I touched her. I shuddered with rapture, and when the two of them, +my old father and she, both looking so handsome and elegant, bicycled +side by side along the main road, a black horse ridden by the steward +dashed aside on meeting them, and it seemed to me that it dashed +aside because it too was overcome by her beauty. My love, my worship, +touched Ariadne and softened her; she had a passionate longing to +be captivated like me and to respond with the same love. It was so +poetical! + +But she was incapable of really loving as I did, for she was cold +and already somewhat corrupted. There was a demon in her, whispering +to her day and night that she was enchanting, adorable; and, having +no definite idea for what object she was created, or for what purpose +life had been given her, she never pictured herself in the future +except as very wealthy and distinguished, she had visions of balls, +races, liveries, of sumptuous drawing-rooms, of a salon of her own, +and of a perfect swarm of counts, princes, ambassadors, celebrated +painters and artists, all of them adoring her and in ecstasies over +her beauty and her dresses. . . . + +This thirst for personal success, and this continual concentration +of the mind in one direction, makes people cold, and Ariadne was +cold--to me, to nature, and to music. Meanwhile time was passing, +and still there were no ambassadors on the scene. Ariadne went on +living with her brother, the spiritualist: things went from bad to +worse, so that she had nothing to buy hats and dresses with, and +had to resort to all sorts of tricks and dodges to conceal her +poverty. + +As luck would have it, a certain Prince Maktuev, a wealthy man but +an utterly insignificant person, had paid his addresses to her when +she was living at her aunt's in Moscow. She had refused him, +point-blank. But now she was fretted by the worm of repentance that +she had refused him; just as a peasant pouts with repulsion at a +mug of kvass with cockroaches in it but yet drinks it, so she frowned +disdainfully at the recollection of the prince, and yet she would +say to me: "Say what you like, there is something inexplicable, +fascinating, in a title. . . ." + +She dreamed of a title, of a brilliant position, and at the same +time she did not want to let me go. However one may dream of +ambassadors one's heart is not a stone, and one has wistful feelings +for one's youth. Ariadne tried to fall in love, made a show of being +in love, and even swore that she loved me. But I am a highly strung +and sensitive man; when I am loved I feel it even at a distance, +without vows and assurances; at once I felt as it were a coldness +in the air, and when she talked to me of love, it seemed to me as +though I were listening to the singing of a metal nightingale. +Ariadne was herself aware that she was lacking in something. She +was vexed and more than once I saw her cry. Another time--can you +imagine it?--all of a sudden she embraced me and kissed me. It +happened in the evening on the river-bank, and I saw by her eyes +that she did not love me, but was embracing me from curiosity, to +test herself and to see what came of it. And I felt dreadful. I +took her hands and said to her in despair: "These caresses without +love cause me suffering!" + +"What a queer fellow you are!" she said with annoyance, and walked +away. + +Another year or two might have passed, and in all probability I +should have married her, and so my story would have ended, but fate +was pleased to arrange our romance differently. It happened that a +new personage appeared on our horizon. Ariadne's brother had a visit +from an old university friend called Mihail Ivanitch Lubkov, a +charming man of whom coachmen and footmen used to say: "An entertaining +gentleman." He was a man of medium height, lean and bald, with a +face like a good-natured bourgeois, not interesting, but pale and +presentable, with a stiff, well-kept moustache, with a neck like +gooseskin, and a big Adam's apple. He used to wear pince-nez on a +wide black ribbon, lisped, and could not pronounce either _r_ or +_l_. He was always in good spirits, everything amused him. + +He had made an exceedingly foolish marriage at twenty, and had +acquired two houses in Moscow as part of his wife's dowry. He began +doing them up and building a bath-house, and was completely ruined. +Now his wife and four children lodged in Oriental Buildings in great +poverty, and he had to support them--and this amused him. He was +thirty-six and his wife was by now forty-two, and that, too, amused +him. His mother, a conceited, sulky personage, with aristocratic +pretensions, despised his wife and lived apart with a perfect +menagerie of cats and dogs, and he had to allow her seventy-five +roubles a month also; he was, too, a man of taste, liked lunching +at the Slavyansky Bazaar and dining at the Hermitage; he needed a +great deal of money, but his uncle only allowed him two thousand +roubles a year, which was not enough, and for days together he would +run about Moscow with his tongue out, as the saying is, looking for +some one to borrow from--and this, too, amused him. He had come +to Kotlovitch to find in the lap of nature, as he said, a rest from +family life. At dinner, at supper, and on our walks, he talked about +his wife, about his mother, about his creditors, about the bailiffs, +and laughed at them; he laughed at himself and assured us that, +thanks to his talent for borrowing, he had made a great number of +agreeable acquaintances. He laughed without ceasing and we laughed +too. Moreover, in his company we spent our time differently. I was +more inclined to quiet, so to say idyllic pleasures; I liked fishing, +evening walks, gathering mushrooms; Lubkov preferred picnics, +fireworks, hunting. He used to get up picnics three times a week, +and Ariadne, with an earnest and inspired face, used to write a +list of oysters, champagne, sweets, and used to send me into Moscow +to get them, without inquiring, of course, whether I had money. And +at the picnics there were toasts and laughter, and again mirthful +descriptions of how old his wife was, what fat lap-dogs his mother +had, and what charming people his creditors were. + +Lubkov was fond of nature, but he regarded it as something long +familiar and at the same time, in reality, infinitely beneath himself +and created for his pleasure. He would sometimes stand still before +some magnificent landscape and say: "It would be nice to have tea +here." + +One day, seeing Ariadne walking in the distance with a parasol, he +nodded towards her and said: + +"She's thin, and that's what I like; I don't like fat women." + +This made me wince. I asked him not to speak like that about women +before me. He looked at me in surprise and said: + +"What is there amiss in my liking thin women and not caring for fat +ones?" + +I made no answer. Afterwards, being in very good spirits and a +trifle elevated, he said: + +"I've noticed Ariadne Grigoryevna likes you. I can't understand why +you don't go in and win." + +His words made me feel uncomfortable, and with some embarrassment +I told him how I looked at love and women. + +"I don't know," he sighed; "to my thinking, a woman's a woman and +a man's a man. Ariadne Grigoryevna may be poetical and exalted, as +you say, but it doesn't follow that she must be superior to the +laws of nature. You see for yourself that she has reached the age +when she must have a husband or a lover. I respect women as much +as you do, but I don't think certain relations exclude poetry. +Poetry's one thing and love is another. It's just the same as it +is in farming. The beauty of nature is one thing and the income +from your forests or fields is quite another." + +When Ariadne and I were fishing, Lubkov would lie on the sand close +by and make fun of me, or lecture me on the conduct of life. + +"I wonder, my dear sir, how you can live without a love affair," +he would say. "You are young, handsome, interesting--in fact, +you're a man not to be sniffed at, yet you live like a monk. Och! +I can't stand these fellows who are old at twenty-eight! I'm nearly +ten years older than you are, and yet which of us is the younger? +Ariadne Grigoryevna, which?" + +"You, of course," Ariadne answered him. + +And when he was bored with our silence and the attention with which +we stared at our floats he went home, and she said, looking at me +angrily: + +"You're really not a man, but a mush, God forgive me! A man ought +to be able to be carried away by his feelings, he ought to be able +to be mad, to make mistakes, to suffer! A woman will forgive you +audacity and insolence, but she will never forgive your reasonableness!" + +She was angry in earnest, and went on: + +"To succeed, a man must be resolute and bold. Lubkov is not so +handsome as you are, but he is more interesting. He will always +succeed with women because he's not like you; he's a man. . . ." + +And there was actually a note of exasperation in her voice. + +One day at supper she began saying, not addressing me, that if she +were a man she would not stagnate in the country, but would travel, +would spend the winter somewhere aboard--in Italy, for instance. +Oh, Italy! At this point my father unconsciously poured oil on the +flames; he began telling us at length about Italy, how splendid it +was there, the exquisite scenery, the museums. Ariadne suddenly +conceived a burning desire to go to Italy. She positively brought +her fist down on the table and her eyes flashed as she said: "I +must go!" + +After that came conversations every day about Italy: how splendid +it would be in Italy--ah, Italy!--oh, Italy! And when Ariadne +looked at me over her shoulder, from her cold and obstinate expression +I saw that in her dreams she had already conquered Italy with all +its salons, celebrated foreigners and tourists, and there was no +holding her back now. I advised her to wait a little, to put off +her tour for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully and said: + +"You're as prudent as an old woman!" + +Lubkov was in favour of the tour. He said it could be done very +cheaply, and he, too, would go to Italy and have a rest there from +family life. + +I behaved, I confess, as naively as a schoolboy. + +Not from jealousy, but from a foreboding of something terrible and +extraordinary, I tried as far as possible not to leave them alone +together, and they made fun of me. For instance, when I went in +they would pretend they had just been kissing one another, and so +on. But lo and behold, one fine morning, her plump, white-skinned +brother, the spiritualist, made his appearance and expressed his +desire to speak to me alone. + +He was a man without will; in spite of his education and his delicacy +he could never resist reading another person's letter, if it lay +before him on the table. And now he admitted that he had by chance +read a letter of Lubkov's to Ariadne. + +"From that letter I learned that she is very shortly going abroad. +My dear fellow, I am very much upset! Explain it to me for goodness' +sake. I can make nothing of it!" + +As he said this he breathed hard, breathing straight in my face and +smelling of boiled beef. + +"Excuse me for revealing the secret of this letter to you, but you +are Ariadne's friend, she respects you. Perhaps you know something +of it. She wants to go away, but with whom? Mr. Lubkov is proposing +to go with her. Excuse me, but this is very strange of Mr. Lubkov; +he is a married man, he has children, and yet he is making a +declaration of love; he is writing to Ariadne 'darling.' Excuse me, +but it is so strange!" + +I turned cold all over; my hands and feet went numb and I felt an +ache in my chest, as if a three-cornered stone had been driven into +it. Kotlovitch sank helplessly into an easy-chair, and his hands +fell limply at his sides. + +"What can I do?" I inquired. + +"Persuade her. . . . Impress her mind. . . . Just consider, what +is Lubkov to her? Is he a match for her? Oh, good God! How awful +it is, how awful it is!" he went on, clutching his head. "She has +had such splendid offers--Prince Maktuev and . . . and others. +The prince adores her, and only last Wednesday week his late +grandfather, Ilarion, declared positively that Ariadne would be his +wife--positively! His grandfather Ilarion is dead, but he is a +wonderfully intelligent person; we call up his spirit every day." + +After this conversation I lay awake all night and thought of shooting +myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all up. +Then I sobbed in the barn. Then I took a sum of money from my father +and set off for the Caucasus without saying good-bye. + +Of course, a woman's a woman and a man's a man, but can all that +be as simple in our day as it was before the Flood, and can it be +that I, a cultivated man endowed with a complex spiritual organisation, +ought to explain the intense attraction I feel towards a woman +simply by the fact that her bodily formation is different from mine? +Oh, how awful that would be! I want to believe that in his struggle +with nature the genius of man has struggled with physical love too, +as with an enemy, and that, if he has not conquered it, he has at +least succeeded in tangling it in a net-work of illusions of +brotherhood and love; and for me, at any rate, it is no longer a +simple instinct of my animal nature as with a dog or a toad, but +is real love, and every embrace is spiritualised by a pure impulse +of the heart and respect for the woman. In reality, a disgust for +the animal instinct has been trained for ages in hundreds of +generations; it is inherited by me in my blood and forms part of +my nature, and if I poetize love, is not that as natural and +inevitable in our day as my ears' not being able to move and my not +being covered with fur? I fancy that's how the majority of civilised +people look at it, so that the absence of the moral, poetical element +in love is treated in these days as a phenomenon, as a sign of +atavism; they say it is a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of +insanity. It is true that, in poetizing love, we assume in those +we love qualities that are lacking in them, and that is a source +of continual mistakes and continual miseries for us. But to my +thinking it is better, even so; that is, it is better to suffer +than to find complacency on the basis of woman being woman and man +being man. + +In Tiflis I received a letter from my father. He wrote that Ariadne +Grigoryevna had on such a day gone abroad, intending to spend the +whole winter away. A month later I returned home. It was by now +autumn. Every week Ariadne sent my father extremely interesting +letters on scented paper, written in an excellent literary style. +It is my opinion that every woman can be a writer. Ariadne described +in great detail how it had not been easy for her to make it up with +her aunt and induce the latter to give her a thousand roubles for +the journey, and what a long time she had spent in Moscow trying +to find an old lady, a distant relation, in order to persuade her +to go with her. Such a profusion of detail suggested fiction, and +I realised, of course, that she had no chaperon with her. + +Soon afterwards I, too, had a letter from her, also scented and +literary. She wrote that she had missed me, missed my beautiful, +intelligent, loving eyes. She reproached me affectionately for +wasting my youth, for stagnating in the country when I might, like +her, be living in paradise under the palms, breathing the fragrance +of the orange-trees. And she signed herself "Your forsaken Ariadne." +Two days later came another letter in the same style, signed "Your +forgotten Ariadne." My mind was confused. I loved her passionately, +I dreamed of her every night, and then this "your forsaken," "your +forgotten"--what did it mean? What was it for? And then the +dreariness of the country, the long evenings, the disquieting +thoughts of Lubkov. . . . The uncertainty tortured me, and poisoned +my days and nights; it became unendurable. I could not bear it and +went abroad. + +Ariadne summoned me to Abbazzia. I arrived there on a bright warm +day after rain; the rain-drops were still hanging on the trees and +glistening on the huge, barrack-like dependance where Ariadne and +Lubkov were living. + +They were not at home. I went into the park; wandered about the +avenues, then sat down. An Austrian General, with his hands behind +him, walked past me, with red stripes on his trousers such as our +generals wear. A baby was wheeled by in a perambulator and the +wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice +passed, then a crowd of Englishwomen, a Catholic priest, then the +Austrian General again. A military band, only just arrived from +Fiume, with glittering brass instruments, sauntered by to the +bandstand--they began playing. + +Have you ever been at Abbazzia? It's a filthy little Slav town with +only one street, which stinks, and in which one can't walk after +rain without goloshes. I had read so much and always with such +intense feeling about this earthly paradise that when afterwards, +holding up my trousers, I cautiously crossed the narrow street, and +in my ennui bought some hard pears from an old peasant woman who, +recognising me as a Russian, said: "Tcheeteery" for "tchetyry" +(four)--"davadtsat" for "dvadtsat" (twenty), and when I wondered +in perplexity where to go and what to do here, and when I inevitably +met Russians as disappointed as I was, I began to feel vexed and +ashamed. There is a calm bay there full of steamers and boats with +coloured sails. From there I could see Fiume and the distant islands +covered with lilac mist, and it would have been picturesque if the +view over the bay had not been hemmed in by the hotels and their +dependances--buildings in an absurd, trivial style of architecture, +with which the whole of that green shore has been covered by greedy +money grubbers, so that for the most part you see nothing in this +little paradise but windows, terraces, and little squares with +tables and waiters black coats. There is a park such as you find +now in every watering-place abroad. And the dark, motionless, silent +foliage of the palms, and the bright yellow sand in the avenue, and +the bright green seats, and the glitter of the braying military +horns--all this sickened me in ten minutes! And yet one is obliged +for some reason to spend ten days, ten weeks, there! + +Having been dragged reluctantly from one of these watering-places +to another, I have been more and more struck by the inconvenient +and niggardly life led by the wealthy and well-fed, the dulness and +feebleness of their imagination, the lack of boldness in their +tastes and desires. And how much happier are those tourists, old +and young, who, not having the money to stay in hotels, live where +they can, admire the view of the sea from the tops of the mountains, +lying on the green grass, walk instead of riding, see the forests +and villages at close quarters, observe the customs of the country, +listen to its songs, fall in love with its women. . . . + +While I was sitting in the park, it began to get dark, and in the +twilight my Ariadne appeared, elegant and dressed like a princess; +after her walked Lubkov, wearing a new loose-fitting suit, bought +probably in Vienna. + +"Why are you cross with me?" he was saying. "What have I done to +you?" + +Seeing me, she uttered a cry of joy, and probably, if we had not +been in the park, would have thrown herself on my neck. She pressed +my hands warmly and laughed; and I laughed too and almost cried +with emotion. Questions followed, of the village, of my father, +whether I had seen her brother, and so on. She insisted on my looking +her straight in the face, and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, +our little quarrels, the picnics. . . . + +"How nice it all was really!" she sighed. "But we're not having a +slow time here either. We have a great many acquaintances, my dear, +my best of friends! To-morrow I will introduce you to a Russian +family here, but please buy yourself another hat." She scrutinised +me and frowned. "Abbazzia is not the country," she said; "here one +must be _comme il faut_." + +Then we went to the restaurant. Ariadne was laughing and mischievous +all the time; she kept calling me "dear," "good," "clever," and +seemed as though she could not believe her eyes that I was with +her. We sat on till eleven o'clock, and parted very well satisfied +both with the supper and with each other. + +Next day Ariadne presented me to the Russian family as: "The son +of a distinguished professor whose estate is next to ours." + +She talked to this family about nothing but estates and crops, and +kept appealing to me. She wanted to appear to be a very wealthy +landowner, and did, in fact, succeed in doing so. Her manner was +superb like that of a real aristocrat, which indeed she was by +birth. + +"But what a person my aunt is!" she said suddenly, looking at me +with a smile. "We had a slight tiff, and she has bolted off to +Meran. What do you say to that?" + +Afterwards when we were walking in the park I asked her: + +"What aunt were you talking of just now? What aunt is that?" + +"That was a saving lie," laughed Ariadne. "They must not know I'm +without a chaperon." + +After a moment's silence she came closer to me and said: + +"My dear, my dear, do be friends with Lubkov. He is so unhappy! His +wife and mother are simply awful." + +She used the formal mode of address in speaking to Lubkov, and when +she was going up to bed she said good-night to him exactly as she +did to me, and their rooms were on different floors. All this made +me hope that it was all nonsense, and that there was no sort of +love affair between them, and I felt at ease when I met him. And +when one day he asked me for the loan of three hundred roubles, I +gave it to him with the greatest pleasure. + +Every day we spent in enjoying ourselves and in nothing but enjoying +ourselves; we strolled in the park, we ate, we drank. Every day +there were conversations with the Russian family. By degrees I got +used to the fact that if I went into the park I should be sure to +meet the old man with jaundice, the Catholic priest, and the Austrian +General, who always carried a pack of little cards, and wherever +it was possible sat down and played patience, nervously twitching +his shoulders. And the band played the same thing over and over +again. + +At home in the country I used to feel ashamed to meet the peasants +when I was fishing or on a picnic party on a working day; here too +I was ashamed at the sight of the footmen, the coachmen, and the +workmen who met us. It always seemed to me they were looking at me +and thinking: "Why are you doing nothing?" And I was conscious of +this feeling of shame every day from morning to night. It was a +strange, unpleasant, monotonous time; it was only varied by Lubkov's +borrowing from me now a hundred, now fifty guldens, and being +suddenly revived by the money as a morphia-maniac is by morphia, +beginning to laugh loudly at his wife, at himself, at his creditors. + +At last it began to be rainy and cold. We went to Italy, and I +telegraphed to my father begging him for mercy's sake to send me +eight hundred roubles to Rome. We stayed in Venice, in Bologna, in +Florence, and in every town invariably put up at an expensive hotel, +where we were charged separately for lights, and for service, and +for heating, and for bread at lunch, and for the right of having +dinner by ourselves. We ate enormously. In the morning they gave +us _cafe complet_; at one o'clock lunch: meat, fish, some sort of +omelette, cheese, fruits, and wine. At six o'clock dinner of eight +courses with long intervals, during which we drank beer and wine. +At nine o'clock tea. At midnight Ariadne would declare she was +hungry, and ask for ham and boiled eggs. We would eat to keep her +company. + +In the intervals between meals we used to rush about the museums +and exhibitions in continual anxiety for fear we should be late for +dinner or lunch. I was bored at the sight of the pictures; I longed +to be at home to rest; I was exhausted, looked about for a chair +and hypocritically repeated after other people: "How exquisite, +what atmosphere!" Like overfed boa constrictors, we noticed only +the most glaring objects. The shop windows hypnotised us; we went +into ecstasies over imitation brooches and bought a mass of useless +trumpery. + +The same thing happened in Rome, where it rained and there was a +cold wind. After a heavy lunch we went to look at St. Peter's, and +thanks to our replete condition and perhaps the bad weather, it +made no sort of impression on us, and detecting in each other an +indifference to art, we almost quarrelled. + +The money came from my father. I went to get it, I remember, in the +morning. Lubkov went with me. + +"The present cannot be full and happy when one has a past," said +he. "I have heavy burdens left on me by the past. However, if only +I get the money, it's no great matter, but if not, I'm in a fix. +Would you believe it, I have only eight francs left, yet I must +send my wife a hundred and my mother another. And we must live here +too. Ariadne's like a child; she won't enter into the position, and +flings away money like a duchess. Why did she buy a watch yesterday? +And, tell me, what object is there in our going on playing at being +good children? Why, our hiding our relations from the servants and +our friends costs us from ten to fifteen francs a day, as I have +to have a separate room. What's the object of it?" + +I felt as though a sharp stone had been turned round in my chest. +There was no uncertainty now; it was all clear to me. I turned cold +all over, and at once made a resolution to give up seeing them, to +run away from them, to go home at once. . . . + +"To get on terms with a woman is easy enough," Lubkov went on. "You +have only to undress her; but afterwards what a bore it is, what a +silly business!" + +When I counted over the money I received he said: + +"If you don't lend me a thousand francs, I am faced with complete +ruin. Your money is the only resource left to me." + +I gave him the money, and he at once revived and began laughing +about his uncle, a queer fish, who could never keep his address +secret from his wife. When I reached the hotel I packed and paid +my bill. I had still to say good-bye to Ariadne. + +I knocked at the door. + +"Entrez!" + +In her room was the usual morning disorder: tea-things on the table, +an unfinished roll, an eggshell; a strong overpowering reek of +scent. The bed had not been made, and it was evident that two had +slept in it. + +Ariadne herself had only just got out of bed and was now with her +hair down in a flannel dressing-jacket. + +I said good-morning to her, and then sat in silence for a minute +while she tried to put her hair tidy, and then I asked her, trembling +all over: + +"Why . . . why . . . did you send for me here?" + +Evidently she guessed what I was thinking; she took me by the hand +and said: + +"I want you to be here, you are so pure." + +I felt ashamed of my emotion, of my trembling. And I was afraid I +might begin sobbing, too! I went out without saying another word, +and within an hour I was sitting in the train. All the journey, for +some reason, I imagined Ariadne with child, and she seemed disgusting +to me, and all the women I saw in the trains and at the stations +looked to me, for some reason, as if they too were with child, and +they too seemed disgusting and pitiable. I was in the position of +a greedy, passionate miser who should suddenly discover that all +his gold coins were false. The pure, gracious images which my +imagination, warmed by love, had cherished for so long, my plans, +my hopes, my memories, my ideas of love and of woman--all now +were jeering and putting out their tongues at me. "Ariadne," I kept +asking with horror, "that young, intellectual, extraordinarily +beautiful girl, the daughter of a senator, carrying on an intrigue +with such an ordinary, uninteresting vulgarian? But why should she +not love Lubkov?" I answered myself. "In what is he inferior to me? +Oh, let her love any one she likes, but why lie to me? But why is +she bound to be open with me?" And so I went on over and over again +till I was stupefied. + +It was cold in the train; I was travelling first class, but even +so there were three on a side, there were no double windows, the +outer door opened straight into the compartment, and I felt as +though I were in the stocks, cramped, abandoned, pitiful, and my +legs were fearfully numb, and at the same time I kept recalling how +fascinating she had been that morning in her dressing-jacket and +with her hair down, and I was suddenly overcome by such acute +jealousy that I leapt up in anguish, so that my neighbours stared +at me in wonder and positive alarm. + +At home I found deep snow and twenty degrees of frost. I'm fond of +the winter; I'm fond of it because at that time, even in the hardest +frosts, it's particularly snug at home. It's pleasant to put on +one's fur jacket and felt overboots on a clear frosty day, to do +something in the garden or in the yard, or to read in a well warmed +room, to sit in my father's study before the open fire, to wash in +my country bath-house. . . . Only if there is no mother in the +house, no sister and no children, it is somehow dreary on winter +evenings, and they seem extraordinarily long and quiet. And the +warmer and snugger it is, the more acutely is this lack felt. In +the winter when I came back from abroad, the evenings were endlessly +long, I was intensely depressed, so depressed that I could not even +read; in the daytime I was coming and going, clearing away the snow +in the garden or feeding the chickens and the calves, but in the +evening it was all up with me. + +I had never cared for visitors before, but now I was glad of them, +for I knew there was sure to be talk of Ariadne. Kotlovitch, the +spiritualist, used often to come to talk about his sister, and +sometimes he brought with him his friend Prince Maktuev, who was +as much in love with Ariadne as I was. To sit in Ariadne's room, +to finger the keys of her piano, to look at her music was a necessity +for the prince--he could not live without it; and the spirit of +his grandfather Ilarion was still predicting that sooner or later +she would be his wife. The prince usually stayed a long time with +us, from lunch to midnight, saying nothing all the time; in silence +he would drink two or three bottles of beer, and from time to time, +to show that he too was taking part in the conversation, he would +laugh an abrupt, melancholy, foolish laugh. Before going home he +would always take me aside and ask me in an undertone: "When did +you see Ariadne Grigoryevna last? Was she quite well? I suppose +she's not tired of being out there?" + +Spring came on. There was the harrowing to do and then the sowing +of spring corn and clover. I was sad, but there was the feeling of +spring. One longed to accept the inevitable. Working in the fields +and listening to the larks, I asked myself: "Couldn't I have done +with this question of personal happiness once and for all? Couldn't +I lay aside my fancy and marry a simple peasant girl?" + +Suddenly when we were at our very busiest, I got a letter with the +Italian stamp, and the clover and the beehives and the calves and +the peasant girl all floated away like smoke. This time Ariadne +wrote that she was profoundly, infinitely unhappy. She reproached +me for not holding out a helping hand to her, for looking down upon +her from the heights of my virtue and deserting her at the moment +of danger. All this was written in a large, nervous handwriting +with blots and smudges, and it was evident that she wrote in haste +and distress. In conclusion she besought me to come and save her. +Again my anchor was hauled up and I was carried away. Ariadne was +in Rome. I arrived late in the evening, and when she saw me, she +sobbed and threw herself on my neck. She had not changed at all +that winter, and was just as young and charming. We had supper +together and afterwards drove about Rome until dawn, and all the +time she kept telling me about her doings. I asked where Lubkov +was. + +"Don't remind me of that creature!" she cried. "He is loathsome and +disgusting to me!" + +"But I thought you loved him," I said. + +"Never," she said. "At first he struck me as original and aroused +my pity, that was all. He is insolent and takes a woman by storm. +And that's attractive. But we won't talk about him. That is a +melancholy page in my life. He has gone to Russia to get money. +Serve him right! I told him not to dare to come back." + +She was living then, not at an hotel, but in a private lodging of +two rooms which she had decorated in her own taste, frigidly and +luxuriously. + +After Lubkov had gone away she had borrowed from her acquaintances +about five thousand francs, and my arrival certainly was the one +salvation for her. + +I had reckoned on taking her back to the country, but I did not +succeed in that. She was homesick for her native place, but her +recollections of the poverty she had been through there, of privations, +of the rusty roof on her brother's house, roused a shudder of +disgust, and when I suggested going home to her, she squeezed my +hands convulsively and said: + +"No, no, I shall die of boredom there!" + +Then my love entered upon its final phase. + +"Be the darling that you used to be; love me a little," said Ariadne, +bending over to me. "You're sulky and prudent, you're afraid to +yield to impulse, and keep thinking of consequences, and that's +dull. Come, I beg you, I beseech you, be nice to me! . . . My pure +one, my holy one, my dear one, I love you so!" + +I became her lover. For a month anyway I was like a madman, conscious +of nothing but rapture. To hold in one's arms a young and lovely +body, with bliss to feel her warmth every time one waked up from +sleep, and to remember that she was there--she, my Ariadne!-- +oh, it was not easy to get used to that! But yet I did get used to +it, and by degrees became capable of reflecting on my new position. +First of all, I realised, as before, that Ariadne did not love me. +But she wanted to be really in love, she was afraid of solitude, +and, above all, I was healthy, young, vigorous; she was sensual, +like all cold people, as a rule--and we both made a show of being +united by a passionate, mutual love. Afterwards I realised something +else, too. + +We stayed in Rome, in Naples, in Florence; we went to Paris, but +there we thought it cold and went back to Italy. We introduced +ourselves everywhere as husband and wife, wealthy landowners. People +readily made our acquaintance and Ariadne had great social success +everywhere. As she took lessons in painting, she was called an +artist, and only imagine, that quite suited her, though she had not +the slightest trace of talent. + +She would sleep every day till two or three o'clock; she had her +coffee and lunch in bed. At dinner she would eat soup, lobster, +fish, meat, asparagus, game, and after she had gone to bed I used +to bring up something, for instance roast beef, and she would eat +it with a melancholy, careworn expression, and if she waked in the +night she would eat apples and oranges. + +The chief, so to say fundamental, characteristic of the woman was +an amazing duplicity. She was continually deceitful every minute, +apparently apart from any necessity, as it were by instinct, by an +impulse such as makes the sparrow chirrup and the cockroach waggle +its antennae. She was deceitful with me, with the footman, with the +porter, with the tradesmen in the shops, with her acquaintances; +not one conversation, not one meeting, took place without affectation +and pretence. A man had only to come into our room--whoever it +might be, a waiter, or a baron--for her eyes, her expression, her +voice to change, even the contour of her figure was transformed. +At the very first glance at her then, you would have said there +were no more wealthy and fashionable people in Italy than we. She +never met an artist or a musician without telling him all sorts of +lies about his remarkable talent. + +"You have such a talent!" she would say, in honeyed cadences, "I'm +really afraid of you. I think you must see right through people." + +And all this simply in order to please, to be successful, to be +fascinating! She waked up every morning with the one thought of +"pleasing"! It was the aim and object of her life. If I had told +her that in such a house, in such a street, there lived a man who +was not attracted by her, it would have caused her real suffering. +She wanted every day to enchant, to captivate, to drive men crazy. +The fact that I was in her power and reduced to a complete nonentity +before her charms gave her the same sort of satisfaction that +visitors used to feel in tournaments. My subjection was not enough, +and at nights, stretched out like a tigress, uncovered--she was +always too hot--she would read the letters sent her by Lubkov; +he besought her to return to Russia, vowing if she did not he would +rob or murder some one to get the money to come to her. She hated +him, but his passionate, slavish letters excited her. She had an +extraordinary opinion of her own charms; she imagined that if +somewhere, in some great assembly, men could have seen how beautifully +she was made and the colour of her skin, she would have vanquished +all Italy, the whole world. Her talk of her figure, of her skin, +offended me, and observing this, she would, when she was angry, to +vex me, say all sorts of vulgar things, taunting me. One day when +we were at the summer villa of a lady of our acquaintance, and she +lost her temper, she even went so far as to say: "If you don't leave +off boring me with your sermons, I'll undress this minute and lie +naked here on these flowers." + +Often looking at her asleep, or eating, or trying to assume a naive +expression, I wondered why that extraordinary beauty, grace, and +intelligence had been given her by God. Could it simply be for +lolling in bed, eating and lying, lying endlessly? And was she +intelligent really? She was afraid of three candles in a row, of +the number thirteen, was terrified of spells and bad dreams. She +argued about free love and freedom in general like a bigoted old +woman, declared that Boleslav Markevitch was a better writer than +Turgenev. But she was diabolically cunning and sharp, and knew how +to seem a highly educated, advanced person in company. + +Even at a good-humoured moment, she could always insult a servant +or kill an insect without a pang; she liked bull-fights, liked to +read about murders, and was angry when prisoners were acquitted. + +For the life Ariadne and I were leading, we had to have a great +deal of money. My poor father sent me his pension, all the little +sums he received, borrowed for me wherever he could, and when one +day he answered me: "Non habeo," I sent him a desperate telegram +in which I besought him to mortgage the estate. A little later I +begged him to get money somehow on a second mortgage. He did this +too without a murmur and sent me every farthing. Ariadne despised +the practical side of life; all this was no concern of hers, and +when flinging away thousands of francs to satisfy her mad desires +I groaned like an old tree, she would be singing "Addio bella Napoli" +with a light heart. + +Little by little I grew cold to her and began to be ashamed of our +tie. I am not fond of pregnancy and confinements, but now I sometimes +dreamed of a child who would have been at least a formal justification +of our life. That I might not be completely disgusted with myself, +I began reading and visiting museums and galleries, gave up drinking +and took to eating very little. If one keeps oneself well in hand +from morning to night, one's heart seems lighter. I began to bore +Ariadne too. The people with whom she won her triumphs were, by the +way, all of the middling sort; as before, there were no ambassadors, +there was no salon, the money did not run to it, and this mortified +her and made her sob, and she announced to me at last that perhaps +she would not be against our returning to Russia. + +And here we are on our way. For the last few months she has been +zealously corresponding with her brother; she evidently has some +secret projects, but what they are--God knows! I am sick of trying +to fathom her underhand schemes! But we're going, not to the country, +but to Yalta and afterwards to the Caucasus. She can only exist now +at watering-places, and if you knew how I hate all these watering-places, +how suffocated and ashamed I am in them. If I could be in the country +now! If I could only be working now, earning my bread by the sweat +of my brow, atoning for my follies. I am conscious of a superabundance +of energy and I believe that if I were to put that energy to work +I could redeem my estate in five years. But now, as you see, there +is a complication. Here we're not abroad, but in mother Russia; we +shall have to think of lawful wedlock. Of course, all attraction +is over; there is no trace left of my old love, but, however that +may be, I am bound in honour to marry her. + + ---- + +Shamohin, excited by his story, went below with me and we continued +talking about women. It was late. It appeared that he and I were +in the same cabin. + +"So far it is only in the village that woman has not fallen behind +man," said Shamohin. "There she thinks and feels just as man does, +and struggles with nature in the name of culture as zealously as +he. In the towns the woman of the bourgeois or intellectual class +has long since fallen behind, and is returning to her primitive +condition. She is half a human beast already, and, thanks to her, +a great deal of what had been won by human genius has been lost +again; the woman gradually disappears and in her place is the +primitive female. This dropping-back on the part of the educated +woman is a real danger to culture; in her retrogressive movement +she tries to drag man after her and prevents him from moving forward. +That is incontestable." + +I asked: "Why generalise? Why judge of all women from Ariadne alone? +The very struggle of women for education and sexual equality, which +I look upon as a struggle for justice, precludes any hypothesis of +a retrograde movement." + +But Shamohin scarcely listened to me and he smiled distrustfully. +He was a passionate, convinced misogynist, and it was impossible +to alter his convictions. + +"Oh, nonsense!" he interrupted. "When once a woman sees in me, not +a man, not an equal, but a male, and her one anxiety all her life +is to attract me--that is, to take possession of me--how can +one talk of their rights? Oh, don't you believe them; they are very, +very cunning! We men make a great stir about their emancipation, +but they don't care about their emancipation at all, they only +pretend to care about it; they are horribly cunning things, horribly +cunning!" + +I began to feel sleepy and weary of discussion. I turned over with +my face to the wall. + +"Yes," I heard as I fell asleep--"yes, and it's our education +that's at fault, sir. In our towns, the whole education and bringing +up of women in its essence tends to develop her into the human beast +--that is, to make her attractive to the male and able to vanquish +him. Yes, indeed"--Shamohiri sighed--"little girls ought to be +taught and brought up with boys, so that they might be always +together. A woman ought to be trained so that she may be able, like +a man, to recognise when she's wrong, or she always thinks she's +in the right. Instil into a little girl from her cradle that a man +is not first of all a cavalier or a possible lover, but her neighbour, +her equal in everything. Train her to think logically, to generalise, +and do not assure her that her brain weighs less than a man's and +that therefore she can be indifferent to the sciences, to the arts, +to the tasks of culture in general. The apprentice to the shoemaker +or the house painter has a brain of smaller size than the grown-up +man too, yet he works, suffers, takes his part in the general +struggle for existence. We must give up our attitude to the +physiological aspect, too--to pregnancy and childbirth, seeing +that in the first place women don't have babies every month; secondly, +not all women have babies; and, thirdly, a normal countrywoman works +in the fields up to the day of her confinement and it does her no +harm. Then there ought to be absolute equality in everyday life. +If a man gives a lady his chair or picks up the handkerchief she +has dropped, let her repay him in the same way. I have no objection +if a girl of good family helps me to put on my coat or hands me a +glass of water--" + +I heard no more, for I fell asleep. + +Next morning when we were approaching Sevastopol, it was damp, +unpleasant weather; the ship rocked. Shamohin sat on deck with me, +brooding and silent. When the bell rang for tea, men with their +coat-collars turned up and ladies with pale, sleepy faces began +going below; a young and very beautiful lady, the one who had been +so angry with the Customs officers at Volotchisk, stopped before +Shamohin and said with the expression of a naughty, fretful child: + +"Jean, your birdie's been sea-sick." + +Afterwards when I was at Yalta I saw the same beautiful lady dashing +about on horseback with a couple of officers hardly able to keep +up with her. And one morning I saw her in an overall and a Phrygian +cap, sketching on the sea-front with a great crowd admiring her a +little way off. I too was introduced to her. She pressed my hand +with great warmth, and looking at me ecstatically, thanked me in +honeyed cadences for the pleasure I had given her by my writings. + +"Don't you believe her," Shamohin whispered to me, "she has never +read a word of them." + +When I was walking on the sea-front in the early evening Shamohin +met me with his arms full of big parcels of fruits and dainties. + +"Prince Maktuev is here!" he said joyfully. "He came yesterday with +her brother, the spiritualist! Now I understand what she was writing +to him about! Oh, Lord!" he went on, gazing up to heaven, and +pressing his parcels to his bosom. "If she hits it off with the +prince, it means freedom, then I can go back to the country with +my father!" + +And he ran on. + +"I begin to believe in spirits," he called to me, looking back. +"The spirit of grandfather Ilarion seems to have prophesied the +truth! Oh, if only it is so!" + + ---- + +The day after this meeting I left Yalta and how Shamohin's story +ended I don't know. + + +POLINKA + +IT is one o'clock in the afternoon. Shopping is at its height at +the "Nouveaute's de Paris," a drapery establishment in one of the +Arcades. There is a monotonous hum of shopmen's voices, the hum one +hears at school when the teacher sets the boys to learn something +by heart. This regular sound is not interrupted by the laughter of +lady customers nor the slam of the glass door, nor the scurrying +of the boys. + +Polinka, a thin fair little person whose mother is the head of a +dressmaking establishment, is standing in the middle of the shop +looking about for some one. A dark-browed boy runs up to her and +asks, looking at her very gravely: + +"What is your pleasure, madam?" + +"Nikolay Timofeitch always takes my order," answers Polinka. + +Nikolay Timofeitch, a graceful dark young man, fashionably dressed, +with frizzled hair and a big pin in his cravat, has already cleared +a place on the counter and is craning forward, looking at Polinka +with a smile. + +"Morning, Pelagea Sergeevna!" he cries in a pleasant, hearty baritone +voice. "What can I do for you?" + +"Good-morning!" says Polinka, going up to him. "You see, I'm back +again. . . . Show me some gimp, please." + +"Gimp--for what purpose?" + +"For a bodice trimming--to trim a whole dress, in fact." + +"Certainly." + +Nickolay Timofeitch lays several kinds of gimp before Polinka; she +looks at the trimmings languidly and begins bargaining over them. + +"Oh, come, a rouble's not dear," says the shopman persuasively, +with a condescending smile. "It's a French trimming, pure silk. . . . +We have a commoner sort, if you like, heavier. That's forty-five +kopecks a yard; of course, it's nothing like the same quality." + +"I want a bead corselet, too, with gimp buttons," says Polinka, +bending over the gimp and sighing for some reason. "And have you +any bead motifs to match?" + +"Yes." + +Polinka bends still lower over the counter and asks softly: + +"And why did you leave us so early on Thursday, Nikolay Timofeitch?" + +"Hm! It's queer you noticed it," says the shopman, with a smirk. +"You were so taken up with that fine student that . . . it's queer +you noticed it!" + +Polinka flushes crimson and remains mute. With a nervous quiver in +his fingers the shopman closes the boxes, and for no sort of object +piles them one on the top of another. A moment of silence follows. + +"I want some bead lace, too," says Polinka, lifting her eyes guiltily +to the shopman. + +"What sort? Black or coloured? Bead lace on tulle is the most +fashionable trimming." + +"And how much is it?" + +"The black's from eighty kopecks and the coloured from two and a +half roubles. I shall never come and see you again," Nikolay +Timofeitch adds in an undertone. + +"Why?" + +"Why? It's very simple. You must understand that yourself. Why +should I distress myself? It's a queer business! Do you suppose +it's a pleasure to me to see that student carrying on with you? I +see it all and I understand. Ever since autumn he's been hanging +about you and you go for a walk with him almost every day; and when +he is with you, you gaze at him as though he were an angel. You are +in love with him; there's no one to beat him in your eyes. Well, +all right, then, it's no good talking." + +Polinka remains dumb and moves her finger on the counter in +embarrassment. + +"I see it all," the shopman goes on. "What inducement have I to +come and see you? I've got some pride. It's not every one likes to +play gooseberry. What was it you asked for?" + +"Mamma told me to get a lot of things, but I've forgotten. I want +some feather trimming too." + +"What kind would you like?" + +"The best, something fashionable." + +"The most fashionable now are real bird feathers. If you want the +most fashionable colour, it's heliotrope or _kanak_--that is, +claret with a yellow shade in it. We have an immense choice. And +what all this affair is going to lead to, I really don't understand. +Here you are in love, and how is it to end?" + +Patches of red come into Nikolay Timofeitch's face round his eyes. +He crushes the soft feather trimming in his hand and goes on +muttering: + +"Do you imagine he'll marry you--is that it? You'd better drop +any such fancies. Students are forbidden to marry. And do you suppose +he comes to see you with honourable intentions? A likely idea! Why, +these fine students don't look on us as human beings . . . they +only go to see shopkeepers and dressmakers to laugh at their ignorance +and to drink. They're ashamed to drink at home and in good houses, +but with simple uneducated people like us they don't care what any +one thinks; they'd be ready to stand on their heads. Yes! Well, +which feather trimming will you take? And if he hangs about and +carries on with you, we know what he is after. . . . When he's a +doctor or a lawyer he'll remember you: 'Ah,' he'll say, 'I used to +have a pretty fair little thing! I wonder where she is now?' Even +now I bet you he boasts among his friends that he's got his eye on +a little dressmaker." + +Polinka sits down and gazes pensively at the pile of white boxes. + +"No, I won't take the feather trimming," she sighs. "Mamma had +better choose it for herself; I may get the wrong one. I want six +yards of fringe for an overcoat, at forty kopecks the yard. For the +same coat I want cocoa-nut buttons, perforated, so they can be sown +on firmly. . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch wraps up the fringe and the buttons. She looks +at him guiltily and evidently expects him to go on talking, but he +remains sullenly silent while he tidies up the feather trimming. + +"I mustn't forget some buttons for a dressing-gown . . ." she says +after an interval of silence, wiping her pale lips with a handkerchief. + +"What kind?" + +"It's for a shopkeeper's wife, so give me something rather striking." + +"Yes, if it's for a shopkeeper's wife, you'd better have something +bright. Here are some buttons. A combination of colours--red, +blue, and the fashionable gold shade. Very glaring. The more refined +prefer dull black with a bright border. But I don't understand. +Can't you see for yourself? What can these . . . walks lead to?" + +"I don't know," whispers Polinka, and she bends over the buttons; +"I don't know myself what's come to me, Nikolay Timofeitch." + +A solid shopman with whiskers forces his way behind Nikolay +Timofeitch's back, squeezing him to the counter, and beaming with +the choicest gallantry, shouts: + +"Be so kind, madam, as to step into this department. We have three +kinds of jerseys: plain, braided, and trimmed with beads! Which may +I have the pleasure of showing you?" + +At the same time a stout lady passes by Polinka, pronouncing in a +rich, deep voice, almost a bass: + +"They must be seamless, with the trade mark stamped in them, please." + +"Pretend to be looking at the things," Nikolay Timofeitch whispers, +bending down to Polinka with a forced smile. "Dear me, you do look +pale and ill; you are quite changed. He'll throw you over, Pelagea +Sergeevna! Or if he does marry you, it won't be for love but from +hunger; he'll be tempted by your money. He'll furnish himself a +nice home with your dowry, and then be ashamed of you. He'll keep +you out of sight of his friends and visitors, because you're +uneducated. He'll call you 'my dummy of a wife.' You wouldn't know +how to behave in a doctor's or lawyer's circle. To them you're a +dressmaker, an ignorant creature." + +"Nikolay Timofeitch!" somebody shouts from the other end of the +shop. "The young lady here wants three yards of ribbon with a metal +stripe. Have we any?" + +Nikolay Timofeitch turns in that direction, smirks and shouts: + +"Yes, we have! Ribbon with a metal stripe, ottoman with a satin +stripe, and satin with a moire stripe!" + +"Oh, by the way, I mustn't forget, Olga asked me to get her a pair +of stays!" says Polinka. + +"There are tears in your eyes," says Nikolay Timofeitch in dismay. +"What's that for? Come to the corset department, I'll screen you +--it looks awkward." + +With a forced smile and exaggeratedly free and easy manner, the +shopman rapidly conducts Polinka to the corset department and +conceals her from the public eye behind a high pyramid of boxes. + +"What sort of corset may I show you?" he asks aloud, whispering +immediately: "Wipe your eyes!" + +"I want . . . I want . . . size forty-eight centimetres. Only she +wanted one, lined . . . with real whalebone . . . I must talk to +you, Nikolay Timofeitch. Come to-day!" + +"Talk? What about? There's nothing to talk about." + +"You are the only person who . . . cares about me, and I've no one +to talk to but you." + +"These are not reed or steel, but real whalebone. . . . What is +there for us to talk about? It's no use talking. . . . You are going +for a walk with him to-day, I suppose?" + +"Yes; I . . . I am." + +"Then what's the use of talking? Talk won't help. . . . You are in +love, aren't you?" + +"Yes . . ." Polinka whispers hesitatingly, and big tears gush from +her eyes. + +"What is there to say?" mutters Nikolay Timofeitch, shrugging his +shoulders nervously and turning pale. "There's no need of talk. . . . +Wipe your eyes, that's all. I . . . I ask for nothing." + +At that moment a tall, lanky shopman comes up to the pyramid of +boxes, and says to his customer: + +"Let me show you some good elastic garters that do not impede the +circulation, certified by medical authority . . ." + +Nikolay Timofeitch screens Polinka, and, trying to conceal her +emotion and his own, wrinkles his face into a smile and says aloud: + +"There are two kinds of lace, madam: cotton and silk! Oriental, +English, Valenciennes, crochet, torchon, are cotton. And rococo, +soutache, Cambray, are silk. . . . For God's sake, wipe your eyes! +They're coming this way!" + +And seeing that her tears are still gushing he goes on louder than +ever: + +"Spanish, Rococo, soutache, Cambray . . . stockings, thread, cotton, +silk . . ." + + +ANYUTA + +IN the cheapest room of a big block of furnished apartments Stepan +Klotchkov, a medical student in his third year, was walking to and +fro, zealously conning his anatomy. His mouth was dry and his +forehead perspiring from the unceasing effort to learn it by heart. + +In the window, covered by patterns of frost, sat on a stool the +girl who shared his room--Anyuta, a thin little brunette of +five-and-twenty, very pale with mild grey eyes. Sitting with bent +back she was busy embroidering with red thread the collar of a man's +shirt. She was working against time. . . . The clock in the passage +struck two drowsily, yet the little room had not been put to rights +for the morning. Crumpled bed-clothes, pillows thrown about, books, +clothes, a big filthy slop-pail filled with soap-suds in which +cigarette ends were swimming, and the litter on the floor--all +seemed as though purposely jumbled together in one confusion. . . . + +"The right lung consists of three parts . . ." Klotchkov repeated. +"Boundaries! Upper part on anterior wall of thorax reaches the +fourth or fifth rib, on the lateral surface, the fourth rib . . . +behind to the _spina scapulae_. . ." + +Klotchkov raised his eyes to the ceiling, striving to visualise +what he had just read. Unable to form a clear picture of it, he +began feeling his upper ribs through his waistcoat. + +"These ribs are like the keys of a piano," he said. "One must +familiarise oneself with them somehow, if one is not to get muddled +over them. One must study them in the skeleton and the living body +. . . . I say, Anyuta, let me pick them out." + +Anyuta put down her sewing, took off her blouse, and straightened +herself up. Klotchkov sat down facing her, frowned, and began +counting her ribs. + +"H'm! . . . One can't feel the first rib; it's behind the shoulder-blade +. . . . This must be the second rib. . . . Yes . . . this is the third +. . . this is the fourth. . . . H'm! . . . yes. . . . Why are you +wriggling?" + +"Your fingers are cold!" + +"Come, come . . . it won't kill you. Don't twist about. That must +be the third rib, then . . . this is the fourth. . . . You look +such a skinny thing, and yet one can hardly feel your ribs. That's +the second . . . that's the third. . . . Oh, this is muddling, and +one can't see it clearly. . . . I must draw it. . . . Where's my +crayon?" + +Klotchkov took his crayon and drew on Anyuta's chest several parallel +lines corresponding with the ribs. + +"First-rate. That's all straightforward. . . . Well, now I can sound +you. Stand up!" + +Anyuta stood up and raised her chin. Klotchkov began sounding her, +and was so absorbed in this occupation that he did not notice how +Anyuta's lips, nose, and fingers turned blue with cold. Anyuta +shivered, and was afraid the student, noticing it, would leave off +drawing and sounding her, and then, perhaps, might fail in his exam. + +"Now it's all clear," said Klotchkov when he had finished. "You sit +like that and don't rub off the crayon, and meanwhile I'll learn +up a little more." + +And the student again began walking to and fro, repeating to himself. +Anyuta, with black stripes across her chest, looking as though she +had been tattooed, sat thinking, huddled up and shivering with cold. +She said very little as a rule; she was always silent, thinking and +thinking. . . . + +In the six or seven years of her wanderings from one furnished room +to another, she had known five students like Klotchkov. Now they +had all finished their studies, had gone out into the world, and, +of course, like respectable people, had long ago forgotten her. One +of them was living in Paris, two were doctors, the fourth was an +artist, and the fifth was said to be already a professor. Klotchkov +was the sixth. . . . Soon he, too, would finish his studies and go +out into the world. There was a fine future before him, no doubt, +and Klotchkov probably would become a great man, but the present +was anything but bright; Klotchkov had no tobacco and no tea, and +there were only four lumps of sugar left. She must make haste and +finish her embroidery, take it to the woman who had ordered it, and +with the quarter rouble she would get for it, buy tea and tobacco. + +"Can I come in?" asked a voice at the door. + +Anyuta quickly threw a woollen shawl over her shoulders. Fetisov, +the artist, walked in. + +"I have come to ask you a favour," he began, addressing Klotchkov, +and glaring like a wild beast from under the long locks that hung +over his brow. "Do me a favour; lend me your young lady just for a +couple of hours! I'm painting a picture, you see, and I can't get +on without a model." + +"Oh, with pleasure," Klotchkov agreed. "Go along, Anyuta." + +"The things I've had to put up with there," Anyuta murmured softly. + +"Rubbish! The man's asking you for the sake of art, and not for any +sort of nonsense. Why not help him if you can?" + +Anyuta began dressing. + +"And what are you painting?" asked Klotchkov. + +"Psyche; it's a fine subject. But it won't go, somehow. I have to +keep painting from different models. Yesterday I was painting one +with blue legs. 'Why are your legs blue?' I asked her. 'It's my +stockings stain them,' she said. And you're still grinding! Lucky +fellow! You have patience." + +"Medicine's a job one can't get on with without grinding." + +"H'm! . . . Excuse me, Klotchkov, but you do live like a pig! It's +awful the way you live!" + +"How do you mean? I can't help it. . . . I only get twelve roubles +a month from my father, and it's hard to live decently on that." + +"Yes . . . yes . . ." said the artist, frowning with an air of +disgust; "but, still, you might live better. . . . An educated man +is in duty bound to have taste, isn't he? And goodness knows what +it's like here! The bed not made, the slops, the dirt . . . yesterday's +porridge in the plates. . . Tfoo!" + +"That's true," said the student in confusion; "but Anyuta has had +no time to-day to tidy up; she's been busy all the while." + +When Anyuta and the artist had gone out Klotchkov lay down on the +sofa and began learning, lying down; then he accidentally dropped +asleep, and waking up an hour later, propped his head on his fists +and sank into gloomy reflection. He recalled the artist's words +that an educated man was in duty bound to have taste, and his +surroundings actually struck him now as loathsome and revolting. +He saw, as it were in his mind's eye, his own future, when he would +see his patients in his consulting-room, drink tea in a large +dining-room in the company of his wife, a real lady. And now that +slop-pail in which the cigarette ends were swimming looked incredibly +disgusting. Anyuta, too, rose before his imagination--a plain, +slovenly, pitiful figure . . . and he made up his mind to part with +her at once, at all costs. + +When, on coming back from the artist's, she took off her coat, he +got up and said to her seriously: + +"Look here, my good girl . . . sit down and listen. We must part! +The fact is, I don't want to live with you any longer." + +Anyuta had come back from the artist's worn out and exhausted. +Standing so long as a model had made her face look thin and sunken, +and her chin sharper than ever. She said nothing in answer to the +student's words, only her lips began to tremble. + +"You know we should have to part sooner or later, anyway," said the +student. "You're a nice, good girl, and not a fool; you'll +understand. . . ." + +Anyuta put on her coat again, in silence wrapped up her embroidery +in paper, gathered together her needles and thread: she found the +screw of paper with the four lumps of sugar in the window, and laid +it on the table by the books. + +"That's . . . your sugar . . ." she said softly, and turned away +to conceal her tears. + +"Why are you crying?" asked Klotchkov. + +He walked about the room in confusion, and said: + +"You are a strange girl, really. . . . Why, you know we shall have +to part. We can't stay together for ever." + +She had gathered together all her belongings, and turned to say +good-bye to him, and he felt sorry for her. + +"Shall I let her stay on here another week?" he thought. "She really +may as well stay, and I'll tell her to go in a week;" and vexed at +his own weakness, he shouted to her roughly: + +"Come, why are you standing there? If you are going, go; and if you +don't want to, take off your coat and stay! You can stay!" + +Anyuta took off her coat, silently, stealthily, then blew her nose +also stealthily, sighed, and noiselessly returned to her invariable +position on her stool by the window. + +The student drew his textbook to him and began again pacing from +corner to corner. "The right lung consists of three parts," he +repeated; "the upper part, on anterior wall of thorax, reaches the +fourth or fifth rib . . . ." + +In the passage some one shouted at the top of his voice: "Grigory! +The samovar!" + + +THE TWO VOLODYAS + +"LET me; I want to drive myself! I'll sit by the driver!" Sofya +Lvovna said in a loud voice. "Wait a minute, driver; I'll get up +on the box beside you." + +She stood up in the sledge, and her husband, Vladimir Nikititch, +and the friend of her childhood, Vladimir Mihalovitch, held her +arms to prevent her falling. The three horses were galloping fast. + +"I said you ought not to have given her brandy," Vladimir Nikititch +whispered to his companion with vexation. "What a fellow you are, +really!" + +The Colonel knew by experience that in women like his wife, Sofya +Lvovna, after a little too much wine, turbulent gaiety was followed +by hysterical laughter and then tears. He was afraid that when they +got home, instead of being able to sleep, he would have to be +administering compresses and drops. + +"Wo!" cried Sofya Lvovna. "I want to drive myself!" + +She felt genuinely gay and triumphant. For the last two months, +ever since her wedding, she had been tortured by the thought that +she had married Colonel Yagitch from worldly motives and, as it is +said, _par depit_; but that evening, at the restaurant, she had +suddenly become convinced that she loved him passionately. In spite +of his fifty-four years, he was so slim, agile, supple, he made +puns and hummed to the gipsies' tunes so charmingly. Really, the +older men were nowadays a thousand times more interesting than the +young. It seemed as though age and youth had changed parts. The +Colonel was two years older than her father, but could there be any +importance in that if, honestly speaking, there were infinitely +more vitality, go, and freshness in him than in herself, though she +was only twenty-three? + +"Oh, my darling!" she thought. "You are wonderful!" + +She had become convinced in the restaurant, too, that not a spark +of her old feeling remained. For the friend of her childhood, +Vladimir Mihalovitch, or simply Volodya, with whom only the day +before she had been madly, miserably in love, she now felt nothing +but complete indifference. All that evening he had seemed to her +spiritless, torpid, uninteresting, and insignificant, and the +_sangfroid_ with which he habitually avoided paying at restaurants +on this occasion revolted her, and she had hardly been able to +resist saying, "If you are poor, you should stay at home." The +Colonel paid for all. + +Perhaps because trees, telegraph posts, and drifts of snow kept +flitting past her eyes, all sorts of disconnected ideas came rushing +into her mind. She reflected: the bill at the restaurant had been +a hundred and twenty roubles, and a hundred had gone to the gipsies, +and to-morrow she could fling away a thousand roubles if she liked; +and only two months ago, before her wedding, she had not had three +roubles of her own, and had to ask her father for every trifle. +What a change in her life! + +Her thoughts were in a tangle. She recalled, how, when she was a +child of ten, Colonel Yagitch, now her husband, used to make love +to her aunt, and every one in the house said that he had ruined +her. And her aunt had, in fact, often come down to dinner with her +eyes red from crying, and was always going off somewhere; and people +used to say of her that the poor thing could find no peace anywhere. +He had been very handsome in those days, and had an extraordinary +reputation as a lady-killer. So much so that he was known all over +the town, and it was said of him that he paid a round of visits to +his adorers every day like a doctor visiting his patients. And even +now, in spite of his grey hair, his wrinkles, and his spectacles, +his thin face looked handsome, especially in profile. + +Sofya Lvovna's father was an army doctor, and had at one time served +in the same regiment with Colonel Yagitch. Volodya's father was an +army doctor too, and he, too, had once been in the same regiment +as her father and Colonel Yagitch. In spite of many amatory adventures, +often very complicated and disturbing, Volodya had done splendidly +at the university, and had taken a very good degree. Now he was +specialising in foreign literature, and was said to be writing a +thesis. He lived with his father, the army doctor, in the barracks, +and had no means of his own, though he was thirty. As children Sofya +and he had lived under the same roof, though in different flats. +He often came to play with her, and they had dancing and French +lessons together. But when he grew up into a graceful, remarkably +handsome young man, she began to feel shy of him, and then fell +madly in love with him, and had loved him right up to the time when +she was married to Yagitch. He, too, had been renowned for his +success with women almost from the age of fourteen, and the ladies +who deceived their husbands on his account excused themselves by +saying that he was only a boy. Some one had told a story of him +lately that when he was a student living in lodgings so as to be +near the university, it always happened if one knocked at his door, +that one heard his footstep, and then a whispered apology: "_Pardon, +je ne suis pas setul._" Yagitch was delighted with him, and blessed +him as a worthy successor, as Derchavin blessed Pushkin; he appeared +to be fond of him. They would play billiards or picquet by the hour +together without uttering a word, if Yagitch drove out on any +expedition he always took Volodya with him, and Yagitch was the +only person Volodya initiated into the mysteries of his thesis. In +earlier days, when Yagitch was rather younger, they had often been +in the position of rivals, but they had never been jealous of one +another. In the circle in which they moved Yagitch was nicknamed +Big Volodya, and his friend Little Volodya. + +Besides Big Volodya, Little Volodya, and Sofya Lvovna, there was a +fourth person in the sledge--Margarita Alexandrovna, or, as every +one called her, Rita, a cousin of Madame Yagitch--a very pale +girl over thirty, with black eyebrows and a pince-nez, who was for +ever smoking cigarettes, even in the bitterest frost, and who always +had her knees and the front of her blouse covered with cigarette +ash. She spoke through her nose, drawling every word, was of a cold +temperament, could drink any amount of wine and liquor without being +drunk, and used to tell scandalous anecdotes in a languid and +tasteless way. At home she spent her days reading thick magazines, +covering them with cigarette ash, or eating frozen apples. + +"Sonia, give over fooling," she said, drawling. "It's really silly." + +As they drew near the city gates they went more slowly, and began +to pass people and houses. Sofya Lvovna subsided, nestled up to her +husband, and gave herself up to her thoughts. Little Volodya sat +opposite. By now her light-hearted and cheerful thoughts were mingled +with gloomy ones. She thought that the man sitting opposite knew +that she loved him, and no doubt he believed the gossip that she +married the Colonel _par depit_. She had never told him of her love; +she had not wanted him to know, and had done her best to hide her +feeling, but from her face she knew that he understood her perfectly +--and her pride suffered. But what was most humiliating in her +position was that, since her wedding, Volodya had suddenly begun +to pay her attention, which he had never done before, spending hours +with her, sitting silent or chattering about trifles; and even now +in the sledge, though he did not talk to her, he touched her foot +with his and pressed her hand a little. Evidently that was all he +wanted, that she should be married; and it was evident that he +despised her and that she only excited in him an interest of a +special kind as though she were an immoral and disreputable woman. +And when the feeling of triumph and love for her husband were mingled +in her soul with humiliation and wounded pride, she was overcome +by a spirit of defiance, and longed to sit on the box, to shout and +whistle to the horses. + +Just as they passed the nunnery the huge hundred-ton bell rang out. +Rita crossed herself. + +"Our Olga is in that nunnery," said Sofya Lvovna, and she, too, +crossed herself and shuddered. + +"Why did she go into the nunnery?" said the Colonel. + +"_Par depit_," Rita answered crossly, with obvious allusion to +Sofya's marrying Yagitch. "_Par depit_ is all the fashion nowadays. +Defiance of all the world. She was always laughing, a desperate +flirt, fond of nothing but balls and young men, and all of a sudden +off she went--to surprise every one!" + +"That's not true," said Volodya, turning down the collar of his fur +coat and showing his handsome face. "It wasn't a case of _par depit_; +it was simply horrible, if you like. Her brother Dmitri was sent +to penal servitude, and they don't know where he is now. And her +mother died of grief." + +He turned up his collar again. + +"Olga did well," he added in a muffled voice. "Living as an adopted +child, and with such a paragon as Sofya Lvovna,--one must take +that into consideration too!" + +Sofya Lvovna heard a tone of contempt in his voice, and longed to +say something rude to him, but she said nothing. The spirit of +defiance came over her again; she stood up again and shouted in a +tearful voice: + +"I want to go to the early service! Driver, back! I want to see +Olga." + +They turned back. The nunnery bell had a deep note, and Sofya Lvovna +fancied there was something in it that reminded her of Olga and her +life. The other church bells began ringing too. When the driver +stopped the horses, Sofya Lvovna jumped out of the sledge and, +unescorted and alone, went quickly up to the gate. + +"Make haste, please!" her husband called to her. "It's late already." + +She went in at the dark gateway, then by the avenue that led from +the gate to the chief church. The snow crunched under her feet, and +the ringing was just above her head, and seemed to vibrate through +her whole being. Here was the church door, then three steps down, +and an ante-room with ikons of the saints on both sides, a fragrance +of juniper and incense, another door, and a dark figure opening it +and bowing very low. The service had not yet begun. One nun was +walking by the ikon-screen and lighting the candles on the tall +standard candlesticks, another was lighting the chandelier. Here +and there, by the columns and the side chapels, there stood black, +motionless figures. "I suppose they must remain standing as they +are now till the morning," thought Sofya Lvovna, and it seemed to +her dark, cold, and dreary--drearier than a graveyard. She looked +with a feeling of dreariness at the still, motionless figures and +suddenly felt a pang at her heart. For some reason, in one short +nun, with thin shoulders and a black kerchief on her head, she +recognised Olga, though when Olga went into the nunnery she had +been plump and had looked taller. Hesitating and extremely agitated, +Sofya Lvovna went up to the nun, and looking over her shoulder into +her face, recognised her as Olga. + +"Olga!" she cried, throwing up her hands, and could not speak from +emotion. "Olga!" + +The nun knew her at once; she raised her eyebrows in surprise, and +her pale, freshly washed face, and even, it seemed, the white +headcloth that she wore under her wimple, beamed with pleasure. + +"What a miracle from God!" she said, and she, too, threw up her +thin, pale little hands. + +Sofya Lvovna hugged her and kissed her warmly, and was afraid as +she did so that she might smell of spirits. + +"We were just driving past, and we thought of you," she said, +breathing hard, as though she had been running. "Dear me! How pale +you are! I . . . I'm very glad to see you. Well, tell me how are +you? Are you dull?" + +Sofya Lvovna looked round at the other nuns, and went on in a subdued +voice: + +"There've been so many changes at home . . . you know, I'm married +to Colonel Yagitch. You remember him, no doubt. . . . I am very +happy with him." + +"Well, thank God for that. And is your father quite well? + +"Yes, he is quite well. He often speaks of you. You must come and +see us during the holidays, Olga, won't you?" + +"I will come," said Olga, and she smiled. "I'll come on the second +day." + +Sofya Lvovna began crying, she did not know why, and for a minute +she shed tears in silence, then she wiped her eyes and said: + +"Rita will be very sorry not to have seen you. She is with us too. +And Volodya's here. They are close to the gate. How pleased they'd +be if you'd come out and see them. Let's go out to them; the service +hasn't begun yet.'' + +"Let us," Olga agreed. She crossed herself three times and went out +with Sofya Lvovna to the entrance. + +"So you say you're happy, Sonitchka?" she asked when they came out +at the gate. + +"Very." + +"Well, thank God for that." + +The two Volodyas, seeing the nun, got out of the sledge and greeted +her respectfully. Both were visibly touched by her pale face and +her black monastic dress, and both were pleased that she had +remembered them and come to greet them. That she might not be cold, +Sofya Lvovna wrapped her up in a rug and put one half of her fur +coat round her. Her tears had relieved and purified her heart, and +she was glad that this noisy, restless, and, in reality, impure +night should unexpectedly end so purely and serenely. And to keep +Olga by her a little longer she suggested: + +"Let us take her for a drive! Get in, Olga; we'll go a little way." + +The men expected the nun to refuse--saints don't dash about in +three-horse sledges; but to their surprise, she consented and got +into the sledge. And while the horses were galloping to the city +gate all were silent, and only tried to make her warm and comfortable, +and each of them was thinking of what she had been in the past and +what she was now. Her face was now passionless, inexpressive, cold, +pale, and transparent, as though there were water, not blood, in +her veins. And two or three years ago she had been plump and rosy, +talking about her suitors and laughing at every trifle. + +Near the city gate the sledge turned back; when it stopped ten +minutes later near the nunnery, Olga got out of the sledge. The +bell had begun to ring more rapidly. + +"The Lord save you," said Olga, and she bowed low as nuns do. + +"Mind you come, Olga." + +"I will, I will." + +She went and quickly disappeared through the gateway. And when after +that they drove on again, Sofya Lvovna felt very sad. Every one was +silent. She felt dispirited and weak all over. That she should have +made a nun get into a sledge and drive in a company hardly sober +seemed to her now stupid, tactless, and almost sacrilegious. As the +intoxication passed off, the desire to deceive herself passed away +also. It was clear to her now that she did not love her husband, +and never could love him, and that it all had been foolishness and +nonsense. She had married him from interested motives, because, in +the words of her school friends, he was madly rich, and because she +was afraid of becoming an old maid like Rita, and because she was +sick of her father, the doctor, and wanted to annoy Volodya. + +If she could have imagined when she got married, that it would be +so oppressive, so dreadful, and so hideous, she would not have +consented to the marriage for all the wealth in the world. But now +there was no setting it right. She must make up her mind to it. + +They reached home. Getting into her warm, soft bed, and pulling the +bed-clothes over her, Sofya Lvovna recalled the dark church, the +smell of incense, and the figures by the columns, and she felt +frightened at the thought that these figures would be standing there +all the while she was asleep. The early service would be very, very +long; then there would be "the hours," then the mass, then the +service of the day. + +"But of course there is a God--there certainly is a God; and I +shall have to die, so that sooner or later one must think of one's +soul, of eternal life, like Olga. Olga is saved now; she has settled +all questions for herself. . . . But if there is no God? Then her +life is wasted. But how is it wasted? Why is it wasted?" + +And a minute later the thought came into her mind again: + +"There is a God; death must come; one must think of one's soul. If +Olga were to see death before her this minute she would not be +afraid. She is prepared. And the great thing is that she has already +solved the problem of life for herself. There is a God . . . yes +. . . . But is there no other solution except going into a monastery? +To go into the monastery means to renounce life, to spoil it . . . ." + +Sofya Lvovna began to feel rather frightened; she hid her head under +her pillow. + +"I mustn't think about it," she whispered. "I mustn't. . . ." + +Yagitch was walking about on the carpet in the next room with a +soft jingle of spurs, thinking about something. The thought occurred +to Sofya Lvovna that this man was near and dear to her only for one +reason--that his name, too, was Vladimir. She sat up in bed and +called tenderly: + +"Volodya!" + +"What is it?" her husband responded. + +"Nothing." + +She lay down again. She heard a bell, perhaps the same nunnery bell. +Again she thought of the vestibule and the dark figures, and thoughts +of God and of inevitable death strayed through her mind, and she +covered her ears that she might not hear the bell. She thought that +before old age and death there would be a long, long life before +her, and that day by day she would have to put up with being close +to a man she did not love, who had just now come into the bedroom +and was getting into bed, and would have to stifle in her heart her +hopeless love for the other young, fascinating, and, as she thought, +exceptional man. She looked at her husband and tried to say good-night +to him, but suddenly burst out crying instead. She was vexed with +herself. + +"Well, now then for the music!" said Yagitch. + +She was not pacified till ten o'clock in the morning. She left off +crying and trembling all over, but she began to have a splitting +headache. Yagitch was in haste to go to the late mass, and in the +next room was grumbling at his orderly, who was helping him to +dress. He came into the bedroom once with the soft jingle of his +spurs to fetch something, and then a second time wearing his +epaulettes, and his orders on his breast, limping slightly from +rheumatism; and it struck Sofya Lvovna that he looked and walked +like a bird of prey. + +She heard Yagitch ring the telephone bell. + +"Be so good as to put me on to the Vassilevsky barracks," he said; +and a minute later: "Vassilevsky barracks? Please ask Doctor +Salimovitch to come to the telephone . . ." And a minute later: +"With whom am I speaking? Is it you, Volodya? Delighted. Ask your +father to come to us at once, dear boy; my wife is rather shattered +after yesterday. Not at home, you say? H'm! . . . Thank you. Very +good. I shall be much obliged . . . _Merci_." + +Yagitch came into the bedroom for the third time, bent down to his +wife, made the sign of the cross over her, gave her his hand to +kiss (the women who had been in love with him used to kiss his hand +and he had got into the habit of it), and saying that he should be +back to dinner, went out. + +At twelve o'clock the maid came in to announce that Vladimir +Mihalovitch had arrived. Sofya Lvovna, staggering with fatigue and +headache, hurriedly put on her marvellous new lilac dressing-gown +trimmed with fur, and hastily did up her hair after a fashion. She +was conscious of an inexpressible tenderness in her heart, and was +trembling with joy and with fear that he might go away. She wanted +nothing but to look at him. + +Volodya came dressed correctly for calling, in a swallow-tail coat +and white tie. When Sofya Lvovna came in he kissed her hand and +expressed his genuine regret that she was ill. Then when they had +sat down, he admired her dressing-gown. + +"I was upset by seeing Olga yesterday," she said. "At first I felt +it dreadful, but now I envy her. She is like a rock that cannot be +shattered; there is no moving her. But was there no other solution +for her, Volodya? Is burying oneself alive the only solution of the +problem of life? Why, it's death, not life!" + +At the thought of Olga, Volodya's face softened. + +"Here, you are a clever man, Volodya," said Sofya Lvovna. "Show me +how to do what Olga has done. Of course, I am not a believer and +should not go into a nunnery, but one can do something equivalent. +Life isn't easy for me," she added after a brief pause. "Tell me +what to do. . . . Tell me something I can believe in. Tell me +something, if it's only one word." + +"One word? By all means: tararaboomdeeay." + +"Volodya, why do you despise me?" she asked hotly. "You talk to me +in a special, fatuous way, if you'll excuse me, not as one talks +to one's friends and women one respects. You are so good at your +work, you are fond of science; why do you never talk of it to me? +Why is it? Am I not good enough?" + +Volodya frowned with annoyance and said: + +"Why do you want science all of a sudden? Don't you perhaps want +constitutional government? Or sturgeon and horse-radish?" + +"Very well, I am a worthless, trivial, silly woman with no convictions. +I have a mass, a mass of defects. I am neurotic, corrupt, and I +ought to be despised for it. But you, Volodya, are ten years older +than I am, and my husband is thirty years older. I've grown up +before your eyes, and if you would, you could have made anything +you liked of me--an angel. But you"--her voice quivered-- +"treat me horribly. Yagitch has married me in his old age, and +you . . ." + +"Come, come," said Volodya, sitting nearer her and kissing both her +hands. "Let the Schopenhauers philosophise and prove whatever they +like, while we'll kiss these little hands." + +"You despise me, and if only you knew how miserable it makes me," +she said uncertainly, knowing beforehand that he would not believe +her. "And if you only knew how I want to change, to begin another +life! I think of it with enthusiasm!" and tears of enthusiasm +actually came into her eyes. "To be good, honest, pure, not to be +lying; to have an object in life." + +"Come, come, come, please don't be affected! I don't like it!" said +Volodya, and an ill-humoured expression came into his face. "Upon +my word, you might be on the stage. Let us behave like simple +people." + +To prevent him from getting cross and going away, she began defending +herself, and forced herself to smile to please him; and again she +began talking of Olga, and of how she longed to solve the problem +of her life and to become something real. + +"Ta-ra-ra-boomdee-ay," he hummed. "Ta-ra-ra-boom-dee-ay!" + +And all at once he put his arm round her waist, while she, without +knowing what she was doing, laid her hands on his shoulders and for +a minute gazed with ecstasy, almost intoxication, at his clever, +ironical face, his brow, his eyes, his handsome beard. + +"You have known that I love you for ever so long," she confessed +to him, and she blushed painfully, and felt that her lips were +twitching with shame. "I love you. Why do you torture me?" + +She shut her eyes and kissed him passionately on the lips, and for +a long while, a full minute, could not take her lips away, though +she knew it was unseemly, that he might be thinking the worse of +her, that a servant might come in. + +"Oh, how you torture me!" she repeated. + +When half an hour later, having got all that he wanted, he was +sitting at lunch in the dining-room, she was kneeling before him, +gazing greedily into his face, and he told her that she was like a +little dog waiting for a bit of ham to be thrown to it. Then he sat +her on his knee, and dancing her up and down like a child, hummed: + +"Tara-raboom-dee-ay. . . . Tara-raboom-dee-ay." And when he was +getting ready to go she asked him in a passionate whisper: + +"When? To-day? Where?" And held out both hands to his mouth as +though she wanted to seize his answer in them. + +"To-day it will hardly be convenient," he said after a minute's +thought. "To-morrow, perhaps." + +And they parted. Before dinner Sofya Lvovna went to the nunnery to +see Olga, but there she was told that Olga was reading the psalter +somewhere over the dead. From the nunnery she went to her father's +and found that he, too, was out. Then she took another sledge and +drove aimlessly about the streets till evening. And for some reason +she kept thinking of the aunt whose eyes were red with crying, and +who could find no peace anywhere. + +And at night they drove out again with three horses to a restaurant +out of town and listened to the gipsies. And driving back past the +nunnery again, Sofya Lvovna thought of Olga, and she felt aghast +at the thought that for the girls and women of her class there was +no solution but to go on driving about and telling lies, or going +into a nunnery to mortify the flesh. . . . And next day she met her +lover, and again Sofya Lvovna drove about the town alone in a hired +sledge thinking about her aunt. + +A week later Volodya threw her over. And after that life went on +as before, uninteresting, miserable, and sometimes even agonising. +The Colonel and Volodya spent hours playing billiards and picquet, +Rita told anecdotes in the same languid, tasteless way, and Sofya +Lvovna went about alone in hired sledges and kept begging her husband +to take her for a good drive with three horses. + +Going almost every day to the nunnery, she wearied Olga, complaining +of her unbearable misery, weeping, and feeling as she did so that +she brought with her into the cell something impure, pitiful, shabby. +And Olga repeated to her mechanically as though a lesson learnt by +rote, that all this was of no consequence, that it would all pass +and God would forgive her. + + +THE TROUSSEAU + +I HAVE seen a great many houses in my time, little and big, new and +old, built of stone and of wood, but of one house I have kept a +very vivid memory. It was, properly speaking, rather a cottage than +a house--a tiny cottage of one story, with three windows, looking +extraordinarily like a little old hunchback woman with a cap on. +Its white stucco walls, its tiled roof, and dilapidated chimney, +were all drowned in a perfect sea of green. The cottage was lost +to sight among the mulberry-trees, acacias, and poplars planted by +the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of its present occupants. +And yet it is a town house. Its wide courtyard stands in a row with +other similar green courtyards, and forms part of a street. Nothing +ever drives down that street, and very few persons are ever seen +walking through it. + +The shutters of the little house are always closed; its occupants +do not care for sunlight--the light is no use to them. The windows +are never opened, for they are not fond of fresh air. People who +spend their lives in the midst of acacias, mulberries, and nettles +have no passion for nature. It is only to the summer visitor that +God has vouchsafed an eye for the beauties of nature. The rest of +mankind remain steeped in profound ignorance of the existence of +such beauties. People never prize what they have always had in +abundance. "What we have, we do not treasure," and what's more we +do not even love it. + +The little house stands in an earthly paradise of green trees with +happy birds nesting in them. But inside . . . alas . . . ! In summer, +it is close and stifling within; in winter, hot as a Turkish bath, +not one breath of air, and the dreariness! . . . + +The first time I visited the little house was many years ago on +business. I brought a message from the Colonel who was the owner +of the house to his wife and daughter. That first visit I remember +very distinctly. It would be impossible, indeed, to forget it. + +Imagine a limp little woman of forty, gazing at you with alarm and +astonishment while you walk from the passage into the parlour. You +are a stranger, a visitor, "a young man"; that's enough to reduce +her to a state of terror and bewilderment. Though you have no dagger, +axe, or revolver in your hand, and though you smile affably, you +are met with alarm. + +"Whom have I the honour and pleasure of addressing?" the little +lady asks in a trembling voice. + +I introduced myself and explained why I had come. The alarm and +amazement were at once succeeded by a shrill, joyful "Ach!" and she +turned her eyes upwards to the ceiling. This "Ach!" was caught up +like an echo and repeated from the hall to the parlour, from the +parlour to the kitchen, and so on down to the cellar. Soon the whole +house was resounding with "Ach!" in various voices. + +Five minutes later I was sitting on a big, soft, warm lounge in the +drawing-room listening to the "Ach!" echoing all down the street. +There was a smell of moth powder, and of goatskin shoes, a pair of +which lay on a chair beside me wrapped in a handkerchief. In the +windows were geraniums, and muslin curtains, and on the curtains +were torpid flies. On the wall hung the portrait of some bishop, +painted in oils, with the glass broken at one corner, and next to +the bishop a row of ancestors with lemon-coloured faces of a gipsy +type. On the table lay a thimble, a reel of cotton, and a half-knitted +stocking, and paper patterns and a black blouse, tacked together, +were lying on the floor. In the next room two alarmed and fluttered +old women were hurriedly picking up similar patterns and pieces of +tailor's chalk from the floor. + +"You must, please, excuse us; we are dreadfully untidy," said the +little lady. + +While she talked to me, she stole embarrassed glances towards the +other room where the patterns were still being picked up. The door, +too, seemed embarrassed, opening an inch or two and then shutting +again. + +"What's the matter?" said the little lady, addressing the door. + +_"Ou est mon cravatte lequel mon pere m'avait envoye de Koursk?"_ +asked a female voice at the door. + +_"Ah, est-ce que, Marie . . . que_. . . Really, it's impossible +. . . . _Nous avons donc chez nous un homme peu connu de nous._ Ask +Lukerya." + +"How well we speak French, though!" I read in the eyes of the little +lady, who was flushing with pleasure. + +Soon afterwards the door opened and I saw a tall, thin girl of +nineteen, in a long muslin dress with a gilt belt from which, I +remember, hung a mother-of-pearl fan. She came in, dropped a curtsy, +and flushed crimson. Her long nose, which was slightly pitted with +smallpox, turned red first, and then the flush passed up to her +eyes and her forehead. + +"My daughter," chanted the little lady, "and, Manetchka, this is a +young gentleman who has come," etc. + +I was introduced, and expressed my surprise at the number of paper +patterns. Mother and daughter dropped their eyes. + +"We had a fair here at Ascension," said the mother; "we always buy +materials at the fair, and then it keeps us busy with sewing till +the next year's fair comes around again. We never put things out +to be made. My husband's pay is not very ample, and we are not able +to permit ourselves luxuries. So we have to make up everything +ourselves." + +"But who will ever wear such a number of things? There are only two +of you?" + +"Oh . . . as though we were thinking of wearing them! They are not +to be worn; they are for the trousseau!" + +"Ah, _mamam_, what are you saying?" said the daughter, and she +crimsoned again. "Our visitor might suppose it was true. I don't +intend to be married. Never!" + +She said this, but at the very word "married" her eyes glowed. + +Tea, biscuits, butter, and jam were brought in, followed by raspberries +and cream. At seven o'clock, we had supper, consisting of six +courses, and while we were at supper I heard a loud yawn from the +next room. I looked with surprise towards the door: it was a yawn +that could only come from a man. + +"That's my husband's brother, Yegor Semyonitch," the little lady +explained, noticing my surprise. "He's been living with us for the +last year. Please excuse him; he cannot come in to see you. He is +such an unsociable person, he is shy with strangers. He is going +into a monastery. He was unfairly treated in the service, and the +disappointment has preyed on his mind." + +After supper the little lady showed the vestment which Yegor +Semyonitch was embroidering with his own hands as an offering for +the Church. Manetchka threw off her shyness for a moment and showed +me the tobacco-pouch she was embroidering for her father. When I +pretended to be greatly struck by her work, she flushed crimson and +whispered something in her mother's ear. The latter beamed all over, +and invited me to go with her to the store-room. There I was shown +five large trunks, and a number of smaller trunks and boxes. + +"This is her trousseau," her mother whispered; "we made it all +ourselves." + +After looking at these forbidding trunks I took leave of my hospitable +hostesses. They made me promise to come and see them again some +day. + +It happened that I was able to keep this promise. Seven years after +my first visit, I was sent down to the little town to give expert +evidence in a case that was being tried there. + +As I entered the little house I heard the same "Ach!" echo through +it. They recognised me at once. . . . Well they might! My first +visit had been an event in their lives, and when events are few +they are long remembered. + +I walked into the drawing-room: the mother, who had grown stouter +and was already getting grey, was creeping about on the floor, +cutting out some blue material. The daughter was sitting on the +sofa, embroidering. + +There was the same smell of moth powder; there were the same patterns, +the same portrait with the broken glass. But yet there was a change. +Beside the portrait of the bishop hung a portrait of the Colonel, +and the ladies were in mourning. The Colonel's death had occurred +a week after his promotion to be a general. + +Reminiscences began. . . . The widow shed tears. + +"We have had a terrible loss," she said. "My husband, you know, is +dead. We are alone in the world now, and have no one but ourselves +to look to. Yegor Semyonitch is alive, but I have no good news to +tell of him. They would not have him in the monastery on account +of--of intoxicating beverages. And now in his disappointment he +drinks more than ever. I am thinking of going to the Marshal of +Nobility to lodge a complaint. Would you believe it, he has more +than once broken open the trunks and . . . taken Manetchka's trousseau +and given it to beggars. He has taken everything out of two of the +trunks! If he goes on like this, my Manetchka will be left without +a trousseau at all." + +"What are you saying, _mamam_?" said Manetchka, embarrassed. "Our +visitor might suppose . . . there's no knowing what he might suppose +. . . . I shall never--never marry." + +Manetchka cast her eyes up to the ceiling with a look of hope and +aspiration, evidently not for a moment believing what she said. + +A little bald-headed masculine figure in a brown coat and goloshes +instead of boots darted like a mouse across the passage and +disappeared. "Yegor Semyonitch, I suppose," I thought. + +I looked at the mother and daughter together. They both looked much +older and terribly changed. The mother's hair was silvered, but the +daughter was so faded and withered that her mother might have been +taken for her elder sister, not more than five years her senior. + +"I have made up my mind to go to the Marshal," the mother said to +me, forgetting she had told me this already. "I mean to make a +complaint. Yegor Semyonitch lays his hands on everything we make, +and offers it up for the sake of his soul. My Manetchka is left +without a trousseau." + +Manetchka flushed again, but this time she said nothing. + +"We have to make them all over again. And God knows we are not so +well off. We are all alone in the world now." + +"We are alone in the world," repeated Manetchka. + +A year ago fate brought me once more to the little house. + +Walking into the drawing-room, I saw the old lady. Dressed all in +black with heavy crape _pleureuses_, she was sitting on the sofa +sewing. Beside her sat the little old man in the brown coat and the +goloshes instead of boots. On seeing me, he jumped up and ran out +of the room. + +In response to my greeting, the old lady smiled and said: + +_"Je suis charmee de vous revoir, monsieur."_ + +"What are you making?" I asked, a little later. + +"It's a blouse. When it's finished I shall take it to the priest's +to be put away, or else Yegor Semyonitch would carry it off. I store +everything at the priest's now," she added in a whisper. + +And looking at the portrait of her daughter which stood before her +on the table, she sighed and said: + +"We are all alone in the world." + +And where was the daughter? Where was Manetchka? I did not ask. I +did not dare to ask the old mother dressed in her new deep mourning. +And while I was in the room, and when I got up to go, no Manetchka +came out to greet me. I did not hear her voice, nor her soft, timid +footstep. . . . + +I understood, and my heart was heavy. + + +THE HELPMATE + +"I'VE asked you not to tidy my table," said Nikolay Yevgrafitch. +"There's no finding anything when you've tidied up. Where's the +telegram? Where have you thrown it? Be so good as to look for it. +It's from Kazan, dated yesterday." + +The maid--a pale, very slim girl with an indifferent expression +--found several telegrams in the basket under the table, and handed +them to the doctor without a word; but all these were telegrams +from patients. Then they looked in the drawing-room, and in Olga +Dmitrievna's room. + +It was past midnight. Nikolay Yevgrafitch knew his wife would not +be home very soon, not till five o'clock at least. He did not trust +her, and when she was long away he could not sleep, was worried, +and at the same time he despised his wife, and her bed, and her +looking-glass, and her boxes of sweets, and the hyacinths, and the +lilies of the valley which were sent her every day by some one or +other, and which diffused the sickly fragrance of a florist's shop +all over the house. On such nights he became petty, ill-humoured, +irritable, and he fancied now that it was very necessary for him +to have the telegram he had received the day before from his brother, +though it contained nothing but Christmas greetings. + +On the table of his wife's room under the box of stationery he found +a telegram, and glanced at it casually. It was addressed to his +wife, care of his mother-in-law, from Monte Carlo, and signed Michel +. . . . The doctor did not understand one word of it, as it was in +some foreign language, apparently English. + +"Who is this Michel? Why Monte Carlo? Why directed care of her +mother?" + +During the seven years of his married life he had grown used to +being suspicious, guessing, catching at clues, and it had several +times occurred to him, that his exercise at home had qualified him +to become an excellent detective. Going into his study and beginning +to reflect, he recalled at once how he had been with his wife in +Petersburg a year and a half ago, and had lunched with an old +school-fellow, a civil engineer, and how that engineer had introduced +to him and his wife a young man of two or three and twenty, called +Mihail Ivanovitch, with rather a curious short surname--Riss. Two +months later the doctor had seen the young man's photograph in his +wife's album, with an inscription in French: "In remembrance of the +present and in hope of the future." Later on he had met the young +man himself at his mother-in-law's. And that was at the time when +his wife had taken to being very often absent and coming home at +four or five o'clock in the morning, and was constantly asking him +to get her a passport for abroad, which he kept refusing to do; and +a continual feud went on in the house which made him feel ashamed +to face the servants. + +Six months before, his colleagues had decided that he was going +into consumption, and advised him to throw up everything and go to +the Crimea. When she heard of this, Olga Dmitrievna affected to be +very much alarmed; she began to be affectionate to her husband, and +kept assuring him that it would be cold and dull in the Crimea, and +that he had much better go to Nice, and that she would go with him, +and there would nurse him, look after him, take care of him. + +Now, he understood why his wife was so particularly anxious to go +to Nice: her Michel lived at Monte Carlo. + +He took an English dictionary, and translating the words, and +guessing their meaning, by degrees he put together the following +sentence: "I drink to the health of my beloved darling, and kiss +her little foot a thousand times, and am impatiently expecting her +arrival." He pictured the pitiable, ludicrous part he would play +if he had agreed to go to Nice with his wife. He felt so mortified +that he almost shed tears and began pacing to and fro through all +the rooms of the flat in great agitation. His pride, his plebeian +fastidiousness, was revolted. Clenching his fists and scowling with +disgust, he wondered how he, the son of a village priest, brought +up in a clerical school, a plain, straightforward man, a surgeon +by profession--how could he have let himself be enslaved, have +sunk into such shameful bondage to this weak, worthless, mercenary, +low creature. + +"'Little foot'!" he muttered to himself, crumpling up the telegram; +"'little foot'!" + +Of the time when he fell in love and proposed to her, and the seven +years that he had been living with her, all that remained in his +memory was her long, fragrant hair, a mass of soft lace, and her +little feet, which certainly were very small, beautiful feet; and +even now it seemed as though he still had from those old embraces +the feeling of lace and silk upon his hands and face--and nothing +more. Nothing more--that is, not counting hysterics, shrieks, +reproaches, threats, and lies--brazen, treacherous lies. He +remembered how in his father's house in the village a bird would +sometimes chance to fly in from the open air into the house and +would struggle desperately against the window-panes and upset things; +so this woman from a class utterly alien to him had flown into his +life and made complete havoc of it. The best years of his life had +been spent as though in hell, his hopes for happiness shattered and +turned into a mockery, his health gone, his rooms as vulgar in their +atmosphere as a cocotte's, and of the ten thousand he earned every +year he could never save ten roubles to send his old mother in the +village, and his debts were already about fifteen thousand. It +seemed that if a band of brigands had been living in his rooms his +life would not have been so hopelessly, so irremediably ruined as +by the presence of this woman. + +He began coughing and gasping for breath. He ought to have gone to +bed and got warm, but he could not. He kept walking about the rooms, +or sat down to the table, nervously fidgeting with a pencil and +scribbling mechanically on a paper. + +"Trying a pen. . . . A little foot." + +By five o'clock he grew weaker and threw all the blame on himself. +It seemed to him now that if Olga Dmitrievna had married some one +else who might have had a good influence over her--who knows?-- +she might after all have become a good, straightforward woman. He +was a poor psychologist, and knew nothing of the female heart; +besides, he was churlish, uninteresting. . . . + +"I haven't long to live now," he thought. "I am a dead man, and +ought not to stand in the way of the living. It would be strange +and stupid to insist upon one's rights now. I'll have it out with +her; let her go to the man she loves. . . . I'll give her a divorce. +I'll take the blame on myself." + +Olga Dmitrievna came in at last, and she walked into the study and +sank into a chair just as she was in her white cloak, hat, and +overboots. + +"The nasty, fat boy," she said with a sob, breathing hard. "It's +really dishonest; it's disgusting." She stamped. "I can't put up +with it; I can't, I can't!" + +"What's the matter?" asked Nikolay Yevgrafitch, going up to her. + +"That student, Azarbekov, was seeing me home, and he lost my bag, +and there was fifteen roubles in it. I borrowed it from mamma." + +She was crying in a most genuine way, like a little girl, and not +only her handkerchief, but even her gloves, were wet with tears. + +"It can't be helped!" said the doctor. "If he's lost it, he's lost +it, and it's no good worrying over it. Calm yourself; I want to +talk to you." + +"I am not a millionaire to lose money like that. He says he'll pay +it back, but I don't believe him; he's poor . . ." + +Her husband begged her to calm herself and to listen to him, but +she kept on talking of the student and of the fifteen roubles she +had lost. + +"Ach! I'll give you twenty-five roubles to-morrow if you'll only +hold your tongue!" he said irritably. + +"I must take off my things!" she said, crying. "I can't talk seriously +in my fur coat! How strange you are!" + +He helped her off with her coat and overboots, detecting as he did +so the smell of the white wine she liked to drink with oysters (in +spite of her etherealness she ate and drank a great deal). She went +into her room and came back soon after, having changed her things +and powdered her face, though her eyes still showed traces of tears. +She sat down, retreating into her light, lacy dressing-gown, and +in the mass of billowy pink her husband could see nothing but her +hair, which she had let down, and her little foot wearing a slipper. + +"What do you want to talk about?" she asked, swinging herself in a +rocking-chair. + +"I happened to see this;" and he handed her the telegram. + +She read it and shrugged her shoulders. + +"Well?" she said, rocking herself faster. "That's the usual New +Year's greeting and nothing else. There are no secrets in it." + +"You are reckoning on my not knowing English. No, I don't know it; +but I have a dictionary. That telegram is from Riss; he drinks to +the health of his beloved and sends you a thousand kisses. But let +us leave that," the doctor went on hurriedly. "I don't in the least +want to reproach you or make a scene. We've had scenes and reproaches +enough; it's time to make an end of them. . . . This is what I want +to say to you: you are free, and can live as you like." + +There was a silence. She began crying quietly. + +"I set you free from the necessity of lying and keeping up pretences," +Nikolay Yevgrafitch continued. "If you love that young man, love +him; if you want to go abroad to him, go. You are young, healthy, +and I am a wreck, and haven't long to live. In short . . . you +understand me." + +He was agitated and could not go on. Olga Dmitrievna, crying and +speaking in a voice of self-pity, acknowledged that she loved Riss, +and used to drive out of town with him and see him in his rooms, +and now she really did long to go abroad. + +"You see, I hide nothing from you," she added, with a sigh. "My +whole soul lies open before you. And I beg you again, be generous, +get me a passport." + +"I repeat, you are free." + +She moved to another seat nearer him to look at the expression of +his face. She did not believe him and wanted now to understand his +secret meaning. She never did believe any one, and however generous +were their intentions, she always suspected some petty or ignoble +motive or selfish object in them. And when she looked searchingly +into his face, it seemed to him that there was a gleam of green +light in her eyes as in a cat's. + +"When shall I get the passport?" she asked softly. + +He suddenly had an impulse to say "Never"; but he restrained himself +and said: + +"When you like." + +"I shall only go for a month." + +"You'll go to Riss for good. I'll get you a divorce, take the blame +on myself, and Riss can marry you." + +"But I don't want a divorce!" Olga Dmitrievna retorted quickly, +with an astonished face. "I am not asking you for a divorce! Get +me a passport, that's all." + +"But why don't you want the divorce?" asked the doctor, beginning +to feel irritated. "You are a strange woman. How strange you are! +If you are fond of him in earnest and he loves you too, in your +position you can do nothing better than get married. Can you really +hesitate between marriage and adultery?" + +"I understand you," she said, walking away from him, and a spiteful, +vindictive expression came into her face. "I understand you perfectly. +You are sick of me, and you simply want to get rid of me, to force +this divorce on me. Thank you very much; I am not such a fool as +you think. I won't accept the divorce and I won't leave you--I +won't, I won't! To begin with, I don't want to lose my position in +society," she continued quickly, as though afraid of being prevented +from speaking. "Secondly, I am twenty-seven and Riss is only +twenty-three; he'll be tired of me in a year and throw me over. And +what's more, if you care to know, I'm not certain that my feeling +will last long . . . so there! I'm not going to leave you." + +"Then I'll turn you out of the house!" shouted Nikolay Yevgrafitch, +stamping. "I shall turn you out, you vile, loathsome woman!" + +"We shall see!" she said, and went out. + +It was broad daylight outside, but the doctor still sat at the table +moving the pencil over the paper and writing mechanically. + +"My dear Sir. . . . Little foot." + +Or he walked about and stopped in the drawing-room before a photograph +taken seven years ago, soon after his marriage, and looked at it +for a long time. It was a family group: his father-in-law, his +mother-in-law, his wife Olga Dmitrievna when she was twenty, and +himself in the role of a happy young husband. His father-in-law, a +clean-shaven, dropsical privy councillor, crafty and avaricious; +his mother-in-law, a stout lady with small predatory features like +a weasel, who loved her daughter to distraction and helped her in +everything; if her daughter were strangling some one, the mother +would not have protested, but would only have screened her with her +skirts. Olga Dmitrievna, too, had small predatory-looking features, +but more expressive and bolder than her mother's; she was not a +weasel, but a beast on a bigger scale! And Nikolay Yevgrafitch +himself in the photograph looked such a guileless soul, such a +kindly, good fellow, so open and simple-hearted; his whole face was +relaxed in the naive, good-natured smile of a divinity student, and +he had had the simplicity to believe that that company of beasts +of prey into which destiny had chanced to thrust him would give him +romance and happiness and all he had dreamed of when as a student +he used to sing the song "Youth is wasted, life is nought, when the +heart is cold and loveless." + +And once more he asked himself in perplexity how he, the son of a +village priest, with his democratic bringing up--a plain, blunt, +straightforward man--could have so helplessly surrendered to the +power of this worthless, false, vulgar, petty creature, whose nature +was so utterly alien to him. + +When at eleven o'clock he put on his coat to go to the hospital the +servant came into his study. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"The mistress has got up and asks you for the twenty-five roubles +you promised her yesterday." + + +TALENT + +AN artist called Yegor Savvitch, who was spending his summer holidays +at the house of an officer's widow, was sitting on his bed, given +up to the depression of morning. It was beginning to look like +autumn out of doors. Heavy, clumsy clouds covered the sky in thick +layers; there was a cold, piercing wind, and with a plaintive wail +the trees were all bending on one side. He could see the yellow +leaves whirling round in the air and on the earth. Farewell, summer! +This melancholy of nature is beautiful and poetical in its own way, +when it is looked at with the eyes of an artist, but Yegor Savvitch +was in no humour to see beauty. He was devoured by ennui and his +only consolation was the thought that by to-morrow he would not be +there. The bed, the chairs, the tables, the floor, were all heaped +up with cushions, crumpled bed-clothes, boxes. The floor had not +been swept, the cotton curtains had been taken down from the windows. +Next day he was moving, to town. + +His landlady, the widow, was out. She had gone off somewhere to +hire horses and carts to move next day to town. Profiting by the +absence of her severe mamma, her daughter Katya, aged twenty, had +for a long time been sitting in the young man's room. Next day the +painter was going away, and she had a great deal to say to him. She +kept talking, talking, and yet she felt that she had not said a +tenth of what she wanted to say. With her eyes full of tears, she +gazed at his shaggy head, gazed at it with rapture and sadness. And +Yegor Savvitch was shaggy to a hideous extent, so that he looked +like a wild animal. His hair hung down to his shoulder-blades, his +beard grew from his neck, from his nostrils, from his ears; his +eyes were lost under his thick overhanging brows. It was all so +thick, so matted, that if a fly or a beetle had been caught in his +hair, it would never have found its way out of this enchanted +thicket. Yegor Savvitch listened to Katya, yawning. He was tired. +When Katya began whimpering, he looked severely at her from his +overhanging eyebrows, frowned, and said in a heavy, deep bass: + +"I cannot marry." + +"Why not?" Katya asked softly. + +"Because for a painter, and in fact any man who lives for art, +marriage is out of the question. An artist must be free." + +"But in what way should I hinder you, Yegor Savvitch?" + +"I am not speaking of myself, I am speaking in general. . . . Famous +authors and painters have never married." + +"And you, too, will be famous--I understand that perfectly. But +put yourself in my place. I am afraid of my mother. She is stern +and irritable. When she knows that you won't marry me, and that +it's all nothing . . . she'll begin to give it to me. Oh, how +wretched I am! And you haven't paid for your rooms, either! . . . ." + +"Damn her! I'll pay." + +Yegor Savvitch got up and began walking to and fro. + +"I ought to be abroad!" he said. And the artist told her that nothing +was easier than to go abroad. One need do nothing but paint a picture +and sell it. + +"Of course!" Katya assented. "Why haven't you painted one in the +summer?" + +"Do you suppose I can work in a barn like this?" the artist said +ill-humouredly. "And where should I get models?" + +Some one banged the door viciously in the storey below. Katya, who +was expecting her mother's return from minute to minute, jumped up +and ran away. The artist was left alone. For a long time he walked +to and fro, threading his way between the chairs and the piles of +untidy objects of all sorts. He heard the widow rattling the crockery +and loudly abusing the peasants who had asked her two roubles for +each cart. In his disgust Yegor Savvitch stopped before the cupboard +and stared for a long while, frowning at the decanter of vodka. + +"Ah, blast you!" he heard the widow railing at Katya. "Damnation +take you!" + +The artist drank a glass of vodka, and the dark cloud in his soul +gradually disappeared, and he felt as though all his inside was +smiling within him. He began dreaming. . . . His fancy pictured how +he would become great. He could not imagine his future works but +he could see distinctly how the papers would talk of him, how the +shops would sell his photographs, with what envy his friends would +look after him. He tried to picture himself in a magnificent +drawing-room surrounded by pretty and adoring women; but the picture +was misty, vague, as he had never in his life seen a drawing-room. +The pretty and adoring women were not a success either, for, except +Katya, he knew no adoring woman, not even one respectable girl. +People who know nothing about life usually picture life from books, +but Yegor Savvitch knew no books either. He had tried to read Gogol, +but had fallen asleep on the second page. + +"It won't burn, drat the thing!" the widow bawled down below, as +she set the samovar. "Katya, give me some charcoal!" + +The dreamy artist felt a longing to share his hopes and dreams with +some one. He went downstairs into the kitchen, where the stout widow +and Katya were busy about a dirty stove in the midst of charcoal +fumes from the samovar. There he sat down on a bench close to a big +pot and began: + +"It's a fine thing to be an artist! I can go just where I like, do +what I like. One has not to work in an office or in the fields. +I've no superiors or officers over me. . . . I'm my own superior. +And with all that I'm doing good to humanity!" + +And after dinner he composed himself for a "rest." He usually slept +till the twilight of evening. But this time soon after dinner he +felt that some one was pulling at his leg. Some one kept laughing +and shouting his name. He opened his eyes and saw his friend Ukleikin, +the landscape painter, who had been away all the summer in the +Kostroma district. + +"Bah!" he cried, delighted. "What do I see?" + +There followed handshakes, questions. + +"Well, have you brought anything? I suppose you've knocked off +hundreds of sketches?" said Yegor Savvitch, watching Ukleikin taking +his belongings out of his trunk. + +"H'm! . . . Yes. I have done something. And how are you getting on? +Have you been painting anything?" + +Yegor Savvitch dived behind the bed, and crimson in the face, +extracted a canvas in a frame covered with dust and spider webs. + +"See here. . . . A girl at the window after parting from her +betrothed. In three sittings. Not nearly finished yet." + +The picture represented Katya faintly outlined sitting at an open +window, from which could be seen a garden and lilac distance. +Ukleikin did not like the picture. + +"H'm! . . . There is air and . . . and there is expression," he +said. "There's a feeling of distance, but . . . but that bush is +screaming . . . screaming horribly!" + +The decanter was brought on to the scene. + +Towards evening Kostyliov, also a promising beginner, an historical +painter, came in to see Yegor Savvitch. He was a friend staying at +the next villa, and was a man of five-and-thirty. He had long hair, +and wore a blouse with a Shakespeare collar, and had a dignified +manner. Seeing the vodka, he frowned, complained of his chest, but +yielding to his friends' entreaties, drank a glass. + +"I've thought of a subject, my friends," he began, getting drunk. +"I want to paint some new . . . Herod or Clepentian, or some +blackguard of that description, you understand, and to contrast +with him the idea of Christianity. On the one side Rome, you +understand, and on the other Christianity. . . . I want to represent +the spirit, you understand? The spirit!" + +And the widow downstairs shouted continually: + +"Katya, give me the cucumbers! Go to Sidorov's and get some kvass, +you jade!" + +Like wolves in a cage, the three friends kept pacing to and fro +from one end of the room to the other. They talked without ceasing, +talked, hotly and genuinely; all three were excited, carried away. +To listen to them it would seem they had the future, fame, money, +in their hands. And it never occurred to either of them that time +was passing, that every day life was nearing its close, that they +had lived at other people's expense a great deal and nothing yet +was accomplished; that they were all bound by the inexorable law +by which of a hundred promising beginners only two or three rise +to any position and all the others draw blanks in the lottery, +perish playing the part of flesh for the cannon. . . . They were +gay and happy, and looked the future boldly in the face! + +At one o'clock in the morning Kostyliov said good-bye, and smoothing +out his Shakespeare collar, went home. The landscape painter remained +to sleep at Yegor Savvitch's. Before going to bed, Yegor Savvitch +took a candle and made his way into the kitchen to get a drink of +water. In the dark, narrow passage Katya was sitting, on a box, +and, with her hands clasped on her knees, was looking upwards. A +blissful smile was straying on her pale, exhausted face, and her +eyes were beaming. + +"Is that you? What are you thinking about?" Yegor Savvitch asked +her. + +"I am thinking of how you'll be famous," she said in a half-whisper. +"I keep fancying how you'll become a famous man. . . . I overheard +all your talk. . . . I keep dreaming and dreaming. . . ." + +Katya went off into a happy laugh, cried, and laid her hands +reverently on her idol's shoulders. + + +AN ARTIST'S STORY + +I + +IT was six or seven years ago when I was living in one of the +districts of the province of T----, on the estate of a young landowner +called Byelokurov, who used to get up very early, wear a peasant +tunic, drink beer in the evenings, and continually complain to me +that he never met with sympathy from any one. He lived in the lodge +in the garden, and I in the old seigniorial house, in a big room +with columns, where there was no furniture except a wide sofa on +which I used to sleep, and a table on which I used to lay out +patience. There was always, even in still weather, a droning noise +in the old Amos stoves, and in thunder-storms the whole house shook +and seemed to be cracking into pieces; and it was rather terrifying, +especially at night, when all the ten big windows were suddenly lit +up by lightning. + +Condemned by destiny to perpetual idleness, I did absolutely nothing. +For hours together I gazed out of window at the sky, at the birds, +at the avenue, read everything that was brought me by post, slept. +Sometimes I went out of the house and wandered about till late in +the evening. + +One day as I was returning home, I accidentally strayed into a place +I did not know. The sun was already sinking, and the shades of +evening lay across the flowering rye. Two rows of old, closely +planted, very tall fir-trees stood like two dense walls forming a +picturesque, gloomy avenue. I easily climbed over the fence and +walked along the avenue, slipping over the fir-needles which lay +two inches deep on the ground. It was still and dark, and only here +and there on the high tree-tops the vivid golden light quivered and +made rainbows in the spiders' webs. There was a strong, almost +stifling smell of resin. Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. +Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted +mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between +the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant +note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last +the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with +a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, +a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a +village on the further bank, with a high, narrow belfry on which +there glittered a cross reflecting the setting sun. + +For a moment it breathed upon me the fascination of something near +and very familiar, as though I had seen that landscape at some time +in my childhood. + +At the white stone gates which led from the yard to the fields, +old-fashioned solid gates with lions on them, were standing two +girls. One of them, the elder, a slim, pale, very handsome girl +with a perfect haystack of chestnut hair and a little obstinate +mouth, had a severe expression and scarcely took notice of me, while +the other, who was still very young, not more than seventeen or +eighteen, and was also slim and pale, with a large mouth and large +eyes, looked at me with astonishment as I passed by, said something +in English, and was overcome with embarrassment. And it seemed to +me that these two charming faces, too, had long been familiar to +me. And I returned home feeling as though I had had a delightful +dream. + +One morning soon afterwards, as Byelokurov and I were walking near +the house, a carriage drove unexpectedly into the yard, rustling +over the grass, and in it was sitting one of those girls. It was +the elder one. She had come to ask for subscriptions for some +villagers whose cottages had been burnt down. Speaking with great +earnestness and precision, and not looking at us, she told us how +many houses in the village of Siyanovo had been burnt, how many +men, women, and children were left homeless, and what steps were +proposed, to begin with, by the Relief Committee, of which she was +now a member. After handing us the subscription list for our +signatures, she put it away and immediately began to take leave of +us. + +"You have quite forgotten us, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said to +Byelokurov as she shook hands with him. "Do come, and if Monsieur +N. (she mentioned my name) cares to make the acquaintance of admirers +of his work, and will come and see us, mother and I will be delighted." + +I bowed. + +When she had gone Pyotr Petrovitch began to tell me about her. The +girl was, he said, of good family, and her name was Lidia Voltchaninov, +and the estate on which she lived with her mother and sister, like +the village on the other side of the pond, was called Shelkovka. +Her father had once held an important position in Moscow, and had +died with the rank of privy councillor. Although they had ample +means, the Voltchaninovs lived on their estate summer and winter +without going away. Lidia was a teacher in the Zemstvo school in +her own village, and received a salary of twenty-five roubles a +month. She spent nothing on herself but her salary, and was proud +of earning her own living. + +"An interesting family," said Byelokurov. "Let us go over one day. +They will be delighted to see you." + +One afternoon on a holiday we thought of the Voltchaninovs, and +went to Shelkovka to see them. They--the mother and two daughters +--were at home. The mother, Ekaterina Pavlovna, who at one time +had been handsome, but now, asthmatic, depressed, vague, and +over-feeble for her years, tried to entertain me with conversation +about painting. Having heard from her daughter that I might come +to Shelkovka, she had hurriedly recalled two or three of my landscapes +which she had seen in exhibitions in Moscow, and now asked what I +meant to express by them. Lidia, or as they called her Lida, talked +more to Byelokurov than to me. Earnest and unsmiling, she asked him +why he was not on the Zemstvo, and why he had not attended any of +its meetings. + +"It's not right, Pyotr Petrovitch," she said reproachfully. "It's +not right. It's too bad." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. "It isn't +right." + +"Our whole district is in the hands of Balagin," Lida went on, +addressing me. "He is the chairman of the Zemstvo Board, and he has +distributed all the posts in the district among his nephews and +sons-in-law; and he does as he likes. He ought to be opposed. The +young men ought to make a strong party, but you see what the young +men among us are like. It's a shame, Pyotr Petrovitch!" + +The younger sister, Genya, was silent while they were talking of +the Zemstvo. She took no part in serious conversation. She was not +looked upon as quite grown up by her family, and, like a child, was +always called by the nickname of Misuce, because that was what she +had called her English governess when she was a child. She was all +the time looking at me with curiosity, and when I glanced at the +photographs in the album, she explained to me: "That's uncle . . . +that's god-father," moving her finger across the photograph. As she +did so she touched me with her shoulder like a child, and I had a +close view of her delicate, undeveloped chest, her slender shoulders, +her plait, and her thin little body tightly drawn in by her sash. + +We played croquet and lawn tennis, we walked about the garden, drank +tea, and then sat a long time over supper. After the huge empty +room with columns, I felt, as it were, at home in this small snug +house where there were no oleographs on the walls and where the +servants were spoken to with civility. And everything seemed to me +young and pure, thanks to the presence of Lida and Misuce, and there +was an atmosphere of refinement over everything. At supper Lida +talked to Byelokurov again of the Zemstvo, of Balagin, and of school +libraries. She was an energetic, genuine girl, with convictions, +and it was interesting to listen to her, though she talked a great +deal and in a loud voice--perhaps because she was accustomed to +talking at school. On the other hand, Pyotr Petrovitch, who had +retained from his student days the habit of turning every conversation +into an argument, was tedious, flat, long-winded, and unmistakably +anxious to appear clever and advanced. Gesticulating, he upset a +sauce-boat with his sleeve, making a huge pool on the tablecloth, +but no one except me appeared to notice it. + +It was dark and still as we went home. + +"Good breeding is shown, not by not upsetting the sauce, but by not +noticing it when somebody else does," said Byelokurov, with a sigh. +"Yes, a splendid, intellectual family! I've dropped out of all +decent society; it's dreadful how I've dropped out of it! It's all +through work, work, work!" + +He talked of how hard one had to work if one wanted to be a model +farmer. And I thought what a heavy, sluggish fellow he was! Whenever +he talked of anything serious he articulated "Er-er with intense +effort, and worked just as he talked--slowly, always late and +behind-hand. I had little faith in his business capacity if only +from the fact that when I gave him letters to post he carried them +about in his pocket for weeks together. + +"The hardest thing of all," he muttered as he walked beside me-- +"the hardest thing of all is that, work as one may, one meets with +no sympathy from any one. No sympathy!" + +II + +I took to going to see the Voltchaninovs. As a rule I sat on the +lower step of the terrace; I was fretted by dissatisfaction with +myself; I was sorry at the thought of my life passing so rapidly +and uninterestingly, and felt as though I would like to tear out +of my breast the heart which had grown so heavy. And meanwhile I +heard talk on the terrace, the rustling of dresses, the pages of a +book being turned. I soon grew accustomed to the idea that during +the day Lida received patients, gave out books, and often went into +the village with a parasol and no hat, and in the evening talked +aloud of the Zemstvo and schools. This slim, handsome, invariably +austere girl, with her small well-cut mouth, always said dryly when +the conversation turned on serious subjects: + +"That's of no interest to you." + +She did not like me. She disliked me because I was a landscape +painter and did not in my pictures portray the privations of the +peasants, and that, as she fancied, I was indifferent to what she +put such faith in. I remember when I was travelling on the banks +of Lake Baikal, I met a Buriat girl on horseback, wearing a shirt +and trousers of blue Chinese canvas; I asked her if she would sell +me her pipe. While we talked she looked contemptuously at my European +face and hat, and in a moment she was bored with talking to me; she +shouted to her horse and galloped on. And in just the same way Lida +despised me as an alien. She never outwardly expressed her dislike +for me, but I felt it, and sitting on the lower step of the terrace, +I felt irritated, and said that doctoring peasants when one was not +a doctor was deceiving them, and that it was easy to be benevolent +when one had six thousand acres. + +Meanwhile her sister Misuce had no cares, and spent her life in +complete idleness just as I did. When she got up in the morning she +immediately took up a book and sat down to read on the terrace in +a deep arm-chair, with her feet hardly touching the ground, or hid +herself with her book in the lime avenue, or walked out into the +fields. She spent the whole day reading, poring greedily over her +book, and only from the tired, dazed look in her eyes and the extreme +paleness of her face one could divine how this continual reading +exhausted her brain. When I arrived she would flush a little, leave +her book, and looking into my face with her big eyes, would tell +me eagerly of anything that had happened--for instance, that the +chimney had been on fire in the servants' hall, or that one of the +men had caught a huge fish in the pond. On ordinary days she usually +went about in a light blouse and a dark blue skirt. We went for +walks together, picked cherries for making jam, went out in the +boat. When she jumped up to reach a cherry or sculled in the boat, +her thin, weak arms showed through her transparent sleeves. Or I +painted a sketch, and she stood beside me watching rapturously. + +One Sunday at the end of July I came to the Voltchaninovs about +nine o clock in the morning. I walked about the park, keeping a +good distance from the house, looking for white mushrooms, of which +there was a great number that summer, and noting their position so +as to come and pick them afterwards with Genya. There was a warm +breeze. I saw Genya and her mother both in light holiday dresses +coming home from church, Genya holding her hat in the wind. Afterwards +I heard them having tea on the terrace. + +For a careless person like me, trying to find justification for my +perpetual idleness, these holiday mornings in our country-houses +in the summer have always had a particular charm. When the green +garden, still wet with dew, is all sparkling in the sun and looks +radiant with happiness, when there is a scent of mignonette and +oleander near the house, when the young people have just come back +from church and are having breakfast in the garden, all so charmingly +dressed and gay, and one knows that all these healthy, well-fed, +handsome people are going to do nothing the whole long day, one +wishes that all life were like that. Now, too, I had the same +thought, and walked about the garden prepared to walk about like +that, aimless and unoccupied, the whole day, the whole summer. + +Genya came out with a basket; she had a look in her face as though +she knew she would find me in the garden, or had a presentiment of +it. We gathered mushrooms and talked, and when she asked a question +she walked a little ahead so as to see my face. + +"A miracle happened in the village yesterday," she said. "The lame +woman Pelagea has been ill the whole year. No doctors or medicines +did her any good; but yesterday an old woman came and whispered +something over her, and her illness passed away." + +"That's nothing much," I said. "You mustn't look for miracles only +among sick people and old women. Isn't health a miracle? And life +itself? Whatever is beyond understanding is a miracle." + +"And aren't you afraid of what is beyond understanding?" + +"No. Phenomena I don't understand I face boldly, and am not overwhelmed +by them. I am above them. Man ought to recognise himself as superior +to lions, tigers, stars, superior to everything in nature, even +what seems miraculous and is beyond his understanding, or else he +is not a man, but a mouse afraid of everything." + +Genya believed that as an artist I knew a very great deal, and could +guess correctly what I did not know. She longed for me to initiate +her into the domain of the Eternal and the Beautiful--into that +higher world in which, as she imagined, I was quite at home. And +she talked to me of God, of the eternal life, of the miraculous. +And I, who could never admit that my self and my imagination would +be lost forever after death, answered: "Yes, men are immortal"; +"Yes, there is eternal life in store for us." And she listened, +believed, and did not ask for proofs. + +As we were going home she stopped suddenly and said: + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person--isn't she? I love her very +dearly, and would be ready to give my life for her any minute. But +tell me"--Genya touched my sleeve with her finger--"tell me, +why do you always argue with her? Why are you irritated?" + +"Because she is wrong." + +Genya shook her head and tears came into her eyes. + +"How incomprehensible that is!" she said. At that minute Lida had +just returned from somewhere, and standing with a whip in her hand, +a slim, beautiful figure in the sunlight, at the steps, she was +giving some orders to one of the men. Talking loudly, she hurriedly +received two or three sick villagers; then with a busy and anxious +face she walked about the rooms, opening one cupboard after another, +and went upstairs. It was a long time before they could find her +and call her to dinner, and she came in when we had finished our +soup. All these tiny details I remember with tenderness, and that +whole day I remember vividly, though nothing special happened. After +dinner Genya lay in a long arm-chair reading, while I sat upon the +bottom step of the terrace. We were silent. The whole sky was +overcast with clouds, and it began to spot with fine rain. It was +hot; the wind had dropped, and it seemed as though the day would +never end. Ekaterina Pavlovna came out on the terrace, looking +drowsy and carrying a fan. + +"Oh, mother," said Genya, kissing her hand, "it's not good for you +to sleep in the day." + +They adored each other. When one went into the garden, the other +would stand on the terrace, and, looking towards the trees, call +"Aa--oo, Genya!" or "Mother, where are you?" They always said their +prayers together, and had the same faith; and they understood each +other perfectly even when they did not speak. And their attitude +to people was the same. Ekaterina Pavlovna, too, grew quickly used +to me and fond of me, and when I did not come for two or three days, +sent to ask if I were well. She, too, gazed at my sketches with +enthusiasm, and with the same openness and readiness to chatter as +Misuce, she told me what had happened, and confided to me her +domestic secrets. + +She had a perfect reverence for her elder daughter. Lida did not +care for endearments, she talked only of serious matters; she lived +her life apart, and to her mother and sister was as sacred and +enigmatic a person as the admiral, always sitting in his cabin, is +to the sailors. + +"Our Lida is a remarkable person," the mother would often say. +"Isn't she?" + +Now, too, while it was drizzling with rain, we talked of Lida. + +"She is a remarkable girl," said her mother, and added in an +undertone, like a conspirator, looking about her timidly: "You +wouldn't easily find another like her; only, do you know, I am +beginning to be a little uneasy. The school, the dispensary, books +--all that's very good, but why go to extremes? She is three-and-twenty, +you know; it's time for her to think seriously of herself. With her +books and her dispensary she will find life has slipped by without +having noticed it. . . . She must be married." + +Genya, pale from reading, with her hair disarranged, raised her +head and said as it were to herself, looking at her mother: + +"Mother, everything is in God's hands." + +And again she buried herself in her book. + +Byelokurov came in his tunic and embroidered shirt. We played croquet +and tennis, then when it got dark, sat a long time over supper and +talked again about schools, and about Balagin, who had the whole +district under his thumb. As I went away from the Voltchaninovs +that evening, I carried away the impression of a long, long idle +day, with a melancholy consciousness that everything ends in this +world, however long it may be. + +Genya saw us out to the gate, and perhaps because she had been with +me all day, from morning till night, I felt dull without her, and +that all that charming family were near and dear to me, and for the +first time that summer I had a yearning to paint. + +"Tell me, why do you lead such a dreary, colourless life?" I asked +Byelokurov as I went home. "My life is dreary, difficult, and +monotonous because I am an artist, a strange person. From my earliest +days I've been wrung by envy, self-dissatisfaction, distrust in my +work. I'm always poor, I'm a wanderer, but you--you're a healthy, +normal man, a landowner, and a gentleman. Why do you live in such +an uninteresting way? Why do you get so little out of life? Why +haven't you, for instance, fallen in love with Lida or Genya?" + +"You forget that I love another woman," answered Byelokurov. + +He was referring to Liubov Ivanovna, the lady who shared the lodge +with him. Every day I saw this lady, very plump, rotund, and +dignified, not unlike a fat goose, walking about the garden, in the +Russian national dress and beads, always carrying a parasol; and +the servant was continually calling her in to dinner or to tea. +Three years before she had taken one of the lodges for a summer +holiday, and had settled down at Byelokurov's apparently forever. +She was ten years older than he was, and kept a sharp hand over +him, so much so that he had to ask her permission when he went out +of the house. She often sobbed in a deep masculine note, and then +I used to send word to her that if she did not leave off, I should +give up my rooms there; and she left off. + +When we got home Byelokurov sat down on the sofa and frowned +thoughtfully, and I began walking up and down the room, conscious +of a soft emotion as though I were in love. I wanted to talk about +the Voltchaninovs. + +"Lida could only fall in love with a member of the Zemstvo, as +devoted to schools and hospitals as she is," I said. "Oh, for the +sake of a girl like that one might not only go into the Zemstvo, +but even wear out iron shoes, like the girl in the fairy tale. And +Misuce? What a sweet creature she is, that Misuce!" + +Byelokurov, drawling out "Er--er," began a long-winded disquisition +on the malady of the age--pessimism. He talked confidently, in a +tone that suggested that I was opposing him. Hundreds of miles of +desolate, monotonous, burnt-up steppe cannot induce such deep +depression as one man when he sits and talks, and one does not know +when he will go. + +"It's not a question of pessimism or optimism," I said irritably; +"its simply that ninety-nine people out of a hundred have no sense." + +Byelokurov took this as aimed at himself, was offended, and went +away. + +III + +"The prince is staying at Malozyomovo, and he asks to be remembered +to you," said Lida to her mother. She had just come in, and was +taking off her gloves. "He gave me a great deal of interesting news +. . . . He promised to raise the question of a medical relief centre +at Malozyomovo again at the provincial assembly, but he says there +is very little hope of it." And turning to me, she said: "Excuse +me, I always forget that this cannot be interesting to you." + +I felt irritated. + +"Why not interesting to me?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "You +do not care to know my opinion, but I assure you the question has +great interest for me." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes. In my opinion a medical relief centre at Malozyomovo is quite +unnecessary." + +My irritation infected her; she looked at me, screwing up her eyes, +and asked: + +"What is necessary? Landscapes?" + +"Landscapes are not, either. Nothing is." + +She finished taking off her gloves, and opened the newspaper, which +had just been brought from the post. A minute later she said quietly, +evidently restraining herself: + +"Last week Anna died in childbirth, and if there had been a medical +relief centre near, she would have lived. And I think even +landscape-painters ought to have some opinions on the subject." + +"I have a very definite opinion on that subject, I assure you," I +answered; and she screened herself with the newspaper, as though +unwilling to listen to me. "To my mind, all these schools, dispensaries, +libraries, medical relief centres, under present conditions, only +serve to aggravate the bondage of the people. The peasants are +fettered by a great chain, and you do not break the chain, but only +add fresh links to it--that's my view of it." + +She raised her eyes to me and smiled ironically, and I went on +trying to formulate my leading idea. + +"What matters is not that Anna died in childbirth, but that all +these Annas, Mavras, Pelageas, toil from early morning till dark, +fall ill from working beyond their strength, all their lives tremble +for their sick and hungry children, all their lives are being +doctored, and in dread of death and disease, fade and grow old +early, and die in filth and stench. Their children begin the same +story over again as soon as they grow up, and so it goes on for +hundreds of years and milliards of men live worse than beasts-- +in continual terror, for a mere crust of bread. The whole horror +of their position lies in their never having time to think of their +souls, of their image and semblance. Cold, hunger, animal terror, +a burden of toil, like avalanches of snow, block for them every way +to spiritual activity--that is, to what distinguishes man from +the brutes and what is the only thing which makes life worth living. +You go to their help with hospitals and schools, but you don't free +them from their fetters by that; on the contrary, you bind them in +closer bonds, as, by introducing new prejudices, you increase the +number of their wants, to say nothing of the fact that they've got +to pay the Zemstvo for drugs and books, and so toil harder than +ever." + +"I am not going to argue with you," said Lida, putting down the +paper. "I've heard all that before. I will only say one thing: one +cannot sit with one's hands in one's lap. It's true that we are not +saving humanity, and perhaps we make a great many mistakes; but we +do what we can, and we are right. The highest and holiest task for +a civilised being is to serve his neighbours, and we try to serve +them as best we can. You don't like it, but one can't please every +one." + +"That's true, Lida," said her mother--"that's true." + +In Lida's presence she was always a little timid, and looked at her +nervously as she talked, afraid of saying something superfluous or +inopportune. And she never contradicted her, but always assented: +"That's true, Lida--that's true." + +"Teaching the peasants to read and write, books of wretched precepts +and rhymes, and medical relief centres, cannot diminish either +ignorance or the death-rate, just as the light from your windows +cannot light up this huge garden," said I. "You give nothing. By +meddling in these people's lives you only create new wants in them, +and new demands on their labour." + +"Ach! Good heavens! But one must do something!" said Lida with +vexation, and from her tone one could see that she thought my +arguments worthless and despised them. + +"The people must be freed from hard physical labour," said I. "We +must lighten their yoke, let them have time to breathe, that they +may not spend all their lives at the stove, at the wash-tub, and +in the fields, but may also have time to think of their souls, of +God--may have time to develop their spiritual capacities. The +highest vocation of man is spiritual activity--the perpetual +search for truth and the meaning of life. Make coarse animal labour +unnecessary for them, let them feel themselves free, and then you +will see what a mockery these dispensaries and books are. Once a +man recognises his true vocation, he can only be satisfied by +religion, science, and art, and not by these trifles." + +"Free them from labour?" laughed Lida. "But is that possible?" + +"Yes. Take upon yourself a share of their labour. If all of us, +townspeople and country people, all without exception, would agree +to divide between us the labour which mankind spends on the +satisfaction of their physical needs, each of us would perhaps need +to work only for two or three hours a day. Imagine that we all, +rich and poor, work only for three hours a day, and the rest of our +time is free. Imagine further that in order to depend even less +upon our bodies and to labour less, we invent machines to replace +our work, we try to cut down our needs to the minimum. We would +harden ourselves and our children that they should not be afraid +of hunger and cold, and that we shouldn't be continually trembling +for their health like Anna, Mavra, and Pelagea. Imagine that we +don't doctor ourselves, don't keep dispensaries, tobacco factories, +distilleries--what a lot of free time would be left us after all! +All of us together would devote our leisure to science and art. +Just as the peasants sometimes work, the whole community together +mending the roads, so all of us, as a community, would search for +truth and the meaning of life, and I am convinced that the truth +would be discovered very quickly; man would escape from this +continual, agonising, oppressive dread of death, and even from death +itself." + +"You contradict yourself, though," said Lida. "You talk about +science, and are yourself opposed to elementary education." + +"Elementary education when a man has nothing to read but the signs +on public houses and sometimes books which he cannot understand-- +such education has existed among us since the times of Rurik; Gogol's +Petrushka has been reading for ever so long, yet as the village was +in the days of Rurik so it has remained. What is needed is not +elementary education, but freedom for a wide development of spiritual +capacities. What are wanted are not schools, but universities." + +"You are opposed to medicine, too." + +"Yes. It would be necessary only for the study of diseases as natural +phenomena, and not for the cure of them. If one must cure, it should +not be diseases, but the causes of them. Remove the principal cause +--physical labour, and then there will be no disease. I don't +believe in a science that cures disease," I went on excitedly. "When +science and art are real, they aim not at temporary private ends, +but at eternal and universal--they seek for truth and the meaning +of life, they seek for God, for the soul, and when they are tied +down to the needs and evils of the day, to dispensaries and libraries, +they only complicate and hamper life. We have plenty of doctors, +chemists, lawyers, plenty of people can read and write, but we are +quite without biologists, mathematicians, philosophers, poets. The +whole of our intelligence, the whole of our spiritual energy, is +spent on satisfying temporary, passing needs. Scientific men, +writers, artists, are hard at work; thanks to them, the conveniences +of life are multiplied from day to day. Our physical demands increase, +yet truth is still a long way off, and man still remains the most +rapacious and dirty animal; everything is tending to the degeneration +of the majority of mankind, and the loss forever of all fitness for +life. In such conditions an artist's work has no meaning, and the +more talented he is, the stranger and the more unintelligible is +his position, as when one looks into it, it is evident that he is +working for the amusement of a rapacious and unclean animal, and +is supporting the existing order. And I don't care to work and I +won't work. . . . Nothing is any use; let the earth sink to perdition!" + +"Misuce, go out of the room!" said Lida to her sister, apparently +thinking my words pernicious to the young girl. + +Genya looked mournfully at her mother and sister, and went out of +the room. + +"These are the charming things people say when they want to justify +their indifference," said Lida. "It is easier to disapprove of +schools and hospitals, than to teach or heal." + +"That's true, Lida--that's true," the mother assented. + +"You threaten to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a +high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never +agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which +you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any +landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking +in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, and +much thinner than when he was with us last. He is being sent to +Vichy." + +She told her mother about the prince in order to avoid talking to +me. Her face glowed, and to hide her feeling she bent low over the +table as though she were short-sighted, and made a show of reading +the newspaper. My presence was disagreeable to her. I said good-bye +and went home. + +IV + +It was quite still out of doors; the village on the further side +of the pond was already asleep; there was not a light to be seen, +and only the stars were faintly reflected in the pond. At the gate +with the lions on it Genya was standing motionless, waiting to +escort me. + +"Every one is asleep in the village," I said to her, trying to make +out her face in the darkness, and I saw her mournful dark eyes fixed +upon me. "The publican and the horse-stealers are asleep, while we, +well-bred people, argue and irritate each other." + +It was a melancholy August night--melancholy because there was +already a feeling of autumn; the moon was rising behind a purple +cloud, and it shed a faint light upon the road and on the dark +fields of winter corn by the sides. From time to time a star fell. +Genya walked beside me along the road, and tried not to look at the +sky, that she might not see the falling stars, which for some reason +frightened her. + +"I believe you are right," she said, shivering with the damp night +air. "If people, all together, could devote themselves to spiritual +ends, they would soon know everything." + +"Of course. We are higher beings, and if we were really to recognise +the whole force of human genius and lived only for higher ends, we +should in the end become like gods. But that will never be--mankind +will degenerate till no traces of genius remain." + +When the gates were out of sight, Genya stopped and shook hands +with me. + +"Good-night," she said, shivering; she had nothing but her blouse +over her shoulders and was shrinking with cold. "Come to-morrow." + +I felt wretched at the thought of being left alone, irritated and +dissatisfied with myself and other people; and I, too, tried not +to look at the falling stars. "Stay another minute," I said to her, +"I entreat you." + +I loved Genya. I must have loved her because she met me when I came +and saw me off when I went away; because she looked at me tenderly +and enthusiastically. How touchingly beautiful were her pale face, +slender neck, slender arms, her weakness, her idleness, her reading. +And intelligence? I suspected in her intelligence above the average. +I was fascinated by the breadth of her views, perhaps because they +were different from those of the stern, handsome Lida, who disliked +me. Genya liked me, because I was an artist. I had conquered her +heart by my talent, and had a passionate desire to paint for her +sake alone; and I dreamed of her as of my little queen who with me +would possess those trees, those fields, the mists, the dawn, the +exquisite and beautiful scenery in the midst of which I had felt +myself hopelessly solitary and useless. + +"Stay another minute," I begged her. "I beseech you." + +I took off my overcoat and put it over her chilly shoulders; afraid +of looking ugly and absurd in a man's overcoat, she laughed, threw +it off, and at that instant I put my arms round her and covered her +face, shoulders, and hands with kisses. + +"Till to-morrow," she whispered, and softly, as though afraid of +breaking upon the silence of the night, she embraced me. "We have +no secrets from one another. I must tell my mother and my sister +at once. . . . It's so dreadful! Mother is all right; mother likes +you--but Lida!" + +She ran to the gates. + +"Good-bye!" she called. + +And then for two minutes I heard her running. I did not want to go +home, and I had nothing to go for. I stood still for a little time +hesitating, and made my way slowly back, to look once more at the +house in which she lived, the sweet, simple old house, which seemed +to be watching me from the windows of its upper storey, and +understanding all about it. I walked by the terrace, sat on the +seat by the tennis ground, in the dark under the old elm-tree, and +looked from there at the house. In the windows of the top storey +where Misuce slept there appeared a bright light, which changed to +a soft green--they had covered the lamp with the shade. Shadows +began to move. . . . I was full of tenderness, peace, and satisfaction +with myself--satisfaction at having been able to be carried away +by my feelings and having fallen in love, and at the same time I +felt uncomfortable at the thought that only a few steps away from +me, in one of the rooms of that house there was Lida, who disliked +and perhaps hated me. I went on sitting there wondering whether +Genya would come out; I listened and fancied I heard voices talking +upstairs. + +About an hour passed. The green light went out, and the shadows +were no longer visible. The moon was standing high above the house, +and lighting up the sleeping garden and the paths; the dahlias and +the roses in front of the house could be seen distinctly, and looked +all the same colour. It began to grow very cold. I went out of the +garden, picked up my coat on the road, and slowly sauntered home. + +When next day after dinner I went to the Voltchaninovs, the glass +door into the garden was wide open. I sat down on the terrace, +expecting Genya every minute, to appear from behind the flower-beds +on the lawn, or from one of the avenues, or that I should hear her +voice from the house. Then I walked into the drawing-room, the +dining-room. There was not a soul to be seen. From the dining-room +I walked along the long corridor to the hall and back. In this +corridor there were several doors, and through one of them I heard +the voice of Lida: + +"'God . . . sent . . . a crow,'" she said in a loud, emphatic +voice, probably dictating--"'God sent a crow a piece of cheese +. . . . A crow . . . a piece of cheese.' . . . Who's there?" she +called suddenly, hearing my steps. + +"It's I." + +"Ah! Excuse me, I cannot come out to you this minute; I'm giving +Dasha her lesson." + +"Is Ekaterina Pavlovna in the garden?" + +"No, she went away with my sister this morning to our aunt in the +province of Penza. And in the winter they will probably go abroad," +she added after a pause. "'God sent . . . the crow . . . a piece +. . . of cheese.' . . . Have you written it?" + +I went into the hall, and stared vacantly at the pond and the +village, and the sound reached me of "A piece of cheese. . . . God +sent the crow a piece of cheese." + +And I went back by the way I had come here for the first time-- +first from the yard into the garden past the house, then into the +avenue of lime-trees. . . . At this point I was overtaken by a small +boy who gave me a note: + +"I told my sister everything and she insists on my parting from +you," I read. "I could not wound her by disobeying. God will give +you happiness. Forgive me. If only you knew how bitterly my mother +and I are crying!" + +Then there was the dark fir avenue, the broken-down fence. . . . +On the field where then the rye was in flower and the corncrakes +were calling, now there were cows and hobbled horses. On the slope +there were bright green patches of winter corn. A sober workaday +feeling came over me and I felt ashamed of all I had said at the +Voltchaninovs', and felt bored with life as I had been before. When +I got home, I packed and set off that evening for Petersburg. + + ---- + +I never saw the Voltchaninovs again. Not long ago, on my way to the +Crimea, I met Byelokurov in the train. As before, he was wearing a +jerkin and an embroidered shirt, and when I asked how he was, he +replied that, God be praised, he was well. We began talking. He had +sold his old estate and bought another smaller one, in the name of +Liubov Ivanovna. He could tell me little about the Voltchaninovs. +Lida, he said, was still living in Shelkovka and teaching in the +school; she had by degrees succeeded in gathering round her a circle +of people sympathetic to her who made a strong party, and at the +last election had turned out Balagin, who had till then had the +whole district under his thumb. About Genya he only told me that +she did not live at home, and that he did not know where she was. + +I am beginning to forget the old house, and only sometimes when I +am painting or reading I suddenly, apropos of nothing, remember the +green light in the window, the sound of my footsteps as I walked +home through the fields in the night, with my heart full of love, +rubbing my hands in the cold. And still more rarely, at moments +when I am sad and depressed by loneliness, I have dim memories, and +little by little I begin to feel that she is thinking of me, too +--that she is waiting for me, and that we shall meet. . . . + +Misuce, where are you? + + +THREE YEARS + +I + +IT was dark, and already lights had begun to gleam here and there +in the houses, and a pale moon was rising behind the barracks at +the end of the street. Laptev was sitting on a bench by the gate +waiting for the end of the evening service at the Church of St. +Peter and St. Paul. He was reckoning that Yulia Sergeyevna would +pass by on her way from the service, and then he would speak to +her, and perhaps spend the whole evening with her. + +He had been sitting there for an hour and a half already, and all +that time his imagination had been busy picturing his Moscow rooms, +his Moscow friends, his man Pyotr, and his writing-table. He gazed +half wonderingly at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange +to him that he was living now, not in his summer villa at Sokolniki, +but in a provincial town in a house by which a great herd of cattle +was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by terrible clouds +of dust and the blowing of a horn. He thought of long conversations +in which he had taken part quite lately in Moscow--conversations +in which it had been maintained that one could live without love, +that passionate love was an obsession, that finally there is no +such love, but only a physical attraction between the sexes--and +so on, in the same style; he remembered them and thought mournfully +that if he were asked now what love was, he could not have found +an answer. + +The service was over, the people began to appear. Laptev strained +his eyes gazing at the dark figures. The bishop had been driven by +in his carriage, the bells had stopped ringing, and the red and +green lights in the belfry were one after another extinguished-- +there had been an illumination, as it was dedication day--but the +people were still coming out, lingering, talking, and standing under +the windows. But at last Laptev heard a familiar voice, his heart +began beating violently, and he was overcome with despair on seeing +that Yulia Sergeyevna was not alone, but walking with two ladies. + +"It's awful, awful!" he whispered, feeling jealous. "It's awful!" + +At the corner of the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies, +and while doing so glanced at Laptev. + +"I was coming to see you," he said. "I'm coming for a chat with +your father. Is he at home?" + +"Most likely," she answered. "It's early for him to have gone to +the club." + +There were gardens all along the lane, and a row of lime-trees +growing by the fence cast a broad patch of shadow in the moonlight, +so that the gate and the fences were completely plunged in darkness +on one side, from which came the sounds of women whispering, smothered +laughter, and someone playing softly on a balalaika. There was a +fragrance of lime-flowers and of hay. This fragrance and the murmur +of the unseen whispers worked upon Laptev. He was all at once +overwhelmed with a passionate longing to throw his arms round his +companion, to shower kisses on her face, her hands, her shoulders, +to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet and to tell her how long +he had been waiting for her. A faint scarcely perceptible scent of +incense hung about her; and that scent reminded him of the time +when he, too, believed in God and used to go to evening service, +and when he used to dream so much of pure romantic love. And it +seemed to him that, because this girl did not love him, all possibility +of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever. + +She began speaking sympathetically of the illness of his sister, +Nina Fyodorovna. Two months before his sister had undergone an +operation for cancer, and now every one was expecting a return of +the disease. + +"I went to see her this morning," said Yulia Sergeyevna, "and it +seemed to me that during the last week she has, not exactly grown +thin, but has, as it were, faded." + +"Yes, yes," Laptev agreed. "There's no return of the symptoms, but +every day I notice she grows weaker and weaker, and is wasting +before my eyes. I don't understand what's the matter with her." + +"Oh dear! And how strong she used to be, plump and rosy!" said Yulia +Sergeyevna after a moment's silence. "Every one here used to call +her the Moscow lady. How she used to laugh! On holidays she used +to dress up like a peasant girl, and it suited her so well." + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home; he was a stout, red-faced +man, wearing a long coat that reached below his knees, and looking +as though he had short legs. He was pacing up and down his study, +with his hands in his pockets, and humming to himself in an undertone, +"Ru-ru-ru-ru." His grey whiskers looked unkempt, and his hair was +unbrushed, as though he had just got out of bed. And his study with +pillows on the sofa, with stacks of papers in the corners, and with +a dirty invalid poodle lying under the table, produced the same +impression of unkemptness and untidiness as himself. + +"M. Laptev wants to see you," his daughter said to him, going into +his study. + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," he hummed louder than ever, and turning into the +drawing-room, gave his hand to Laptev, and asked: "What good news +have you to tell me?" + +It was dark in the drawing-room. Laptev, still standing with his +hat in his hand, began apologising for disturbing him; he asked +what was to be done to make his sister sleep at night, and why she +was growing so thin; and he was embarrassed by the thought that he +had asked those very questions at his visit that morning. + +"Tell me," he said, "wouldn't it be as well to send for some +specialist on internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think of +it?" + +The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made a vague gesture +with his hands. + +It was evident that he was offended. He was a very huffy man, prone +to take offence, and always ready to suspect that people did not +believe in him, that he was not recognised or properly respected, +that his patients exploited him, and that his colleagues showed him +ill-will. He was always jeering at himself, saying that fools like +him were only made for the public to ride rough-shod over them. + +Yulia Sergeyevna lighted the lamp. She was tired out with the +service, and that was evident from her pale, exhausted face, and +her weary step. She wanted to rest. She sat down on the sofa, put +her hands on her lap, and sank into thought. Laptev knew that he +was ugly, and now he felt as though he were conscious of his ugliness +all over his body. He was short, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his +hair had grown so thin that his head felt cold. In his expression +there was none of that refined simplicity which makes even rough, +ugly faces attractive; in the society of women, he was awkward, +over-talkative, affected. And now he almost despised himself for +it. He must talk that Yulia Sergeyevna might not be bored in his +company. But what about? About his sister's illness again? + +And he began to talk about medicine, saying what is usually said. +He approved of hygiene, and said that he had long ago wanted to +found a night-refuge in Moscow--in fact, he had already calculated +the cost of it. According to his plan the workmen who came in the +evening to the night-refuge were to receive a supper of hot cabbage +soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a rug, and a place for drying +their clothes and their boots. + +Yulia Sergeyevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange +way, perhaps by the instinct of a lover, he divined her thoughts +and intentions. And now, from the fact that after the evening service +she had not gone to her room to change her dress and drink tea, he +deduced that she was going to pay some visit elsewhere. + +"But I'm in no hurry with the night-refuge," he went on, speaking +with vexation and irritability, and addressing the doctor, who +looked at him, as it were, blankly and in perplexity, evidently +unable to understand what induced him to raise the question of +medicine and hygiene. "And most likely it will be a long time, too, +before I make use of our estimate. I fear our night-shelter will +fall into the hands of our pious humbugs and philanthropic ladies, +who always ruin any undertaking." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up and held out her hand to Laptev. + +"Excuse me," she said, "it's time for me to go. Please give my love +to your sister." + +"Ru-ru-ru-ru," hummed the doctor. "Ru-ru-ru-ru." + +Yulia Sergeyevna went out, and after staying a little longer, Laptev +said good-bye to the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied +and feels unhappy, how trivial seem to him the shapes of the +lime-trees, the shadows, the clouds, all the beauties of nature, +so complacent, so indifferent! By now the moon was high up in the +sky, and the clouds were scudding quickly below. "But how naive and +provincial the moon is, how threadbare and paltry the clouds!" +thought Laptev. He felt ashamed of the way he had talked just now +about medicine, and the night-refuge. He felt with horror that next +day he would not have will enough to resist trying to see her and +talk to her again, and would again be convinced that he was nothing +to her. And the day after--it would be the same. With what object? +And how and when would it all end? + +At home he went in to see his sister. Nina Fyodorovna still looked +strong and gave the impression of being a well-built, vigorous +woman, but her striking pallor made her look like a corpse, especially +when, as now, she was lying on her back with her eyes closed; her +eldest daughter Sasha, a girl of ten years old, was sitting beside +her reading aloud from her reading-book. + +"Alyosha has come," the invalid said softly to herself. + +There had long been established between Sasha and her uncle a tacit +compact, to take turns in sitting with the patient. On this occasion +Sasha closed her reading-book, and without uttering a word, went +softly out of the room. Laptev took an historical novel from the +chest of drawers, and looking for the right page, sat down and began +reading it aloud. + +Nina Fyodorovna was born in Moscow of a merchant family. She and +her two brothers had spent their childhood and early youth, living +at home in Pyatnitsky Street. Their childhood was long and wearisome; +her father treated her sternly, and had even on two or three occasions +flogged her, and her mother had had a long illness and died. The +servants were coarse, dirty, and hypocritical; the house was +frequented by priests and monks, also hypocritical; they ate and +drank and coarsely flattered her father, whom they did not like. +The boys had the good-fortune to go to school, while Nina was left +practically uneducated. All her life she wrote an illegible scrawl, +and had read nothing but historical novels. Seventeen years ago, +when she was twenty-two, on a summer holiday at Himki, she made the +acquaintance of her present husband, a landowner called Panaurov, +had fallen in love with him, and married him secretly against her +father's will. Panaurov, a handsome, rather impudent fellow, who +whistled and lighted his cigarette from the holy lamp, struck the +father as an absolutely worthless person. And when the son-in-law +began in his letters demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his +daughter that he would send her furs, silver, and various articles +that had been left at her mother's death, as well as thirty thousand +roubles, but without his paternal blessing. Later he sent another +twenty thousand. This money, as well as the dowry, was spent; the +estate had been sold and Panaurov moved with his family to the town +and got a job in a provincial government office. In the town he +formed another tie, and had a second family, and this was the subject +of much talk, as his illicit family was not a secret. + +Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the +historical novel, she was thinking how much she had gone through +in her life, how much she had suffered, and that if any one were +to describe her life it would make a very pathetic story. As the +tumour was in her breast, she was persuaded that love and her +domestic grief were the cause of her illness, and that jealousy and +tears had brought her to her hopeless state. + +At last Alexey Fyodorovitch closed the book and said: + +"That's the end, and thank God for it. To-morrow we'll begin a new +one." + +Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always been given to laughter, but +of late Laptev had begun to notice that at moments her mind seemed +weakened by illness, and she would laugh at the smallest trifle, +and even without any cause at all. + +"Yulia came before dinner while you were out," she said. "So far +as I can see, she hasn't much faith in her papa. 'Let papa go on +treating you,' she said, 'but write in secret to the holy elder to +pray for you, too.' There is a holy man somewhere here. Yulia forgot +her parasol here; you must take it to her to-morrow," she went on +after a brief pause. "No, when the end comes, neither doctors nor +holy men are any help." + +"Nina, why can't you sleep at night?" Laptev asked, to change the +subject. + +"Oh, well, I don't go to sleep--that's all. I lie and think." + +"What do you think about, dear?" + +"About the children, about you . . . about my life. I've gone through +a great deal, Alyosha, you know. When one begins to remember and +remember. . . . My God!" She laughed. "It's no joke to have borne +five children as I have, to have buried three. . . Sometimes I was +expecting to be confined while my Grigory Nikolaitch would be sitting +at that very time with another woman. There would be no one to send +for the doctor or the midwife. I would go into the passage or the +kitchen for the servant, and there Jews, tradesmen, moneylenders, +would be waiting for him to come home. My head used to go round +. . . . He did not love me, though he never said so openly. Now I've +grown calmer--it doesn't weigh on my heart; but in old days, when +I was younger, it hurt me--ach! how it hurt me, darling! Once-- +while we were still in the country--I found him in the garden +with a lady, and I walked away. . . I walked on aimlessly, and I +don't know how, but I found myself in the church porch. I fell on +my knees: 'Queen of Heaven!' I said. And it was night, the moon was +shining. . . ." + +She was exhausted, she began gasping for breath. Then, after resting +a little, she took her brother's hand and went on in a weak, toneless +voice: + +"How kind you are, Alyosha! . . . And how clever! . . . What a good +man you've grown up into!" + +At midnight Laptev said good-night to her, and as he went away he +took with him the parasol that Yulia Sergeyevna had forgotten. In +spite of the late hour, the servants, male and female, were drinking +tea in the dining-room. How disorderly! The children were not in +bed, but were there in the dining-room, too. They were all talking +softly in undertones, and had not noticed that the lamp was smoking +and would soon go out. All these people, big and little, were +disturbed by a whole succession of bad omens and were in an oppressed +mood. The glass in the hall had been broken, the samovar had been +buzzing every day, and, as though on purpose, was even buzzing now. +They were describing how a mouse had jumped out of Nina Fyodorovna's +boot when she was dressing. And the children were quite aware of +the terrible significance of these omens. The elder girl, Sasha, a +thin little brunette, was sitting motionless at the table, and her +face looked scared and woebegone, while the younger, Lida, a chubby +fair child of seven, stood beside her sister looking from under her +brows at the light. + +Laptev went downstairs to his own rooms in the lower storey, where +under the low ceilings it was always close and smelt of geraniums. +In his sitting-room, Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna's husband, was sitting +reading the newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. +Both sat still and said nothing. They used to spend whole evenings +like this without speaking, and neither of them was in the least +put out by this silence. + +The little girls came down from upstairs to say good-night. +Deliberately and in silence, Panaurov made the sign of the cross +over them several times, and gave them his hand to kiss. They dropped +curtsies, and then went up to Laptev, who had to make the sign of +the cross and give them his hand to kiss also. This ceremony with +the hand-kissing and curtsying was repeated every evening. + +When the children had gone out Panaurov laid aside the newspaper +and said: + +"It's not very lively in our God-fearing town! I must confess, my +dear fellow," he added with a sigh, "I'm very glad that at last +you've found some distraction." + +"What do you mean?" asked Laptev. + +"I saw you coming out of Dr. Byelavin's Just now. I expect you don't +go there for the sake of the papa." + +"Of course not," said Laptev, and he blushed. + +"Well, of course not. And by the way, you wouldn't find such another +old brute as that papa if you hunted by daylight with a candle. You +can't imagine what a foul, stupid, clumsy beast he is! You cultured +people in the capitals are still interested in the provinces only +on the lyrical side, only from the _paysage_ and _Poor Anton_ point +of view, but I can assure you, my boy, there's nothing logical about +it; there's nothing but barbarism, meanness, and nastiness--that's +all. Take the local devotees of science--the local intellectuals, +so to speak. Can you imagine there are here in this town twenty-eight +doctors? They've all made their fortunes, and they are living in +houses of their own, and meanwhile the population is in just as +helpless a condition as ever. Here, Nina had to have an operation, +quite an ordinary one really, yet we were obliged to get a surgeon +from Moscow; not one doctor here would undertake it. It's beyond +all conception. They know nothing, they understand nothing. They +take no interest in anything. Ask them, for instance, what cancer +is--what it is, what it comes from." + +And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist +on all scientific subjects, and explained from a scientific point +of view everything that was discussed. But he explained it all in +his own way. He had a theory of his own about the circulation of +the blood, about chemistry, about astronomy. He talked slowly, +softly, convincingly. + +"It's beyond all conception," he pronounced in an imploring voice, +screwing up his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling as graciously +as a king, and it was evident that he was very well satisfied with +himself, and never gave a thought to the fact that he was fifty. + +"I am rather hungry," said Laptev. "I should like something savoury." + +"Well, that can easily be managed." + +Not long afterwards Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting +upstairs in the dining-room having supper. Laptev had a glass of +vodka, and then began drinking wine. Panaurov drank nothing. He +never drank, and never gambled, yet in spite of that he had squandered +all his own and his wife's property, and had accumulated debts. To +squander so much in such a short time, one must have, not passions, +but a special talent. Panaurov liked dainty fare, liked a handsome +dinner service, liked music after dinner, speeches, bowing footmen, +to whom he would carelessly fling tips of ten, even twenty-five +roubles. He always took part in all lotteries and subscriptions, +sent bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance on their birthdays, +bought cups, stands for glasses, studs, ties, walking-sticks, scents, +cigarette-holders, pipes, lap-dogs, parrots, Japanese bric-a-brac, +antiques; he had silk nightshirts, and a bedstead made of ebony +inlaid with mother-of-pearl. His dressing-gown was a genuine Bokhara, +and everything was to correspond; and on all this there went every +day, as he himself expressed, "a deluge" of money. + +At supper he kept sighing and shaking his head. + +"Yes, everything on this earth has an end," he said softly, screwing +up his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall +out of love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not +deceive; you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be +faithless too. But the time will come when all this will be a memory, +and when you will reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly +trivial. . . ." + +Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his +clipped black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved +this pampered, conceited, and physically handsome creature. + +After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to +his other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov +was the only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, +dandified figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, +the pitiful little houses, with their three windows and the thickets +of nettles, always made a strange and mournful impression. + +After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. +The moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw +on the ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing +his bare head, as though some one were passing a feather over his +hair. + +"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run +to overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him +a present of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open +country, into a wood, to run on and on without looking back. + +At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had +forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol +was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The +handle was a cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, +and he felt as though there were the fragrance of happiness about +him. + +He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping +hold of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends: + +"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA, + +"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because +six years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't +even succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and +a half I have been living with a certain person you know--a woman +neither young nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am +in love. I've never had any success with women, and if I say _again_ +it's simply because it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge +even to myself that my youth has passed entirely without love, and +that I'm in love in a real sense now for the first time in my life, +at thirty-four. Let it stand that I love _again_. + +"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a +beauty--she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful +expression of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, +her voice is as clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation +with me--I don't know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's +a striking, exceptional creature, full of intelligence and lofty +aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how deeply +this touches me and exalts her in my eyes. On that point I am ready +to argue with you endlessly. You may be right, to your thinking; +but, still, I love to see her praying in church. She is a provincial, +but she was educated in Moscow. She loves our Moscow; she dresses +in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--love her, love her +. . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me a long lecture +on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and what sort +one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I was +in love I, too, knew quite well what love was. + +"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she +used to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never +speaks of you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you +as the little orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm +in love. While it's a secret, don't say anything to a 'certain +person.' I think it will all come right of itself, or, as the footman +says in Tolstoy, will 'come round.'" + +When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired +that he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could +not get to sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. +The cattle were driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon +afterwards the bells began ringing for early mass. At one minute a +cart drove by creaking; at the next, he heard the voice of some +woman going to market. And the sparrows twittered the whole time. + +II + +The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock +Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly +arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. +There she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and +her smile was broad and naive, and, looking at her, one recalled a +local artist, a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a +picture of the Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, +the servants, her brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- +were suddenly convinced, that she was certainly going to get well. +With shrieks of laughter the children ran after their uncle, chasing +him and catching him, and filling the house with noise. + +People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her +that in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for +her that day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the +town, and was liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her +brother Alexey, who gave away his money freely, without considering +whether it was necessary to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used +to pay the school fees for poor children; used to give away tea, +sugar, and jam to old women; used to provide trousseaux for poor +brides; and if she picked up a newspaper, she always looked first +of all to see if there were any appeals for charity or a paragraph +about somebody's being in a destitute condition. + +She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which +various poor people, her proteges, had procured goods from a grocer's +shop. + +They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a +request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles. + +"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she +said, deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no +joke! Eighty-two roubles! I declare I won't pay it." + +"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev. + +"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation. +"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month +from you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, +so as not to be overheard by the servants. + +"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I +tell you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I +or Fyodor. Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, +and of every three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to +you." + +But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked +as though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. +And this lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made +Laptev feel uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private +debts in addition which worried her and of which she scrupled to +tell him. + +Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the +doctor coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual. + +"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru." + +To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then +went downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get +on with the doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities +was impossible; and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called +him, was distasteful. That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He +reflected now that the father was not at home, that if he were to +take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol, he would be sure to find her at +home alone, and his heart ached with joy. Haste, haste! + +He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of +love. It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's +house, overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins +were playing ball. These were all the children of working-class +families who tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which +the doctor was always meaning to have done up, though he put it off +from year to year. The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. +At some distance on one side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her +porch, her hands folded, watching the game. + +"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her. + +She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired +as she had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of +life and frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball. + +"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to +meet him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no +place to run there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, +looking round at the children. + +"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev, +admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and +seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him +as though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain +for the first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My +sister has sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday." + +She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his +bosom and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to +the sweet ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the +parasol. + +"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . +of our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!" + +"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful +about it." + +He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say. + +"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief +pause, laughing. "Let us go indoors." + +"I am not disturbing you?" + +They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white +dress with blue flowers on it rustling as she went. + +"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I +never do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till +night." + +"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. +"I grew up in a world in which every one without exception, men and +women alike, worked hard every day." + +"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked. "One has to arrange one's +life under such conditions, that work is inevitable. There can be +no clean and happy life without work." + +Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise +spoke softly, in a voice unlike his own: + +"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I +would give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice +I would not make." + +She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm. + +"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible, +I assure you. Forgive me." + +Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and +vanished through the doorway. + +Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed, +completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly +been extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a +man who is disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps +disgusting, who is shunned, he walked out of the house. + +"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went +home through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. +"I would give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she +wanted your _everything_!" + +All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he +lied, saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, +without exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone +about a clean and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; +it was false--false in the Moscow style. But by degrees there +followed that mood of indifference into which criminals sink after +a severe sentence. He began thinking that, thank God! everything +was at an end and that the terrible uncertainty was over; that now +there was no need to spend whole days in anticipation, in pining, +in thinking always of the same thing. Now everything was clear; he +must give up all hope of personal happiness, live without desires, +without hopes, without dreams, or expectations, and to escape that +dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to soothe, he could +busy himself with other people's affairs, other people's happiness, +and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life would reach its +end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he wished for +nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a sort of +heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead felt +drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his +eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five +minutes was sound asleep. + +III + +The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna +into despair. + +She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; +he was a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor +Laptev and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious +about his sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no +notice of her whatever, and she did not care about him in the least +--and then all of a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that +pitiful, ecstatic face. . . . + +The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact +that the word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting +it. She could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she +still felt traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she +had rejected him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; +he was not interesting; she could not have answered him except with +a refusal, and yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done +wrong. + +"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she +said to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her +pillow; "and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so +oddly. . . ." + +In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it +was beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. +She needed some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she +had done right. But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her +mother long before; she thought her father a queer man, and could +not talk to him seriously. He worried her with his whims, his extreme +readiness to take offence, and his meaningless gestures; and as +soon as one began to talk to him, he promptly turned the conversation +on himself. And in her prayer she was not perfectly open, because +she did not know for certain what she ought to pray for. + +The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired, +looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was +one of her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey +Borisovitch, in his long coat that reached below his knees, with +his red face and unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his +hands in his pockets, pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards +and forwards at random, like a wild beast in its cage. He would +stand still by the table, sip his glass of tea with relish, and +pace about again, lost in thought. + +"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she +flushed crimson. + +The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand. + +"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?" + +He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would +sooner or later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think +about that. He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason +fancied, that if he were left alone in that great house, he would +have an apoplectic stroke, but he did not like to speak of this +directly. + +"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. +"I congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid +opportunity for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite +understand your feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, +half crazy, must be very irksome at your age. I quite understand +you. And the sooner I'm laid out and in the devil's clutches, the +better every one will be pleased. I congratulate you with all my +heart." + +"I refused him." + +The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and +went on: + +"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a +madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat? +I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist, +and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me +for my honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod +over me. And even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get +the better of me. It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like +me. . . ." + +"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia. + +She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great +wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But +a little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and +when he was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and +shut the door after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door +shook with the violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all +directions in the passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. +In her own domain upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all +the rooms, making the sign of the cross over every door and window; +the wind howled, and it sounded as though some one were walking on +the roof. Never had it been so dreary, never had she felt so lonely. + +She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, +simply because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he +was a man she did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing +forever her dreams, her conceptions of happiness in married life, +but would she ever meet the man of whom she dreamed, and would he +love her? She was twenty-one already. There were no eligible young +men in the town. She pictured all the men she knew--government +clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some of them were married +already, and their domestic life was conspicuous for its dreariness +and triviality; others were uninteresting, colourless, unintelligent, +immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man, had taken his degree at +the university, spoke French. He lived in the capital, where there +were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people; where there was noise +and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings, first-rate +dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written that +a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to +love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of +the question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, +of course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left +but habit, and that the object of married life was not to be found +in love, nor in happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up +of one's children, the care of one's household, and so on. And +perhaps what was meant in the Bible was love for one's husband as +one's neighbour, respect for him, charity. + +At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, +then knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the +flame of the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling: + +"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me +understanding, O Lord!" + +She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies, +poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and +openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the +past. Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better +go into a convent or become a Sister of Mercy? + +She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the +air around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in +the corridor. + +"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her +at the sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial +life was in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was +constantly having to tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, +and in the end one's nerves were so strained, that one was afraid +to peep out of the bedclothes. + +A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The +servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna +lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a +shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid +was already closing the door downstairs. + +"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," +she said. + +Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards +out of the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling +the cards well and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red +one, it would mean _yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's +offer; and that if it was a black, it would mean _no_. The card +turned out to be the ten of spades. + +That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she +was wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on +the thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The +thought harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon +after eleven, she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She +wanted to see Laptev: perhaps now he would seem more attractive to +her; perhaps she had been wrong about him hitherto. . . . + +She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, +holding her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the +dust. + +IV + +Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia +Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who +feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after +what had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to +visit his sister and meet him, it must be because she was not +concerned about him, and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But +when he greeted her, and with a pale face and dust under her eyes +she looked at him mournfully and remorsefully, he saw that she, +too, was miserable. + +She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying +good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev: + +"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?" + +They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and +he, walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In +the lane it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side. + +"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered +as though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep +all night." + +"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but +that doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply +unhappy, and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man +poisoned. The most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I +feel no embarrassment and can talk to you frankly. I love you more +than my sister, more than my dead mother. . . . I can live without +my sister, and without my mother, and I have lived without them, +but life without you--is meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ." + +And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention. + +He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day +before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and +now was taking him home with her. But what could she add to her +refusal? What new idea had she in her head? From everything, from +her glances, from her smile, and even from her tone, from the way +she held her head and shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw +that, as before, she did not love him, that he was a stranger to +her. What more did she want to say? + +Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home. + +"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch," +he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted, +delighted!" + +He had never been so polite before, and Laptev saw that he knew of +his offer; he did not like that either. He was sitting now in the +drawing-room, and the room impressed him strangely, with its poor, +common decorations, its wretched pictures, and though there were +arm-chairs in it, and a huge lamp with a shade over it, it still +looked like an uninhabited place, a huge barn, and it was obvious +that no one could feel at home in such a room, except a man like +the doctor. The next room, almost twice as large, was called the +reception-room, and in it there were only rows of chairs, as though +for a dancing class. And while Laptev was sitting in the drawing-room +talking to the doctor about his sister, he began to be tortured by +a suspicion. Had not Yulia Sergeyevna been to his sister Nina's, +and then brought him here to tell him that she would accept him? +Oh, how awful it was! But the most awful thing of all was that his +soul was capable of such a suspicion. And he imagined how the father +and the daughter had spent the evening, and perhaps the night before, +in prolonged consultation, perhaps dispute, and at last had come +to the conclusion that Yulia had acted thoughtlessly in refusing a +rich man. The words that parents use in such cases kept ringing in +his ears: + +"It is true you don't love him, but think what good you could do!" + +The doctor was going out to see patients. Laptev would have gone +with him, but Yulia Sergeyevna said: + +"I beg you to stay." + +She was distressed and dispirited, and told herself now that to +refuse an honourable, good man who loved her, simply because he was +not attractive, especially when marrying him would make it possible +for her to change her mode of life, her cheerless, monotonous, idle +life in which youth was passing with no prospect of anything better +in the future--to refuse him under such circumstances was madness, +caprice and folly, and that God might even punish her for it. + +The father went out. When the sound of his steps had died away, she +suddenly stood up before Laptev and said resolutely, turning horribly +white as she did so: + +"I thought for a long time yesterday, Alexey Fyodorovitch. . . . I +accept your offer." + +He bent down and kissed her hand. She kissed him awkwardly on the +head with cold lips. + +He felt that in this love scene the chief thing--her love--was +lacking, and that there was a great deal that was not wanted; and +he longed to cry out, to run away, to go back to Moscow at once. +But she was close to him, and she seemed to him so lovely, and he +was suddenly overcome by passion. He reflected that it was too late +for deliberation now; he embraced her passionately, and muttered +some words, calling her _thou_; he kissed her on the neck, and then +on the cheek, on the head. . . . + +She walked away to the window, dismayed by these demonstrations, +and both of them were already regretting what they had said and +both were asking themselves in confusion: + +"Why has this happened?" + +"If only you knew how miserable I am!" she said, wringing her hands. + +"What is it?" he said, going up to her, wringing his hands too. "My +dear, for God's sake, tell me--what is it? Only tell the truth, +I entreat you--nothing but the truth!" + +"Don't pay any attention to it," she said, and forced herself to +smile. "I promise you I'll be a faithful, devoted wife. . . . Come +this evening." + +Sitting afterwards with his sister and reading aloud an historical +novel, he recalled it all and felt wounded that his splendid, pure, +rich feeling was met with such a shallow response. He was not loved, +but his offer had been accepted--in all probability because he +was rich: that is, what was thought most of in him was what he +valued least of all in himself. It was quite possible that Yulia, +who was so pure and believed in God, had not once thought of his +money; but she did not love him--did not love him, and evidently +she had interested motives, vague, perhaps, and not fully thought +out--still, it was so. The doctor's house with its common furniture +was repulsive to him, and he looked upon the doctor himself as a +wretched, greasy miser, a sort of operatic Gaspard from "Les Cloches +de Corneville." The very name "Yulia" had a vulgar sound. He imagined +how he and his Yulia would stand at their wedding, in reality +complete strangers to one another, without a trace of feeling on +her side, just as though their marriage had been made by a professional +matchmaker; and the only consolation left him now, as commonplace +as the marriage itself, was the reflection that he was not the +first, and would not be the last; that thousands of people were +married like that; and that with time, when Yulia came to know him +better, she would perhaps grow fond of him. + +"Romeo and Juliet!" he said, as he shut the novel, and he laughed. +"I am Romeo, Nina. You may congratulate me. I made an offer to Yulia +Byelavin to-day." + +Nina Fyodorovna thought he was joking, but when she believed it, +she began to cry; she was not pleased at the news. + +"Well, I congratulate you," she said. "But why is it so sudden?" + +"No, it's not sudden. It's been going on since March, only you don't +notice anything. . . . I fell in love with her last March when I +made her acquaintance here, in your rooms." + +"I thought you would marry some one in our Moscow set," said Nina +Fyodorovna after a pause. "Girls in our set are simpler. But what +matters, Alyosha, is that you should be happy--that matters most. +My Grigory Nikolaitch did not love me, and there's no concealing +it; you can see what our life is. Of course any woman may love you +for your goodness and your brains, but, you see, Yulitchka is a +girl of good family from a high-class boarding-school; goodness and +brains are not enough for her. She is young, and, you, Alyosha, are +not so young, and are not good-looking." + +To soften the last words, she stroked his head and said: + +"You're not good-looking, but you're a dear." + +She was so agitated that a faint flush came into her cheeks, and +she began discussing eagerly whether it would be the proper thing +for her to bless Alyosha with the ikon at the wedding. She was, she +reasoned, his elder sister, and took the place of his mother; and +she kept trying to convince her dejected brother that the wedding +must be celebrated in proper style, with pomp and gaiety, so that +no one could find fault with it. + +Then he began going to the Byelavins' as an accepted suitor, three +or four times a day; and now he never had time to take Sasha's place +and read aloud the historical novel. Yulia used to receive him in +her two rooms, which were at a distance from the drawing-room and +her father's study, and he liked them very much. The walls in them +were dark; in the corner stood a case of ikons; and there was a +smell of good scent and of the oil in the holy lamp. Her rooms were +at the furthest end of the house; her bedstead and dressing-table +were shut off by a screen. The doors of the bookcase were covered +on the inside with a green curtain, and there were rugs on the +floor, so that her footsteps were noiseless--and from this he +concluded that she was of a reserved character, and that she liked +a quiet, peaceful, secluded life. In her own home she was treated +as though she were not quite grown up. She had no money of her own, +and sometimes when they were out for walks together, she was overcome +with confusion at not having a farthing. Her father allowed her +very little for dress and books, hardly ten pounds a year. And, +indeed, the doctor himself had not much money in spite of his good +practice. He played cards every night at the club, and always lost. +Moreover, he bought mortgaged houses through a building society, +and let them. The tenants were irregular in paying the rent, but +he was convinced that such speculations were profitable. He had +mortgaged his own house in which he and his daughter were living, +and with the money so raised had bought a piece of waste ground, +and had already begun to build on it a large two-storey house, +meaning to mortgage it, too, as soon as it was finished. + +Laptev now lived in a sort of cloud, feeling as though he were not +himself, but his double, and did many things which he would never +have brought himself to do before. He went three or four times to +the club with the doctor, had supper with him, and offered him money +for house-building. He even visited Panaurov at his other establishment. +It somehow happened that Panaurov invited him to dinner, and without +thinking, Laptev accepted. He was received by a lady of five-and-thirty. +She was tall and thin, with hair touched with grey, and black +eyebrows, apparently not Russian. There were white patches of powder +on her face. She gave him a honeyed smile and pressed his hand +jerkily, so that the bracelets on her white hands tinkled. It seemed +to Laptev that she smiled like that because she wanted to conceal +from herself and from others that she was unhappy. He also saw two +little girls, aged five and three, who had a marked likeness to +Sasha. For dinner they had milk-soup, cold veal, and chocolate. It +was insipid and not good; but the table was splendid, with gold +forks, bottles of Soyer, and cayenne pepper, an extraordinary bizarre +cruet-stand, and a gold pepper-pot. + +It was only as he was finishing the milk-soup that Laptev realised +how very inappropriate it was for him to be dining there. The lady +was embarrassed, and kept smiling, showing her teeth. Panaurov +expounded didactically what being in love was, and what it was due +to. + +"We have in it an example of the action of electricity," he said +in French, addressing the lady. "Every man has in his skin microscopic +glands which contain currents of electricity. If you meet with a +person whose currents are parallel with your own, then you get +love." + +When Laptev went home and his sister asked him where he had been +he felt awkward, and made no answer. + +He felt himself in a false position right up to the time of the +wedding. His love grew more intense every day, and Yulia seemed to +him a poetic and exalted creature; but, all the same, there was no +mutual love, and the truth was that he was buying her and she was +selling herself. Sometimes, thinking things over, he fell into +despair and asked himself: should he run away? He did not sleep for +nights together, and kept thinking how he should meet in Moscow the +lady whom he had called in his letters "a certain person," and what +attitude his father and his brother, difficult people, would take +towards his marriage and towards Yulia. He was afraid that his +father would say something rude to Yulia at their first meeting. +And something strange had happened of late to his brother Fyodor. +In his long letters he had taken to writing of the importance of +health, of the effect of illness on the mental condition, of the +meaning of religion, but not a word about Moscow or business. These +letters irritated Laptev, and he thought his brother's character +was changing for the worse. + +The wedding was in September. The ceremony took place at the Church +of St. Peter and St. Paul, after mass, and the same day the young +couple set off for Moscow. When Laptev and his wife, in a black +dress with a long train, already looking not a girl but a married +woman, said good-bye to Nina Fyodorovna, the invalid's face worked, +but there was no tear in her dry eyes. She said: + +"If--which God forbid--I should die, take care of my little +girls." + +"Oh, I promise!" answered Yulia Sergeyevna, and her lips and eyelids +began quivering too. + +"I shall come to see you in October," said Laptev, much moved. "You +must get better, my darling." + +They travelled in a special compartment. Both felt depressed and +uncomfortable. She sat in the corner without taking off her hat, +and made a show of dozing, and he lay on the seat opposite, and he +was disturbed by various thoughts--of his father, of "a certain +person," whether Yulia would like her Moscow flat. And looking at +his wife, who did not love him, he wondered dejectedly "why this +had happened." + +V + +The Laptevs had a wholesale business in Moscow, dealing in fancy +goods: fringe, tape, trimmings, crochet cotton, buttons, and so on. +The gross receipts reached two millions a year; what the net profit +was, no one knew but the old father. The sons and the clerks estimated +the profits at approximately three hundred thousand, and said that +it would have been a hundred thousand more if the old man had not +"been too free-handed"--that is, had not allowed credit +indiscriminately. In the last ten years alone the bad debts had +mounted up to the sum of a million; and when the subject was referred +to, the senior clerk would wink slyly and deliver himself of sentences +the meaning of which was not clear to every one: + +"The psychological sequences of the age." + +Their chief commercial operations were conducted in the town market +in a building which was called the warehouse. The entrance to the +warehouse was in the yard, where it was always dark, and smelt of +matting and where the dray-horses were always stamping their hoofs +on the asphalt. A very humble-looking door, studded with iron, led +from the yard into a room with walls discoloured by damp and scrawled +over with charcoal, lighted up by a narrow window covered by an +iron grating. Then on the left was another room larger and cleaner +with an iron stove and a couple of chairs, though it, too, had a +prison window: this was the office, and from it a narrow stone +staircase led up to the second storey, where the principal room +was. This was rather a large room, but owing to the perpetual +darkness, the low-pitched ceiling, the piles of boxes and bales, +and the numbers of men that kept flitting to and fro in it, it made +as unpleasant an impression on a newcomer as the others. In the +offices on the top storey the goods lay in bales, in bundles and +in cardboard boxes on the shelves; there was no order nor neatness +in the arrangement of it, and if crimson threads, tassels, ends of +fringe, had not peeped out here and there from holes in the paper +parcels, no one could have guessed what was being bought and sold +here. And looking at these crumpled paper parcels and boxes, no one +would have believed that a million was being made out of such trash, +and that fifty men were employed every day in this warehouse, not +counting the buyers. + +When at midday, on the day after his arrival at Moscow, Laptev went +into the warehouse, the workmen packing the goods were hammering +so loudly that in the outer room and the office no one heard him +come in. A postman he knew was coming down the stairs with a bundle +of letters in his hand; he was wincing at the noise, and he did not +notice Laptev either. The first person to meet him upstairs was his +brother Fyodor Fyodorovitch, who was so like him that they passed +for twins. This resemblance always reminded Laptev of his own +personal appearance, and now, seeing before him a short, red-faced +man with rather thin hair, with narrow plebeian hips, looking so +uninteresting and so unintellectual, he asked himself: "Can I really +look like that?" + +"How glad I am to see you!" said Fyodor, kissing his brother and +pressing his hand warmly. "I have been impatiently looking forward +to seeing you every day, my dear fellow. When you wrote that you +were getting married, I was tormented with curiosity, and I've +missed you, too, brother. Only fancy, it's six months since we saw +each other. Well? How goes it? Nina's very bad? Awfully bad?" + +"Awfully bad." + +"It's in God's hands," sighed Fyodor. "Well, what of your wife? +She's a beauty, no doubt? I love her already. Of course, she is my +little sister now. We'll make much of her between us." + +Laptev saw the broad, bent back--so familiar to him--of his +father, Fyodor Stepanovitch. The old man was sitting on a stool +near the counter, talking to a customer. + +"Father, God has sent us joy!" cried Fyodor. "Brother has come!" + +Fyodor Stepanovitch was a tall man of exceptionally powerful build, +so that, in spite of his wrinkles and eighty years, he still looked +a hale and vigorous man. He spoke in a deep, rich, sonorous voice, +that resounded from his broad chest as from a barrel. He wore no +beard, but a short-clipped military moustache, and smoked cigars. +As he was always too hot, he used all the year round to wear a +canvas coat at home and at the warehouse. He had lately had an +operation for cataract. His sight was bad, and he did nothing in +the business but talk to the customers and have tea and jam with +them. + +Laptev bent down and kissed his head and then his lips. + +"It's a good long time since we saw you, honoured sir," said the +old man--"a good long time. Well, am I to congratulate you on +entering the state of holy matrimony? Very well, then; I congratulate +you." + +And he put his lips out to be kissed. Laptev bent down and kissed +him. + +"Well, have you brought your young lady?" the old man asked, and +without waiting for an answer, he said, addressing the customer:" +'Herewith I beg to inform you, father, that I'm going to marry such +and such a young lady.' Yes. But as for asking for his father's +counsel or blessing, that's not in the rules nowadays. Now they go +their own way. When I married I was over forty, but I went on my +knees to my father and asked his advice. Nowadays we've none of +that." + +The old man was delighted to see his son, but thought it unseemly +to show his affection or make any display of his joy. His voice and +his manner of saying "your young lady" brought back to Laptev the +depression he had always felt in the warehouse. Here every trifling +detail reminded him of the past, when he used to be flogged and put +on Lenten fare; he knew that even now boys were thrashed and punched +in the face till their noses bled, and that when those boys grew +up they would beat others. And before he had been five minutes in +the warehouse, he always felt as though he were being scolded or +punched in the face. + +Fyodor slapped the customer on the shoulder and said to his brother: + +"Here, Alyosha, I must introduce our Tambov benefactor, Grigory +Timofeitch. He might serve as an example for the young men of the +day; he's passed his fiftieth birthday, and he has tiny children." + +The clerks laughed, and the customer, a lean old man with a pale +face, laughed too. + +"Nature above the normal capacity," observed the head-clerk, who +was standing at the counter close by. "It always comes out when +it's there." + +The head-clerk--a tall man of fifty, in spectacles, with a dark +beard, and a pencil behind his ear--usually expressed his ideas +vaguely in roundabout hints, while his sly smile betrayed that he +attached particular significance to his words. He liked to obscure +his utterances with bookish words, which he understood in his own +way, and many such words he used in a wrong sense. For instance, +the word "except." When he had expressed some opinion positively +and did not want to be contradicted, he would stretch out his hand +and pronounce: + +"Except!" + +And what was most astonishing, the customers and the other clerks +understood him perfectly. His name was Ivan Vassilitch Potchatkin, +and he came from Kashira. Now, congratulating Laptev, he expressed +himself as follows: + +"It's the reward of valour, for the female heart is a strong +opponent." + +Another important person in the warehouse was a clerk called +Makeitchev--a stout, solid, fair man with whiskers and a perfectly +bald head. He went up to Laptev and congratulated him respectfully +in a low voice: + +"I have the honour, sir. . . The Lord has heard your parent's prayer. +Thank God." + +Then the other clerks began coming up to congratulate him on his +marriage. They were all fashionably dressed, and looked like perfectly +well-bred, educated men. Since between every two words they put in +a "sir," their congratulations--something like "Best wishes, sir, +for happiness, sir," uttered very rapidly in a low voice--sounded +rather like the hiss of a whip in the air--"Shshsh-s s s s s!" +Laptev was soon bored and longing to go home, but it was awkward +to go away. He was obliged to stay at least two hours at the warehouse +to keep up appearances. He walked away from the counter and began +asking Makeitchev whether things had gone well while he was away, +and whether anything new had turned up, and the clerk answered him +respectfully, avoiding his eyes. A boy with a cropped head, wearing +a grey blouse, handed Laptev a glass of tea without a saucer; not +long afterwards another boy, passing by, stumbled over a box, and +almost fell down, and Makeitchev's face looked suddenly spiteful +and ferocious like a wild beast's, and he shouted at him: + +"Keep on your feet!" + +The clerks were pleased that their young master was married and had +come back at last; they looked at him with curiosity and friendly +feeling, and each one thought it his duty to say something agreeable +when he passed him. But Laptev was convinced that it was not genuine, +and that they were only flattering him because they were afraid of +him. He never could forget how fifteen years before, a clerk, who +was mentally deranged, had run out into the street with nothing on +but his shirt and shaking his fists at the windows, shouted that +he had been ill-treated; and how, when the poor fellow had recovered, +the clerks had jeered at him for long afterwards, reminding him how +he had called his employers "planters" instead of "exploiters." +Altogether the employees at Laptevs' had a very poor time of it, +and this fact was a subject of conversation for the whole market. +The worst of it was that the old man, Fyodor Stepanovitch, maintained +something of an Asiatic despotism in his attitude to them. Thus, +no one knew what wages were paid to the old man's favourites, +Potchatkin and Makeitchev. They received no more than three thousand +a year, together with bonuses, but he made out that he paid then +seven. The bonuses were given to all the clerks every year, but +privately, so that the man who got little was bound from vanity to +say he had got more. Not one boy knew when he would be promoted to +be a clerk; not one of the men knew whether his employer was satisfied +with him or not. Nothing was directly forbidden, and so the clerks +never knew what was allowed, and what was not. They were not forbidden +to marry, but they did not marry for fear of displeasing their +employer and losing their place. They were allowed to have friends +and pay visits, but the gates were shut at nine o'clock, and every +morning the old man scanned them all suspiciously, and tried to +detect any smell of vodka about them: + +"Now then, breathe," he would say. + +Every clerk was obliged to go to early service, and to stand in +church in such a position that the old man could see them all. The +fasts were strictly observed. On great occasions, such as the +birthday of their employer or of any member of his family, the +clerks had to subscribe and present a cake from Fley's, or an album. +The clerks lived three or four in a room in the lower storey, and +in the lodges of the house in Pyatnitsky Street, and at dinner ate +from a common bowl, though there was a plate set before each of +them. If one of the family came into the room while they were at +dinner, they all stood up. + +Laptev was conscious that only, perhaps, those among them who had +been corrupted by the old man's training could seriously regard him +as their benefactor; the others must have looked on him as an enemy +and a "planter." Now, after six months' absence, he saw no change +for the better; there was indeed something new which boded nothing +good. His brother Fyodor, who had always been quiet, thoughtful, +and extremely refined, was now running about the warehouse with a +pencil behind his ear making a show of being very busy and businesslike, +slapping customers on the shoulder and shouting "Friends!" to the +clerks. Apparently he had taken up a new role, and Alexey did not +recognise him in the part. + +The old man's voice boomed unceasingly. Having nothing to do, he +was laying down the law to a customer, telling him how he should +order his life and his business, always holding himself up as an +example. That boastfulness, that aggressive tone of authority, +Laptev had heard ten, fifteen, twenty years ago. The old man adored +himself; from what he said it always appeared that he had made his +wife and all her relations happy, that he had been munificent to +his children, and a benefactor to his clerks and employes, and that +every one in the street and all his acquaintances remembered him +in their prayers. Whatever he did was always right, and if things +went wrong with people it was because they did not take his advice; +without his advice nothing could succeed. In church he stood in the +foremost place, and even made observations to the priests, if in +his opinion they were not conducting the service properly, and +believed that this was pleasing God because God loved him. + +At two o'clock every one in the warehouse was hard at work, except +the old man, who still went on booming in his deep voice. To avoid +standing idle, Laptev took some trimmings from a workgirl and let +her go; then listened to a customer, a merchant from Vologda, and +told a clerk to attend to him. + +"T. V. A.!" resounded on all sides (prices were denoted by letters +in the warehouse and goods by numbers). "R. I. T.!" As he went away, +Laptev said good-bye to no one but Fyodor. + +"I shall come to Pyatnitsky Street with my wife to-morrow," he said; +"but I warn you, if father says a single rude thing to her, I shall +not stay there another minute." + +"You're the same as ever," sighed Fyodor. "Marriage has not changed +you. You must be patient with the old man. So till eleven o'clock, +then. We shall expect you impatiently. Come directly after mass, +then." + +"I don't go to mass." + +"That does not matter. The great thing is not to be later than +eleven, so you may be in time to pray to God and to lunch with us. +Give my greetings to my little sister and kiss her hand for me. I +have a presentiment that I shall like her," Fyodor added with perfect +sincerity. "I envy you, brother!" he shouted after him as Alexey +went downstairs. + +"And why does he shrink into himself in that shy way as though he +fancied he was naked?" thought Laptev, as he walked along Nikolsky +Street, trying to understand the change that had come over his +brother. "And his language is new, too: 'Brother, dear brother, God +has sent us joy; to pray to God'--just like Iudushka in Shtchedrin." + +VI + +At eleven o'clock the next day, which was Sunday, he was driving +with his wife along Pyatnitsky Street in a light, one-horse carriage. +He was afraid of his father's doing something outrageous, and was +already ill at ease. After two nights in her husband's house Yulia +Sergeyevna considered her marriage a mistake and a calamity, and +if she had had to live with her husband in any other town but Moscow, +it seemed to her that she could not have endured the horror of it. +Moscow entertained her--she was delighted with the streets, the +churches; and if it had been possible to drive about Moscow in those +splendid sledges with expensive horses, to drive the whole day from +morning till night, and with the swift motion to feel the cold +autumn air blowing upon her, she would perhaps not have felt herself +so unhappy. + +Near a white, lately stuccoed two-storey house the coachman pulled +up his horse, and began to turn to the right. They were expected, +and near the gate stood two policemen and the porter in a new +full-skirted coat, high boots, and goloshes. The whole space, from +the middle of the street to the gates and all over the yard from +the porch, was strewn with fresh sand. The porter took off his hat, +the policemen saluted. Near the entrance Fyodor met them with a +very serious face. + +"Very glad to make your acquaintance, little sister," he said, +kissing Yulia's hand. "You're very welcome." + +He led her upstairs on his arm, and then along a corridor through +a crowd of men and women. The anteroom was crowded too, and smelt +of incense. + +"I will introduce you to our father directly," whispered Fyodor in +the midst of a solemn, deathly silence. "A venerable old man, +_pater-familias_." + +In the big drawing-room, by a table prepared for service, Fyodor +Stepanovitch stood, evidently waiting for them, and with him the +priest in a calotte, and a deacon. The old man shook hands with +Yulia without saying a word. Every one was silent. Yulia was overcome +with confusion. + +The priest and the deacon began putting on their vestments. A censer +was brought in, giving off sparks and fumes of incense and charcoal. +The candles were lighted. The clerks walked into the drawing-room +on tiptoe and stood in two rows along the wall. There was perfect +stillness, no one even coughed. + +"The blessing of God," began the deacon. The service was read with +great solemnity; nothing was left out and two canticles were sung +--to sweetest Jesus and the most Holy Mother of God. The singers +sang very slowly, holding up the music before them. Laptev noticed +how confused his wife was. While they were singing the canticles, +and the singers in different keys brought out "Lord have mercy on +us," he kept expecting in nervous suspense that the old man would +make some remark such as, "You don't know how to cross yourself," +and he felt vexed. Why this crowd, and why this ceremony with priests +and choristers? It was too bourgeois. But when she, like the old +man, put her head under the gospel and afterwards several times +dropped upon her knees, he realised that she liked it all, and was +reassured. + +At the end of the service, during "Many, many years," the priest +gave the old man and Alexey the cross to kiss, but when Yulia went +up, he put his hand over the cross, and showed he wanted to speak. +Signs were made to the singers to stop. + +"The prophet Samuel," began the priest, "went to Bethlehem at the +bidding of the Lord, and there the elders of the town with fear and +trembling asked him: 'Comest thou peaceably?' And the prophet +answered: 'Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the Lord: sanctify +yourselves and come with me to the sacrifice.' Even so, Yulia, +servant of God, shall we ask of thee, Dost thou come bringing peace +into this house?" + +Yulia flushed with emotion. As he finished, the priest gave her the +cross to kiss, and said in quite a different tone of voice: + +"Now Fyodor Fyodorovitch must be married; it's high time." + +The choir began singing once more, people began moving, and the +room was noisy again. The old man, much touched, with his eyes full +of tears, kissed Yulia three times, made the sign of the cross over +her face, and said: + +"This is your home. I'm an old man and need nothing." + +The clerks congratulated her and said something, but the choir was +singing so loud that nothing else could be heard. Then they had +lunch and drank champagne. She sat beside the old father, and he +talked to her, saying that families ought not to be parted but live +together in one house; that separation and disunion led to permanent +rupture. + +"I've made money and the children only do the spending of it," he +said. "Now, you live with me and save money. It's time for an old +man like me to rest." + +Yulia had all the time a vision of Fyodor flitting about so like +her husband, but shyer and more restless; he fussed about her and +often kissed her hand. + +"We are plain people, little sister," he said, and patches of red +came into his face as he spoke. "We live simply in Russian style, +like Christians, little sister." + +As they went home, Laptev felt greatly relieved that everything had +gone off so well, and that nothing outrageous had happened as he +had expected. He said to his wife: + +"You're surprised that such a stalwart, broad-shouldered father +should have such stunted, narrow-chested sons as Fyodor and me. +Yes; but it's easy to explain! My father married my mother when he +was forty-five, and she was only seventeen. She turned pale and +trembled in his presence. Nina was born first--born of a comparatively +healthy mother, and so she was finer and sturdier than we were. +Fyodor and I were begotten and born after mother had been worn out +by terror. I can remember my father correcting me--or, to speak +plainly, beating me--before I was five years old. He used to +thrash me with a birch, pull my ears, hit me on the head, and every +morning when I woke up my first thought was whether he would beat +me that day. Play and childish mischief was forbidden us. We had +to go to morning service and to early mass. When we met priests or +monks we had to kiss their hands; at home we had to sing hymns. +Here you are religious and love all that, but I'm afraid of religion, +and when I pass a church I remember my childhood, and am overcome +with horror. I was taken to the warehouse as soon as I was eight +years old. I worked like a working boy, and it was bad for my health, +for I used to be beaten there every day. Afterwards when I went to +the high school, I used to go to school till dinner-time, and after +dinner I had to sit in that warehouse till evening; and things went +on like that till I was twenty-two, till I got to know Yartsev, and +he persuaded me to leave my father's house. That Yartsev did a great +deal for me. I tell you what," said Laptev, and he laughed with +pleasure: "let us go and pay Yartsev a visit at once. He's a very +fine fellow! How touched he will be!" + +VII + +On a Saturday in November Anton Rubinstein was conducting in a +symphony concert. It was very hot and crowded. Laptev stood behind +the columns, while his wife and Kostya Kotchevoy were sitting in +the third or fourth row some distance in front. At the very beginning +of an interval a "certain person," Polina Nikolaevna Razsudin, quite +unexpectedly passed by him. He had often since his marriage thought +with trepidation of a possible meeting with her. When now she looked +at him openly and directly, he realised that he had all this time +shirked having things out with her, or writing her two or three +friendly lines, as though he had been hiding from her; he felt +ashamed and flushed crimson. She pressed his hand tightly and +impulsively and asked: + +"Have you seen Yartsev?" + +And without waiting for an answer she went striding on impetuously +as though some one were pushing her on from behind. + +She was very thin and plain, with a long nose; her face always +looked tired, and exhausted, and it seemed as though it were an +effort to her to keep her eyes open, and not to fall down. She had +fine, dark eyes, and an intelligent, kind, sincere expression, but +her movements were awkward and abrupt. It was hard to talk to her, +because she could not talk or listen quietly. Loving her was not +easy. Sometimes when she was alone with Laptev she would go on +laughing for a long time, hiding her face in her hands, and would +declare that love was not the chief thing in life for her, and would +be as whimsical as a girl of seventeen; and before kissing her he +would have to put out all the candles. She was thirty. She was +married to a schoolmaster, but had not lived with her husband for +years. She earned her living by giving music lessons and playing +in quartettes. + +During the ninth symphony she passed again as though by accident, +but the crowd of men standing like a thick wall behind the columns +prevented her going further, and she remained beside him. Laptev +saw that she was wearing the same little velvet blouse she had worn +at concerts last year and the year before. Her gloves were new, and +her fan, too, was new, but it was a common one. She was fond of +fine clothes, but she did not know how to dress, and grudged spending +money on it. She dressed so badly and untidily that when she was +going to her lessons striding hurriedly down the street, she might +easily have been taken for a young monk. + +The public applauded and shouted encore. + +"You'll spend the evening with me," said Polina Nikolaevna, going +up to Laptev and looking at him severely. "When this is over we'll +go and have tea. Do you hear? I insist on it. You owe me a great +deal, and haven't the moral right to refuse me such a trifle." + +"Very well; let us go," Laptev assented. + +Endless calls followed the conclusion of the concert. The audience +got up from their seats and went out very slowly, and Laptev could +not go away without telling his wife. He had to stand at the door +and wait. + +"I'm dying for some tea," Polina Nikolaevna said plaintively. "My +very soul is parched." + +"You can get something to drink here," said Laptev. "Let's go to +the buffet." + +"Oh, I've no money to fling away on waiters. I'm not a shopkeeper." + +He offered her his arm; she refused, in a long, wearisome sentence +which he had heard many times, to the effect that she did not class +herself with the feebler fair sex, and did not depend on the services +of gentlemen. + +As she talked to him she kept looking about at the audience and +greeting acquaintances; they were her fellow-students at the higher +courses and at the conservatorium, and her pupils. She gripped their +hands abruptly, as though she were tugging at them. But then she +began twitching her shoulders, and trembling as though she were in +a fever, and at last said softly, looking at Laptev with horror: + +"Who is it you've married? Where were your eyes, you mad fellow? +What did you see in that stupid, insignificant girl? Why, I loved +you for your mind, for your soul, but that china doll wants nothing +but your money!" + +"Let us drop that, Polina," he said in a voice of supplication. +"All that you can say to me about my marriage I've said to myself +many times already. Don't cause me unnecessary pain." + +Yulia Sergeyevna made her appearance, wearing a black dress with a +big diamond brooch, which her father-in-law had sent her after the +service. She was followed by her suite--Kotchevoy, two doctors +of their acquaintance, an officer, and a stout young man in student's +uniform, called Kish. + +"You go on with Kostya," Laptev said to his wife. "I'm coming later." + +Yulia nodded and went on. Polina Nikolaevna gazed after her, quivering +all over and twitching nervously, and in her eyes there was a look +of repulsion, hatred, and pain. + +Laptev was afraid to go home with her, foreseeing an unpleasant +discussion, cutting words, and tears, and he suggested that they +should go and have tea at a restaurant. But she said: + +"No, no. I want to go home. Don't dare to talk to me of restaurants." + +She did not like being in a restaurant, because the atmosphere of +restaurants seemed to her poisoned by tobacco smoke and the breath +of men. Against all men she did not know she cherished a strange +prejudice, regarding them all as immoral rakes, capable of attacking +her at any moment. Besides, the music played at restaurants jarred +on her nerves and gave her a headache. + +Coming out of the Hall of Nobility, they took a sledge in Ostozhenka +and drove to Savelovsky Lane, where she lodged. All the way Laptev +thought about her. It was true that he owed her a great deal. He +had made her acquaintance at the flat of his friend Yartsev, to +whom she was giving lessons in harmony. Her love for him was deep +and perfectly disinterested, and her relations with him did not +alter her habits; she went on giving her lessons and wearing herself +out with work as before. Through her he came to understand and love +music, which he had scarcely cared for till then. + +"Half my kingdom for a cup of tea!" she pronounced in a hollow +voice, covering her mouth with her muff that she might not catch +cold. "I've given five lessons, confound them! My pupils are as +stupid as posts; I nearly died of exasperation. I don't know how +long this slavery can go on. I'm worn out. As soon as I can scrape +together three hundred roubles, I shall throw it all up and go to +the Crimea, to lie on the beach and drink in ozone. How I love the +sea--oh, how I love the sea!" + +"You'll never go," said Laptev. "To begin with, you'll never save +the money; and, besides, you'd grudge spending it. Forgive me, I +repeat again: surely it's quite as humiliating to collect the money +by farthings from idle people who have music lessons to while away +their time, as to borrow it from your friends." + +"I haven't any friends," she said irritably. "And please don't talk +nonsense. The working class to which I belong has one privilege: +the consciousness of being incorruptible--the right to refuse to +be indebted to wretched little shopkeepers, and to treat them with +scorn. No, indeed, you don't buy me! I'm not a Yulitchka!" + +Laptev did not attempt to pay the driver, knowing that it would +call forth a perfect torrent of words, such as he had often heard +before. She paid herself. + +She had a little furnished room in the flat of a solitary lady who +provided her meals. Her big Becker piano was for the time at Yartsev's +in Great Nikitsky Street, and she went there every day to play on +it. In her room there were armchairs in loose covers, a bed with a +white summer quilt, and flowers belonging to the landlady; there +were oleographs on the walls, and there was nothing that would have +suggested that there was a woman, and a woman of university education, +living in it. There was no toilet table; there were no books; there +was not even a writing-table. It was evident that she went to bed +as soon as she got home, and went out as soon as she got up in the +morning. + +The cook brought in the samovar. Polina Nikolaevna made tea, and, +still shivering--the room was cold--began abusing the singers +who had sung in the ninth symphony. She was so tired she could +hardly keep her eyes open. She drank one glass of tea, then a second, +and then a third. + +"And so you are married," she said. "But don't be uneasy; I'm not +going to pine away. I shall be able to tear you out of my heart. +Only it's annoying and bitter to me that you are just as contemptible +as every one else; that what you want in a woman is not brains or +intellect, but simply a body, good looks, and youth. . . . Youth!" +she pronounced through her nose, as though mimicking some one, and +she laughed. "Youth! You must have purity, _reinheit! reinheit!_" +she laughed, throwing herself back in her chair. "_Reinheit!_" + +When she left off laughing her eyes were wet with tears. + +"You're happy, at any rate?" she asked. + +"No." + +"Does she love you?" + +Laptev, agitated, and feeling miserable, stood up and began walking +about the room. + +"No," he repeated. "If you want to know, Polina, I'm very unhappy. +There's no help for it; I've done the stupid thing, and there's no +correcting it now. I must look at it philosophically. She married +me without love, stupidly, perhaps with mercenary motives, but +without understanding, and now she evidently sees her mistake and +is miserable. I see it. At night we sleep together, but by day she +is afraid to be left alone with me for five minutes, and tries to +find distraction, society. With me she feels ashamed and frightened." + +"And yet she takes money from you?" + +"That's stupid, Polina!" cried Laptev. "She takes money from me +because it makes absolutely no difference to her whether she has +it or not. She is an honest, pure girl. She married me simply because +she wanted to get away from her father, that's all." + +"And are you sure she would have married you if you had not been +rich?" asked Polina. + +"I'm not sure of anything," said Laptev dejectedly. "Not of anything. +I don't understand anything. For God's sake, Polina, don't let us +talk about it." + +"Do you love her?" + +"Desperately." + +A silence followed. She drank a fourth glass, while he paced up and +down, thinking that by now his wife was probably having supper at +the doctors' club. + +"But is it possible to love without knowing why?" asked Polina, +shrugging her shoulders. "No; it's the promptings of animal passion! +You are poisoned, intoxicated by that beautiful body, that _reinheit!_ +Go away from me; you are unclean! Go to her!" + +She brandished her hand at him, then took up his hat and hurled it +at him. He put on his fur coat without speaking and went out, but +she ran after him into the passage, clutched his arm above the +elbow, and broke into sobs. + +"Hush, Polina! Don't!" he said, and could not unclasp her fingers. +"Calm yourself, I entreat you." + +She shut her eyes and turned pale, and her long nose became an +unpleasant waxy colour like a corpse's, and Laptev still could not +unclasp her fingers. She had fainted. He lifted her up carefully, +laid her on her bed, and sat by her for ten minutes till she came +to herself. Her hands were cold, her pulse was weak and uneven. + +"Go home," she said, opening her eyes. "Go away, or I shall begin +howling again. I must take myself in hand." + +When he came out, instead of going to the doctors' club where his +friends were expecting him, he went home. All the way home he was +asking himself reproachfully why he had not settled down to married +life with that woman who loved him so much, and was in reality his +wife and friend. She was the one human being who was devoted to +him; and, besides, would it not have been a grateful and worthy +task to give happiness, peace, and a home to that proud, clever, +overworked creature? Was it for him, he asked himself, to lay claim +to youth and beauty, to that happiness which could not be, and +which, as though in punishment or mockery, had kept him for the +last three months in a state of gloom and oppression. The honeymoon +was long over, and he still, absurd to say, did not know what sort +of person his wife was. To her school friends and her father she +wrote long letters of five sheets, and was never at a loss for +something to say to them, but to him she never spoke except about +the weather or to tell him that dinner was ready, or that it was +supper-time. When at night she said her lengthy prayers and then +kissed her crosses and ikons, he thought, watching her with hatred, +"Here she's praying. What's she praying about? What about?" In his +thoughts he showered insults on himself and her, telling himself +that when he got into bed and took her into his arms, he was taking +what he had paid for; but it was horrible. If only it had been a +healthy, reckless, sinful woman; but here he had youth, piety, +meekness, the pure eyes of innocence. . . . While they were engaged +her piety had touched him; now the conventional definiteness of her +views and convictions seemed to him a barrier, behind which the +real truth could not be seen. Already everything in his married +life was agonising. When his wife, sitting beside him in the theatre, +sighed or laughed spontaneously, it was bitter to him that she +enjoyed herself alone and would not share her delight with him. And +it was remarkable that she was friendly with all his friends, and +they all knew what she was like already, while he knew nothing about +her, and only moped and was dumbly jealous. + +When he got home Laptev put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and +sat down in his study to read a novel. His wife was not at home. +But within half an hour there was a ring at the hall door, and he +heard the muffled footsteps of Pyotr running to open it. It was +Yulia. She walked into the study in her fur coat, her cheeks rosy +with the frost, + +"There's a great fire in Pryesnya," she said breathlessly. "There's +a tremendous glow. I'm going to see it with Konstantin Ivanovitch." + +"Well, do, dear!" + +The sight of her health, her freshness, and the childish horror in +her eyes, reassured Laptev. He read for another half-hour and went +to bed. + +Next day Polina Nikolaevna sent to the warehouse two books she had +borrowed from him, all his letters and his photographs; with them +was a note consisting of one word--_"basta."_ + +VIII + +Towards the end of October Nina Fyodorovna had unmistakable symptoms +of a relapse. There was a change in her face, and she grew rapidly +thinner. In spite of acute pain she still imagined that she was +getting better, and got up and dressed every morning as though she +were well, and then lay on her bed, fully dressed, for the rest of +the day. And towards the end she became very talkative. She would +lie on her back and talk in a low voice, speaking with an effort +and breathing painfully. She died suddenly under the following +circumstances. + +It was a clear moonlight evening. In the street people were tobogganing +in the fresh snow, and their clamour floated in at the window. Nina +Fyodorovna was lying on her back in bed, and Sasha, who had no one +to take turns with her now, was sitting beside her half asleep. + +"I don't remember his father's name," Nina Fyodorovna was saying +softly, "but his name was Ivan Kotchevoy--a poor clerk. He was a +sad drunkard, the Kingdom of Heaven be his! He used to come to us, +and every month we used to give him a pound of sugar and two ounces +of tea. And money, too, sometimes, of course. Yes. . . . And then, +this is what happened. Our Kotchevoy began drinking heavily and +died, consumed by vodka. He left a little son, a boy of seven. Poor +little orphan! . . . We took him and hid him in the clerk's quarters, +and he lived there for a whole year, without father's knowing. And +when father did see him, he only waved his hand and said nothing. +When Kostya, the little orphan, was nine years old--by that time +I was engaged to be married--I took him round to all the day +schools. I went from one to the other, and no one would take him. +And he cried. . . . 'What are you crying for, little silly?' I said. +I took him to Razgulyay to the second school, where--God bless +them for it!--they took him, and the boy began going every day +on foot from Pyatnitsky Street to Razgulyay Street and back again +. . . . Alyosha paid for him. . . . By God's grace the boy got on, +was good at his lessons, and turned out well. . . . He's a lawyer +now in Moscow, a friend of Alyosha's, and so good in science. Yes, +we had compassion on a fellow-creature and took him into our house, +and now I daresay, he remembers us in his prayers. . . Yes. . . ." + +Nina Fyodorovna spoke more and more slowly with long pauses, then +after a brief silence she suddenly raised herself and sat up. + +"There's something the matter with me . . . something seems wrong," +she said. "Lord have mercy on me! Oh, I can't breathe!" + +Sasha knew that her mother would soon die; seeing now how suddenly +her face looked drawn, she guessed that it was the end, and she was +frightened. + +"Mother, you mustn't!" she began sobbing. "You mustn't." + +"Run to the kitchen; let them go for father. I am very ill indeed." + +Sasha ran through all the rooms calling, but there were none of the +servants in the house, and the only person she found was Lida asleep +on a chest in the dining-room with her clothes on and without a +pillow. Sasha ran into the yard just as she was without her goloshes, +and then into the street. On a bench at the gate her nurse was +sitting watching the tobogganing. From beyond the river, where the +tobogganing slope was, came the strains of a military band. + +"Nurse, mother's dying!" sobbed Sasha. "You must go for father! . . ." + +The nurse went upstairs, and, glancing at the sick woman, thrust a +lighted wax candle into her hand. Sasha rushed about in terror and +besought some one to go for her father, then she put on a coat and +a kerchief, and ran into the street. From the servants she knew +already that her father had another wife and two children with whom +he lived in Bazarny Street. She ran out of the gate and turned to +the left, crying, and frightened of unknown people. She soon began +to sink into the snow and grew numb with cold. + +She met an empty sledge, but she did not take it: perhaps, she +thought, the man would drive her out of town, rob her, and throw +her into the cemetery (the servants had talked of such a case at +tea). She went on and on, sobbing and panting with exhaustion. When +she got into Bazarny Street, she inquired where M. Panaurov lived. +An unknown woman spent a long time directing her, and seeing that +she did not understand, took her by the hand and led her to a house +of one storey that stood back from the street. The door stood open. +Sasha ran through the entry, along the corridor, and found herself +at last in a warm, lighted room where her father was sitting by the +samovar with a lady and two children. But by now she was unable to +utter a word, and could only sob. Panaurov understood. + +"Mother's worse?" he asked. "Tell me, child: is mother worse?" + +He was alarmed and sent for a sledge. + +When they got home, Nina Fyodorovna was sitting propped up with +pillows, with a candle in her hand. Her face looked dark and her +eyes were closed. Crowding in the doorway stood the nurse, the cook, +the housemaid, a peasant called Prokofy and a few persons of the +humbler class, who were complete strangers. The nurse was giving +them orders in a whisper, and they did not understand. Inside the +room at the window stood Lida, with a pale and sleepy face, gazing +severely at her mother. + +Panaurov took the candle out of Nina Fyodorovna's hand, and, frowning +contemptuously, flung it on the chest of drawers. + +"This is awful!" he said, and his shoulders quivered. "Nina, you +must lie down," he said affectionately. "Lie down, dear." + +She looked at him, but did not know him. They laid her down on her +back. + +When the priest and the doctor, Sergey Borisovitch, arrived, the +servants crossed themselves devoutly and prayed for her. + +"What a sad business!" said the doctor thoughtfully, coming out +into the drawing-room. "Why, she was still young--not yet forty." + +They heard the loud sobbing of the little girls. Panaurov, with a +pale face and moist eyes, went up to the doctor and said in a faint, +weak voice: + +"Do me a favour, my dear fellow. Send a telegram to Moscow. I'm not +equal to it." + +The doctor fetched the ink and wrote the following telegram to his +daughter: + +"Madame Panaurov died at eight o'clock this evening. Tell your +husband: a mortgaged house for sale in Dvoryansky Street, nine +thousand cash. Auction on twelfth. Advise him not miss opportunity." + +IX + +Laptev lived in one of the turnings out of Little Dmitrovka. Besides +the big house facing the street, he rented also a two-storey lodge +in the yard at the back of his friend Kotchevoy, a lawyer's assistant +whom all the Laptevs called Kostya, because he had grown up under +their eyes. Facing this lodge stood another, also of two storeys, +inhabited by a French family consisting of a husband and wife and +five daughters. + +There was a frost of twenty degrees. The windows were frozen over. +Waking up in the morning, Kostya, with an anxious face, took twenty +drops of a medicine; then, taking two dumb-bells out of the bookcase, +he did gymnastic exercises. He was tall and thin, with big reddish +moustaches; but what was most noticeable in his appearance was the +length of his legs. + +Pyotr, a middle-aged peasant in a reefer jacket and cotton breeches +tucked into his high boots, brought in the samovar and made the +tea. + +"It's very nice weather now, Konstantin Ivanovitch," he said. + +"It is, but I tell you what, brother, it's a pity we can't get on, +you and I, without such exclamations." + +Pyotr sighed from politeness. + +"What are the little girls doing?" asked Kotchevoy. + +"The priest has not come. Alexey Fyodorovitch is giving them their +lesson himself." + +Kostya found a spot in the window that was not covered with frost, +and began looking through a field-glass at the windows of the house +where the French family lived. + +"There's no seeing," he said. + +Meanwhile Alexey Fyodorovitch was giving Sasha and Lida a scripture +lesson below. For the last six weeks they had been living in Moscow, +and were installed with their governess in the lower storey of the +lodge. And three times a week a teacher from a school in the town, +and a priest, came to give them lessons. Sasha was going through +the New Testament and Lida was going through the Old. The time +before Lida had been set the story up to Abraham to learn by heart. + +"And so Adam and Eve had two sons," said Laptev. "Very good. But +what were they called? Try to remember them!" + +Lida, still with the same severe face, gazed dumbly at the table. +She moved her lips, but without speaking; and the elder girl, Sasha, +looked into her face, frowning. + +"You know it very well, only you mustn't be nervous," said Laptev. +"Come, what were Adam's sons called?" + +"Abel and Canel," Lida whispered. + +"Cain and Abel," Laptev corrected her. + +A big tear rolled down Lida's cheek and dropped on the book. Sasha +looked down and turned red, and she, too, was on the point of tears. +Laptev felt a lump in his throat, and was so sorry for them he could +not speak. He got up from the table and lighted a cigarette. At +that moment Kotchevoy came down the stairs with a paper in his hand. +The little girls stood up, and without looking at him, made curtsies. + +"For God's sake, Kostya, give them their lessons," said Laptev, +turning to him. "I'm afraid I shall cry, too, and I have to go to +the warehouse before dinner." + +"All right." + +Alexey Fyodorovitch went away. Kostya, with a very serious face, +sat down to the table and drew the Scripture history towards him. + +"Well," he said; "where have you got to?" + +"She knows about the Flood," said Sasha. + +"The Flood? All right. Let's peg in at the Flood. Fire away about +the Flood." Kostya skimmed through a brief description of the Flood +in the book, and said: "I must remark that there really never was +a flood such as is described here. And there was no such person as +Noah. Some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, there was +an extraordinary inundation of the earth, and that's not only +mentioned in the Jewish Bible, but in the books of other ancient +peoples: the Greeks, the Chaldeans, the Hindoos. But whatever the +inundation may have been, it couldn't have covered the whole earth. +It may have flooded the plains, but the mountains must have remained. +You can read this book, of course, but don't put too much faith in +it." + +Tears trickled down Lida's face again. She turned away and suddenly +burst into such loud sobs, that Kostya started and jumped up from +his seat in great confusion. + +"I want to go home," she said, "to papa and to nurse." + +Sasha cried too. Kostya went upstairs to his own room, and spoke +on the telephone to Yulia Sergeyevna. + +"My dear soul," he said, "the little girls are crying again; there's +no doing anything with them." + +Yulia Sergeyevna ran across from the big house in her indoor dress, +with only a knitted shawl over her shoulders, and chilled through +by the frost, began comforting the children. + +"Do believe me, do believe me," she said in an imploring voice, +hugging first one and then the other. "Your papa's coming to-day; +he has sent a telegram. You're grieving for mother, and I grieve +too. My heart's torn, but what can we do? We must bow to God's +will!" + +When they left off crying, she wrapped them up and took them out +for a drive. They stopped near the Iverskoy chapel, put up candles +at the shrine, and, kneeling down, prayed. On the way back they +went in Filippov's, and had cakes sprinkled with poppy-seeds. + +The Laptevs had dinner between two and three. Pyotr handed the +dishes. This Pyotr waited on the family, and by day ran to the post, +to the warehouse, to the law courts for Kostya; he spent his evenings +making cigarettes, ran to open the door at night, and before five +o'clock in the morning was up lighting the stoves, and no one knew +where he slept. He was very fond of opening seltzer-water bottles +and did it easily, without a bang and without spilling a drop. + +"With God's blessing," said Kostya, drinking off a glass of vodka +before the soup. + +At first Yulia Sergeyevna did not like Kostya; his bass voice, his +phrases such as "Landed him one on the beak," "filth," "produce the +samovar," etc., his habit of clinking glasses and making sentimental +speeches, seemed to her trivial. But as she got to know him better, +she began to feel very much at home with him. He was open with her; +he liked talking to her in a low voice in the evening, and even +gave her novels of his own composition to read, though these had +been kept a secret even from such friends as Laptev and Yartsev. +She read these novels and praised them, so that she might not +disappoint him, and he was delighted because he hoped sooner or +later to become a distinguished author. + +In his novels he described nothing but country-house life, though +he had only seen the country on rare occasions when visiting friends +at a summer villa, and had only been in a real country-house once +in his life, when he had been to Volokolamsk on law business. He +avoided any love interest as though he were ashamed of it; he put +in frequent descriptions of nature, and in them was fond of using +such expressions as, "the capricious lines of the mountains, the +miraculous forms of the clouds, the harmony of mysterious rhythms +. . . ." His novels had never been published, and this he attributed +to the censorship. + +He liked the duties of a lawyer, but yet he considered that his +most important pursuit was not the law but these novels. He believed +that he had a subtle, aesthetic temperament, and he always had +leanings towards art. He neither sang nor played on any musical +instrument, and was absolutely without an ear for music, but he +attended all the symphony and philharmonic concerts, got up concerts +for charitable objects, and made the acquaintance of singers. . . . + +They used to talk at dinner. + +"It's a strange thing," said Laptev, "my Fyodor took my breath away +again! He said we must find out the date of the centenary of our +firm, so as to try and get raised to noble rank; and he said it +quite seriously. What can be the matter with him? I confess I begin +to feel worried about him." + +They talked of Fyodor, and of its being the fashion nowadays to +adopt some pose or other. Fyodor, for instance, tried to appear +like a plain merchant, though he had ceased to be one; and when the +teacher came from the school, of which old Laptev was the patron, +to ask Fyodor for his salary, the latter changed his voice and +deportment, and behaved with the teacher as though he were some one +in authority. + +There was nothing to be done; after dinner they went into the study. +They talked about the decadents, about "The Maid of Orleans," and +Kostya delivered a regular monologue; he fancied that he was very +successful in imitating Ermolova. Then they sat down and played +whist. The little girls had not gone back to the lodge but were +sitting together in one arm-chair, with pale and mournful faces, +and were listening to every noise in the street, wondering whether +it was their father coming. In the evening when it was dark and the +candles were lighted, they felt deeply dejected. The talk over the +whist, the footsteps of Pyotr, the crackling in the fireplace, +jarred on their nerves, and they did not like to look at the fire. +In the evenings they did not want to cry, but they felt strange, +and there was a load on their hearts. They could not understand how +people could talk and laugh when their mother was dead. + +"What did you see through the field-glasses today?" Yulia Sergeyevna +asked Kostya. + +"Nothing to-day, but yesterday I saw the old Frenchman having his +bath." + +At seven o'clock Yulia and Kostya went to the Little Theatre. Laptev +was left with the little girls. + +"It's time your father was here," he said, looking at his watch. +"The train must be late." + +The children sat in their arm-chair dumb and huddling together like +animals when they are cold, while he walked about the room looking +impatiently at his watch. It was quiet in the house. But just before +nine o'clock some one rang at the bell. Pyotr went to open the door. + +Hearing a familiar voice, the children shrieked, burst into sobs, +and ran into the hall. Panaurov was wearing a sumptuous coat of +antelope skin, and his head and moustaches were white with hoar +frost. "In a minute, in a minute," he muttered, while Sasha and +Lida, sobbing and laughing, kissed his cold hands, his hat, his +antelope coat. With the languor of a handsome man spoilt by too +much love, he fondled the children without haste, then went into +the study and said, rubbing his hands: + +"I've not come to stay long, my friends. I'm going to Petersburg +to-morrow. They've promised to transfer me to another town." + +He was staying at the Dresden Hotel. + +X + +A friend who was often at the Laptevs' was Ivan Gavrilitch Yartsev. +He was a strong, healthy man with black hair and a clever, pleasant +face. He was considered to be handsome, but of late he had begun +to grow stout, and that rather spoilt his face and figure; another +thing that spoilt him was that he wore his hair cut so close that +the skin showed through. + +At the University his tall figure and physical strength had won him +the nickname of "the pounder" among the students. He had taken his +degree with the Laptev brothers in the faculty of philology--then +he went in for science and now had the degree of _magister_ in +chemistry. But he had never given a lecture or even been a demonstrator. +He taught physics and natural history in the modern school, and in +two girls' high schools. He was enthusiastic over his pupils, +especially the girls, and used to maintain that a remarkable +generation was growing up. At home he spent his time studying +sociology and Russian history, as well as chemistry, and he sometimes +published brief notes in the newspapers and magazines, signing them +"Y." When he talked of some botanical or zoological subject, he +spoke like an historian; when he was discussing some historical +question, he approached it as a man of science. + +Kish, nicknamed "the eternal student," was also like one of the +family at the Laptevs'. He had been for three years studying medicine. +Then he took up mathematics, and spent two years over each year's +course. His father, a provincial druggist, used to send him forty +roubles a month, to which his mother, without his father's knowledge, +added another ten. And this sum was not only sufficient for his +board and lodging, but even for such luxuries as an overcoat lined +with Polish beaver, gloves, scent, and photographs (he often had +photographs taken of himself and used to distribute them among his +friends). He was neat and demure, slightly bald, with golden +side-whiskers, and he had the air of a man nearly always ready to +oblige. He was always busy looking after other people's affairs. +At one time he would be rushing about with a subscription list; at +another time he would be freezing in the early morning at a ticket +office to buy tickets for ladies of his acquaintance, or at somebody's +request would be ordering a wreath or a bouquet. People simply said +of him: "Kish will go, Kish will do it, Kish will buy it." He was +usually unsuccessful in carrying out his commissions. Reproaches +were showered upon him, people frequently forgot to pay him for the +things he bought, but he simply sighed in hard cases and never +protested. He was never particularly delighted nor disappointed; +his stories were always long and boring; and his jokes invariably +provoked laughter just because they were not funny. Thus, one day, +for instance, intending to make a joke, he said to Pyotr: "Pyotr, +you're not a sturgeon;" and this aroused a general laugh, and he, +too, laughed for a long time, much pleased at having made such a +successful jest. Whenever one of the professors was buried, he +walked in front with the mutes. + +Yartsev and Kish usually came in the evening to tea. If the Laptevs +were not going to the theatre or a concert, the evening tea lingered +on till supper. One evening in February the following conversation +took place: + +"A work of art is only significant and valuable when there are some +serious social problems contained in its central idea," said Kostya, +looking wrathfully at Yartsev. "If there is in the work a protest +against serfdom, or the author takes up arms against the vulgarity +of aristocratic society, the work is significant and valuable. The +novels that are taken up with 'Ach!' and 'Och!' and 'she loved him, +while he ceased to love her,' I tell you, are worthless, and damn +them all, I say!" + +"I agree with you, Konstantin Ivanovitch," said Yulia Sergeyevna. +"One describes a love scene; another, a betrayal; and the third, +meeting again after separation. Are there no other subjects? Why, +there are many people sick, unhappy, harassed by poverty, to whom +reading all that must be distasteful." + +It was disagreeable to Laptev to hear his wife, not yet twenty-two, +speaking so seriously and coldly about love. He understood why this +was so. + +"If poetry does not solve questions that seem so important," said +Yartsev, "you should turn to works on technical subjects, criminal +law, or finance, read scientific pamphlets. What need is there to +discuss in 'Romeo and Juliet,' liberty of speech, or the disinfecting +of prisons, instead of love, when you can find all that in special +articles and textbooks?" + +"That's pushing it to the extreme," Kostya interrupted. "We are not +talking of giants like Shakespeare or Goethe; we are talking of the +hundreds of talented mediocre writers, who would be infinitely more +valuable if they would let love alone, and would employ themselves +in spreading knowledge and humane ideas among the masses." + +Kish, lisping and speaking a little through his nose, began telling +the story of a novel he had lately been reading. He spoke +circumstantially and without haste. Three minutes passed, then five, +then ten, and no one could make out what he was talking about, and +his face grew more and more indifferent, and his eyes more and more +blank. + +"Kish, do be quick over it," Yulia Sergeyevna could not resist +saying; "it's really agonizing!" + +"Shut up, Kish!" Kostya shouted to him. + +They all laughed, and Kish with them. + +Fyodor came in. Flushing red in patches, he greeted them all in a +nervous flurry, and led his brother away into the study. Of late +he had taken to avoiding the company of more than one person at +once. + +"Let the young people laugh, while we speak from the heart in here," +he said, settling himself in a deep arm-chair at a distance from +the lamp. "It's a long time, my dear brother, since we've seen each +other. How long is it since you were at the warehouse? I think it +must be a week." + +"Yes, there's nothing for me to do there. And I must confess that +the old man wearies me." + +"Of course, they could get on at the warehouse without you and me, +but one must have some occupation. 'In the sweat of thy brow thou +shalt eat bread,' as it is written. God loves work." + +Pyotr brought in a glass of tea on a tray. Fyodor drank it without +sugar, and asked for more. He drank a great deal of tea, and could +get through as many as ten glasses in the evening. + +"I tell you what, brother," he said, getting up and going to his +brother. "Laying aside philosophic subtleties, you must get elected +on to the town council, and little by little we will get you on to +the local Board, and then to be an alderman. And as time goes on +--you are a clever man and well-educated--you will be noticed +in Petersburg and asked to go there--active men on the provincial +assemblies and town councils are all the fashion there now--and +before you are fifty you'll be a privy councillor, and have a ribbon +across your shoulders." + +Laptev made no answer; he knew that all this--being a privy +councillor and having a ribbon over his shoulder--was what Fyodor +desired for himself, and he did not know what to say. + +The brothers sat still and said nothing. Fyodor opened his watch +and for a long, long time gazed into it with strained attention, +as though he wanted to detect the motion of the hand, and the +expression of his face struck Laptev as strange. + +They were summoned to supper. Laptev went into the dining-room, +while Fyodor remained in the study. The argument was over and Yartsev +was speaking in the tones of a professor giving a lecture: + +"Owing to differences of climate, of energy, of tastes, of age, +equality among men is physically impossible. But civilised man can +make this inequality innocuous, as he has already done with bogs +and bears. A learned man succeeded in making a cat, a mouse, a +falcon, a sparrow, all eat out of one plate; and education, one +must hope, will do the same thing with men. Life continually +progresses, civilisation makes enormous advances before our eyes, +and obviously a time will come when we shall think, for instance, +the present condition of the factory population as absurd as we now +do the state of serfdom, in which girls were exchanged for dogs." + +"That won't be for a long while, a very long while," said Kostya, +with a laugh, "not till Rothschild thinks his cellars full of gold +absurd, and till then the workers may bend their backs and die of +hunger. No; that's not it. We mustn't wait for it; we must struggle +for it. Do you suppose because the cat eats out of the same saucer +as the mouse--do you suppose that she is influenced by a sense +of conscious intelligence? Not a bit of it! She's made to do it by +force." + +"Fyodor and I are rich; our father's a capitalist, a millionaire. +You will have to struggle with us," said Laptev, rubbing his forehead +with his hand. "Struggle with me is an idea I cannot grasp. I am +rich, but what has money given me so far? What has this power given +me? In what way am I happier than you? My childhood was slavery, +and money did not save me from the birch. When Nina was ill and +died, my money did not help her. If people don't care for me, I +can't make them like me if I spend a hundred million." + +"But you can do a great deal of good," said Kish. + +"Good, indeed! You spoke to me yesterday of a mathematical man who +is looking for a job. Believe me, I can do as little for him as you +can. I can give money, but that's not what he wants--I asked a +well-known musician to help a poor violinist, and this is what he +answered: 'You apply to me just because you are not a musician +yourself.' In the same way I say to you that you apply for help to +me so confidently because you've never been in the position of a +rich man." + +"Why you bring in the comparison with a well-known musician I don't +understand!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed crimson. "What +has the well-known musician to do with it!" + +Her face was quivering with hatred, and she dropped her eyes to +conceal the feeling. And not only her husband, but all the men +sitting at the table, knew what the look in her face meant. + +"What has the well-known musician got to do with it?" she said +slowly. "Why, nothing's easier than helping some one poor." + +Silence followed. Pyotr handed the woodcock, but they all refused +it, and ate nothing but salad. Laptev did not remember what he had +said, but it was clear to him that it was not his words that were +hateful, but the fact of his meddling in the conversation at all. + +After supper he went into his study; intently, with a beating heart, +expecting further humiliation, he listened to what was going on in +the hall. An argument had sprung up there again. Then Yartsev sat +down to the piano and played a sentimental song. He was a man of +varied accomplishments; he could play and sing, and even perform +conjuring tricks. + +"You may please yourselves, my friends, but I'm not going to stay +at home," said Yulia. "We must go somewhere." + +They decided to drive out of town, and sent Kish to the merchant's +club to order a three-horse sledge. They did not ask Laptev to go +with them because he did not usually join these expeditions, and +because his brother was sitting with him; but he took it to mean +that his society bored them, and that he was not wanted in their +light-hearted youthful company. And his vexation, his bitter feeling, +was so intense that he almost shed tears. He was positively glad +that he was treated so ungraciously, that he was scorned, that he +was a stupid, dull husband, a money-bag; and it seemed to him, that +he would have been even more glad if his wife were to deceive him +that night with his best friend, and were afterwards to acknowledge +it, looking at him with hatred. . . . He was jealous on her account +of their student friends, of actors, of singers, of Yartsev, even +of casual acquaintances; and now he had a passionate longing for +her really to be unfaithful to him. He longed to find her in another +man's arms, and to be rid of this nightmare forever. Fyodor was +drinking tea, gulping it noisily. But he, too, got up to go. + +"Our old father must have got cataract," he said, as he put on his +fur coat. "His sight has become very poor." + +Laptev put on his coat, too, and went out. After seeing his brother +part of the way home, he took a sledge and drove to Yar's. + +"And this is family happiness!" he said, jeering at himself. "This +is love!" + +His teeth were chattering, and he did not know if it were jealousy +or something else. He walked about near the tables; listened to a +comic singer in the hall. He had not a single phrase ready if he +should meet his own party; and he felt sure beforehand that if he +met his wife, he would only smile pitifully and not cleverly, and +that every one would understand what feeling had induced him to +come here. He was bewildered by the electric light, the loud music, +the smell of powder, and the fact that the ladies he met looked at +him. He stood at the doors trying to see and to hear what was going +on in the private rooms, and it seemed to him that he was somehow +playing a mean, contemptible part on a level with the comic singers +and those ladies. Then he went to Strelna, but he found none of his +circle there, either; and only when on the way home he was again +driving up to Yar's, a three-horse sledge noisily overtook him. The +driver was drunk and shouting, and he could hear Yartsev laughing: +"Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev returned home between three and four. Yulia Sergeyevna was +in bed. Noticing that she was not asleep, he went up to her and +said sharply: + +"I understand your repulsion, your hatred, but you might spare me +before other people; you might conceal your feelings." + +She got up and sat on the bed with her legs dangling. Her eyes +looked big and black in the lamplight. + +"I beg your pardon," she said. + +He could not utter a single word from excitement and the trembling +of his whole body; he stood facing her and was dumb. She trembled, +too, and sat with the air of a criminal waiting for explanations. + +"How I suffer!" he said at last, and he clutched his head. "I'm in +hell, and I'm out of my mind." + +"And do you suppose it's easy for me?" she asked, with a quiver in +her voice. "God alone knows what I go through." + +"You've been my wife for six months, but you haven't a spark of +love for me in your heart. There's no hope, not one ray of light! +Why did you marry me?" Laptev went on with despair. "Why? What demon +thrust you into my arms? What did you hope for? What did you want?" + +She looked at him with terror, as though she were afraid he would +kill her. + +"Did I attract you? Did you like me?" he went on, gasping for breath. +"No. Then what? What? Tell me what?" he cried. "Oh, the cursed +money! The cursed money!" + +"I swear to God, no!" she cried, and she crossed herself. She seemed +to shrink under the insult, and for the first time he heard her +crying. "I swear to God, no!" she repeated. "I didn't think about +your money; I didn't want it. I simply thought I should do wrong +if I refused you. I was afraid of spoiling your life and mine. And +now I am suffering for my mistake. I'm suffering unbearably!" + +She sobbed bitterly, and he saw that she was hurt; and not knowing +what to say, dropped down on the carpet before her. + +"That's enough; that's enough," he muttered. "I insulted you because +I love you madly." He suddenly kissed her foot and passionately +hugged it. "If only a spark of love," he muttered. "Come, lie to +me; tell me a lie! Don't say it's a mistake! . . ." + +But she went on crying, and he felt that she was only enduring his +caresses as an inevitable consequence of her mistake. And the foot +he had kissed she drew under her like a bird. He felt sorry for +her. + +She got into bed and covered her head over; he undressed and got +into bed, too. In the morning they both felt confused and did not +know what to talk about, and he even fancied she walked unsteadily +on the foot he had kissed. + +Before dinner Panaurov came to say good-bye. Yulia had an irresistible +desire to go to her own home; it would be nice, she thought, to go +away and have a rest from married life, from the embarrassment and +the continual consciousness that she had done wrong. It was decided +at dinner that she should set off with Panaurov, and stay with her +father for two or three weeks until she was tired of it. + +XI + +She travelled with Panaurov in a reserved compartment; he had on +his head an astrachan cap of peculiar shape. + +"Yes, Petersburg did not satisfy me," he said, drawling, with a +sigh. "They promise much, but nothing definite. Yes, my dear girl. +I have been a Justice of the Peace, a member of the local Board, +chairman of the Board of Magistrates, and finally councillor of the +provincial administration. I think I have served my country and +have earned the right to receive attention; but--would you believe +it?--I can never succeed in wringing from the authorities a post +in another town. . . ." + +Panaurov closed his eyes and shook his head. + +"They don't recognise me," he went on, as though dropping asleep. +"Of course I'm not an administrator of genius, but, on the other +hand, I'm a decent, honest man, and nowadays even that's something +rare. I regret to say I have not been always quite straightforward +with women, but in my relations with the Russian government I've +always been a gentleman. But enough of that," he said, opening his +eyes; "let us talk of you. What put it into your head to visit your +papa so suddenly?" + +"Well. . . . I had a little misunderstanding with my husband," said +Yulia, looking at his cap. + +"Yes. What a queer fellow he is! All the Laptevs are queer. Your +husband's all right--he's nothing out of the way, but his brother +Fyodor is a perfect fool." + +Panaurov sighed and asked seriously: + +"And have you a lover yet?" + +Yulia looked at him in amazement and laughed. + +"Goodness knows what you're talking about." + +It was past ten o'clock when they got out at a big station and had +supper. When the train went on again Panaurov took off his greatcoat +and his cap, and sat down beside Yulia. + +"You are very charming, I must tell you," he began. "Excuse me for +the eating-house comparison, but you remind me of fresh salted +cucumber; it still smells of the hotbed, so to speak, and yet has +a smack of the salt and a scent of fennel about it. As time goes +on you will make a magnificent woman, a wonderful, exquisite woman. +If this trip of ours had happened five years ago," he sighed, "I +should have felt it my duty to join the ranks of your adorers, but +now, alas, I'm a veteran on the retired list." + +He smiled mournfully, but at the same time graciously, and put his +arm round her waist. + +"You must be mad!" she said; she flushed crimson and was so frightened +that her hands and feet turned cold. + +"Leave off, Grigory Nikolaevitch!" + +"What are you afraid of, dear?" he asked softly. "What is there +dreadful about it? It's simply that you're not used to it." + +If a woman protested he always interpreted it as a sign that he had +made an impression on her and attracted her. Holding Yulia round +the waist, he kissed her firmly on the cheek, then on the lips, in +the full conviction that he was giving her intense gratification. +Yulia recovered from her alarm and confusion, and began laughing. +He kissed her once more and said, as he put on his ridiculous cap: + +"That is all that the old veteran can give you. A Turkish Pasha, a +kind-hearted old fellow, was presented by some one--or inherited, +I fancy it was--a whole harem. When his beautiful young wives +drew up in a row before him, he walked round them, kissed each one +of them, and said: 'That is all that I am equal to giving you.' And +that's just what I say, too." + +All this struck her as stupid and extraordinary, and amused her. +She felt mischievous. Standing up on the seat and humming, she got +a box of sweets from the shelf, and throwing him a piece of chocolate, +shouted: + +"Catch!" + +He caught it. With a loud laugh she threw him another sweet, then +a third, and he kept catching them and putting them into his mouth, +looking at her with imploring eyes; and it seemed to her that in +his face, his features, his expression, there was a great deal that +was feminine and childlike. And when, out of breath, she sat down +on the seat and looked at him, laughing, he tapped her cheek with +two fingers, and said as though he were vexed: + +"Naughty girl!" + +"Take it," she said, giving him the box. "I don't care for sweet +things." + +He ate up the sweets--every one of them, and locked the empty box +in his trunk; he liked boxes with pictures on them. + +"That's mischief enough, though," he said. "It's time for the veteran +to go bye-bye." + +He took out of his hold-all a Bokhara dressing-gown and a pillow, +lay down, and covered himself with the dressing-gown. + +"Good-night, darling!" he said softly, and sighed as though his +whole body ached. + +And soon a snore was heard. Without the slightest feeling of +constraint, she, too, lay down and went to sleep. + +When next morning she drove through her native town from the station +homewards, the streets seemed to her empty and deserted. The snow +looked grey, and the houses small, as though some one had squashed +them. She was met by a funeral procession: the dead body was carried +in an open coffin with banners. + +"Meeting a funeral, they say, is lucky," she thought. + +There were white bills pasted in the windows of the house where +Nina Fyodorovna used to live. + +With a sinking at her heart she drove into her own courtyard and +rang at the door. It was opened by a servant she did not know--a +plump, sleepy-looking girl wearing a warm wadded jacket. As she +went upstairs Yulia remembered how Laptev had declared his love +there, but now the staircase was unscrubbed, covered with foot-marks. +Upstairs in the cold passage patients were waiting in their out-door +coats. And for some reason her heart beat violently, and she was +so excited she could scarcely walk. + +The doctor, who had grown even stouter, was sitting with a brick-red +face and dishevelled hair, drinking tea. Seeing his daughter, he +was greatly delighted, and even lacrymose. She thought that she was +the only joy in this old man's life, and much moved, she embraced +him warmly, and told him she would stay a long time--till Easter. +After taking off her things in her own room, she went back to the +dining-room to have tea with him. He was pacing up and down with +his hands in his pockets, humming, "Ru-ru-ru"; this meant that he +was dissatisfied with something. + +"You have a gay time of it in Moscow," he said. "I am very glad for +your sake. . . . I'm an old man and I need nothing. I shall soon +give up the ghost and set you all free. And the wonder is that my +hide is so tough, that I'm alive still! It's amazing!" + +He said that he was a tough old ass that every one rode on. They +had thrust on him the care of Nina Fyodorovna, the worry of her +children, and of her burial; and that coxcomb Panaurov would not +trouble himself about it, and had even borrowed a hundred roubles +from him and had never paid it back. + +"Take me to Moscow and put me in a madhouse," said the doctor. "I'm +mad; I'm a simple child, as I still put faith in truth and justice." + +Then he found fault with her husband for his short-sightedness in +not buying houses that were being sold so cheaply. And now it seemed +to Yulia that she was not the one joy in this old man's life. While +he was seeing his patients, and afterwards going his rounds, she +walked through all the rooms, not knowing what to do or what to +think about. She had already grown strange to her own town and her +own home. She felt no inclination to go into the streets or see her +friends; and at the thought of her old friends and her life as a +girl, she felt no sadness nor regret for the past. + +In the evening she dressed a little more smartly and went to the +evening service. But there were only poor people in the church, and +her splendid fur coat and hat made no impression. And it seemed to +her that there was some change in the church as well as in herself. +In old days she had loved it when they read the prayers for the day +at evening service, and the choir sang anthems such as "I will open +my lips." She liked moving slowly in the crowd to the priest who +stood in the middle of the church, and then to feel the holy oil +on her forehead; now she only waited for the service to be over. +And now, going out of the church, she was only afraid that beggars +would ask for alms; it was such a bore to have to stop and feel for +her pockets; besides, she had no coppers in her pocket now--nothing +but roubles. + +She went to bed early, and was a long time in going to sleep. She +kept dreaming of portraits of some sort, and of the funeral procession +she had met that morning. The open coffin with the dead body was +carried into the yard, and brought to a standstill at the door; +then the coffin was swung backwards and forwards on a sheet, and +dashed violently against the door. Yulia woke and jumped up in +alarm. There really was a bang at the door, and the wire of the +bell rustled against the wall, though no ring was to be heard. + +The doctor coughed. Then she heard the servant go downstairs, and +then come back. + +"Madam!" she said, and knocked at the door. "Madam!" + +"What is it?" said Yulia. + +"A telegram for you!" + +Yulia went out to her with a candle. Behind the servant stood the +doctor, in his night-clothes and greatcoat, and he, too, had a +candle in his hand. "Our bell is broken," he said, yawning sleepily. +"It ought to have been mended long ago." + +Yulia broke open the telegram and read: + +"We drink to your health.--YARTSEV, KOTCHEVOY." + +"Ah, what idiots!" she said, and burst out laughing; and her heart +felt light and gay. + +Going back into her room, she quietly washed and dressed, then she +spent a long time in packing her things, until it was daylight, and +at midday she set off for Moscow. + +XII + +In Holy Week the Laptevs went to an exhibition of pictures in the +school of painting. The whole family went together in the Moscow +fashion, the little girls, the governess, Kostya, and all. + +Laptev knew the names of all the well-known painters, and never +missed an exhibition. He used sometimes to paint little landscape +paintings when he was in the country in the summer, and he fancied +he had a good deal of taste, and that if he had studied he might +have made a good painter. When he was abroad he sometimes used to +go to curio shops, examining the antiques with the air of a connoisseur +and giving his opinion on them. When he bought any article he gave +just what the shopkeeper liked to ask for it and his purchase +remained afterwards in a box in the coach-house till it disappeared +altogether. Or going into a print shop, he would slowly and attentively +examine the engravings and the bronzes, making various remarks on +them, and would buy a common frame or a box of wretched prints. At +home he had pictures always of large dimensions but of inferior +quality; the best among them were badly hung. It had happened to +him more than once to pay large sums for things which had afterwards +turned out to be forgeries of the grossest kind. And it was remarkable +that, though as a rule timid in the affairs of life, he was exceedingly +bold and self-confident at a picture exhibition. Why? + +Yulia Sergeyevna looked at the pictures as her husband did, through +her open fist or an opera-glass, and was surprised that the people +in the pictures were like live people, and the trees like real +trees. But she did not understand art, and it seemed to her that +many pictures in the exhibition were alike, and she imagined that +the whole object in painting was that the figures and objects should +stand out as though they were real, when you looked at the picture +through your open fist. + +"That forest is Shiskin's," her husband explained to her. "He always +paints the same thing. . . . But notice snow's never such a lilac +colour as that. . . . And that boy's left arm is shorter than his +right." + +When they were all tired and Laptev had gone to look for Kostya, +that they might go home, Yulia stopped indifferently before a small +landscape. In the foreground was a stream, over it a little wooden +bridge; on the further side a path that disappeared in the dark +grass; a field on the right; a copse; near it a camp fire--no +doubt of watchers by night; and in the distance there was a glow +of the evening sunset. + +Yulia imagined walking herself along the little bridge, and then +along the little path further and further, while all round was +stillness, the drowsy landrails calling and the fire flickering in +the distance. And for some reason she suddenly began to feel that +she had seen those very clouds that stretched across the red part +of the sky, and that copse, and that field before, many times before. +She felt lonely, and longed to walk on and on along the path; and +there, in the glow of sunset was the calm reflection of something +unearthly, eternal. + +"How finely that's painted!" she said, surprised that the picture +had suddenly become intelligible to her. + +"Look, Alyosha! Do you see how peaceful it is?" + +She began trying to explain why she liked the landscape so much, +but neither Kostya nor her husband understood her. She kept looking +at the picture with a mournful smile, and the fact that the others +saw nothing special in it troubled her. Then she began walking +through the rooms and looking at the pictures again. She tried to +understand them and no longer thought that a great many of them +were alike. When, on returning home, for the first time she looked +attentively at the big picture that hung over the piano in the +drawing-room, she felt a dislike for it, and said: + +"What an idea to have pictures like that!" + +And after that the gilt cornices, the Venetian looking-glasses with +flowers on them, the pictures of the same sort as the one that hung +over the piano, and also her husband's and Kostya's reflections +upon art, aroused in her a feeling of dreariness and vexation, even +of hatred. + +Life went on its ordinary course from day to day with no promise +of anything special. The theatrical season was over, the warm days +had come. There was a long spell of glorious weather. One morning +the Laptevs attended the district court to hear Kostya, who had +been appointed by the court to defend some one. They were late in +starting, and reached the court after the examination of the witnesses +had begun. A soldier in the reserve was accused of theft and +housebreaking. There were a great number of witnesses, washerwomen; +they all testified that the accused was often in the house of their +employer--a woman who kept a laundry. At the Feast of the Exaltation +of the Cross he came late in the evening and began asking for money; +he wanted a pick-me-up, as he had been drinking, but no one gave +him anything. Then he went away, but an hour afterwards he came +back, and brought with him some beer and a soft gingerbread cake +for the little girl. They drank and sang songs almost till daybreak, +and when in the morning they looked about, the lock of the door +leading up into the attic was broken, and of the linen three men's +shirts, a petticoat, and two sheets were missing. Kostya asked each +witness sarcastically whether she had not drunk the beer the accused +had brought. Evidently he was insinuating that the washerwomen had +stolen the linen themselves. He delivered his speech without the +slightest nervousness, looking angrily at the jury. + +He explained what robbery with housebreaking meant, and the difference +between that and simple theft. He spoke very circumstantially and +convincingly, displaying an unusual talent for speaking at length +and in a serious tone about what had been know to every one long +before. And it was difficult to make out exactly what he was aiming +at. From his long speech the foreman of the jury could only have +deduced "that it was housebreaking but not robbery, as the washerwomen +had sold the linen for drink themselves; or, if there had been +robbery, there had not been housebreaking." But obviously, he said +just what was wanted, as his speech moved the jury and the audience, +and was very much liked. When they gave a verdict of acquittal, +Yulia nodded to Kostya, and afterwards pressed his hand warmly. + +In May the Laptevs moved to a country villa at Sokolniki. By that +time Yulia was expecting a baby. + +XIII + +More than a year had passed. Yulia and Yartsev were lying on the +grass at Sokolniki not far from the embankment of the Yaroslav +railway; a little distance away Kotchevoy was lying with hands under +his head, looking at the sky. All three had been for a walk, and +were waiting for the six o'clock train to pass to go home to tea. + +"Mothers see something extraordinary in their children, that is +ordained by nature," said Yulia. "A mother will stand for hours +together by the baby's cot looking at its little ears and eyes and +nose, and fascinated by them. If any one else kisses her baby the +poor thing imagines that it gives him immense pleasure. And a mother +talks of nothing but her baby. I know that weakness in mothers, and +I keep watch over myself, but my Olga really is exceptional. How +she looks at me when I'm nursing her! How she laughs! She's only +eight months old, but, upon my word, I've never seen such intelligent +eyes in a child of three." + +"Tell me, by the way," asked Yartsev: "which do you love most-- +your husband or your baby?" + +Yulia shrugged her shoulders. + +"I don't know," she said. "I never was so very fond of my husband, +and Olga is in reality my first love. You know that I did not marry +Alexey for love. In old days I was foolish and miserable, and thought +that I had ruined my life and his, and now I see that love is not +necessary--that it is all nonsense." + +"But if it is not love, what feeling is it that binds you to your +husband? Why do you go on living with him?" + +"I don't know. . . . I suppose it must be habit. I respect him, I +miss him when he's away for long, but that's--not love. He is a +clever, honest man, and that's enough to make me happy. He is very +kind and good-hearted. . . ." + +"Alyosha's intelligent, Alyosha's good," said Kostya, raising his +head lazily; "but, my dear girl, to find out that he is intelligent, +good, and interesting, you have to eat a hundredweight of salt with +him. . . . And what's the use of his goodness and intelligence? He +can fork out money as much as you want, but when character is needed +to resist insolence or aggressiveness, he is faint-hearted and +overcome with nervousness. People like your amiable Alyosha are +splendid people, but they are no use at all for fighting. In fact, +they are no use for anything." + +At last the train came in sight. Coils of perfectly pink smoke from +the funnels floated over the copse, and two windows in the last +compartment flashed so brilliantly in the sun, that it hurt their +eyes to look at it. + +"Tea-time!" said Yulia Sergeyevna, getting up. + +She had grown somewhat stouter of late, and her movements were +already a little matronly, a little indolent. + +"It's bad to be without love though," said Yartsev, walking behind +her. "We talk and read of nothing else but love, but we do very +little loving ourselves, and that's really bad." + +"All that's nonsense, Ivan Gavrilitch," said Yulia. "That's not +what gives happiness." + +They had tea in the little garden, where mignonette, stocks, and +tobacco plants were in flower, and spikes of early gladiolus were +just opening. Yartsev and Kotchevoy could see from Yulia's face +that she was passing through a happy period of inward peace and +serenity, that she wanted nothing but what she had, and they, too, +had a feeling of peace and comfort in their hearts. Whatever was +said sounded apt and clever; the pines were lovely--the fragrance +of them was exquisite as it had never been before; and the cream +was very nice; and Sasha was a good, intelligent child. + +After tea Yartsev sang songs, accompanying himself on the piano, +while Yulia and Kotchevoy sat listening in silence, though Yulia +got up from time to time, and went softly indoors, to take a look +at the baby and at Lida, who had been in bed for the last two days +feverish and eating nothing. + +"My friend, my tender friend," sang Yartsev. "No, my friends, I'll +be hanged if I understand why you are all so against love!" he said, +flinging back his head. "If I weren't busy for fifteen hours of the +twenty-four, I should certainly fall in love." + +Supper was served on the verandah; it was warm and still, but Yulia +wrapped herself in a shawl and complained of the damp. When it got +dark, she seemed not quite herself; she kept shivering and begging +her visitors to stay a little longer. She regaled them with wine, +and after supper ordered brandy to keep them from going. She didn't +want to be left alone with the children and the servants. + +"We summer visitors are getting up a performance for the children," +she said. "We have got everything--a stage and actors; we are +only at a loss for a play. Two dozen plays of different sorts have +been sent us, but there isn't one that is suitable. Now, you are +fond of the theatre, and are so good at history," she said, addressing +Yartsev. "Write an historical play for us." + +"Well, I might." + +The men drank up all the brandy, and prepared to go. + +It was past ten, and for summer-villa people that was late. + +"How dark it is! One can't see a bit," said Yulia, as she went with +them to the gate. "I don't know how you'll find your way. But, isn't +it cold?" + +She wrapped herself up more closely and walked back to the porch. + +"I suppose my Alexey's playing cards somewhere," she called to them. +"Good-night!" + +After the lighted rooms nothing could be seen. Yartsev and Kostya +groped their way like blind men to the railway embankment and crossed +it. + +"One can't see a thing," said Kostya in his bass voice, standing +still and gazing at the sky. "And the stars, the stars, they are +like new three-penny-bits. Gavrilitch!" + +"Ah?" Yartsev responded somewhere in the darkness. + +"I say, one can't see a thing. Where are you?" + +Yartsev went up to him whistling, and took his arm. + +"Hi, there, you summer visitors!" Kostya shouted at the top of his +voice. "We've caught a socialist." + +When he was exhilarated he was always very rowdy, shouting, wrangling +with policemen and cabdrivers, singing, and laughing violently. + +"Nature be damned," he shouted. + +"Come, come," said Yartsev, trying to pacify him. "You mustn't. +Please don't." + +Soon the friends grew accustomed to the darkness, and were able to +distinguish the outlines of the tall pines and telegraph posts. +From time to time the sound of whistles reached them from the station +and the telegraph wires hummed plaintively. From the copse itself +there came no sound, and there was a feeling of pride, strength, +and mystery in its silence, and on the right it seemed that the +tops of the pines were almost touching the sky. The friends found +their path and walked along it. There it was quite dark, and it was +only from the long strip of sky dotted with stars, and from the +firmly trodden earth under their feet, that they could tell they +were walking along a path. They walked along side by side in silence, +and it seemed to both of them that people were coming to meet them. +Their tipsy exhilaration passed off. The fancy came into Yartsev's +mind that perhaps that copse was haunted by the spirits of the +Muscovite Tsars, boyars, and patriarchs, and he was on the point +of telling Kostya about it, but he checked himself. + +When they reached the town gate there was a faint light of dawn in +the sky. Still in silence, Yartsev and Kotchevoy walked along the +wooden pavement, by the cheap summer cottages, eating-houses, +timber-stacks. Under the arch of interlacing branches, the damp air +was fragrant of lime-trees, and then a broad, long street opened +before them, and on it not a soul, not a light. . . . When they +reached the Red Pond, it was daylight. + +"Moscow--it's a town that will have to suffer a great deal more," +said Yartsev, looking at the Alexyevsky Monastery. + +"What put that into your head?" + +"I don't know. I love Moscow." + +Both Yartsev and Kostya had been born in Moscow, and adored the +town, and felt for some reason antagonistic to every other town. +Both were convinced that Moscow was a remarkable town, and Russia +a remarkable country. In the Crimea, in the Caucasus, and abroad, +they felt dull, uncomfortable, and ill at ease, and they thought +their grey Moscow weather very pleasant and healthy. And when the +rain lashed at the window-panes and it got dark early, and when the +walls of the churches and houses looked a drab, dismal colour, days +when one doesn't know what to put on when one is going out--such +days excited them agreeably. + +At last near the station they took a cab. + +"It really would be nice to write an historical play," said Yartsev, +"but not about the Lyapunovs or the Godunovs, but of the times of +Yaroslav or of Monomach. . . . I hate all historical plays except +the monologue of Pimen. When you have to do with some historical +authority or even read a textbook of Russian history, you feel that +every one in Russia is exceptionally talented, gifted, and interesting; +but when I see an historical play at the theatre, Russian life +begins to seem stupid, morbid, and not original." + +Near Dmitrovka the friends separated, and Yartsev went on to his +lodging in Nikitsky Street. He sat half dozing, swaying from side +to side, and pondering on the play. He suddenly imagined a terrible +din, a clanging noise, and shouts in some unknown language, that +might have been Kalmuck, and a village wrapped in flames, and forests +near covered with hoarfrost and soft pink in the glow of the fire, +visible for miles around, and so clearly that every little fir-tree +could be distinguished, and savage men darting about the village +on horseback and on foot, and as red as the glow in the sky. + +"The Polovtsy," thought Yartsev. + +One of them, a terrible old man with a bloodstained face all scorched +from the fire, binds to his saddle a young girl with a white Russian +face, and the girl looks sorrowful, understanding. Yartsev flung +back his head and woke up. + +"My friend, my tender friend . . ." he hummed. + +As he paid the cabman and went up his stairs, he could not shake +off his dreaminess; he saw the flames catching the village, and the +forest beginning to crackle and smoke. A huge, wild bear frantic +with terror rushed through the village. . . . And the girl tied to +the saddle was still looking. + +When at last he went into his room it was broad daylight. Two candles +were burning by some open music on the piano. On the sofa lay Polina +Razsudin wearing a black dress and a sash, with a newspaper in her +hand, fast asleep. She must have been playing late, waiting for +Yartsev to come home, and, tired of waiting, fell asleep. + +"Hullo, she's worn out," he thought. + +Carefully taking the newspaper out of her hands, he covered her +with a rug. He put out the candles and went into his bedroom. As +he got into bed, he still thought of his historical play, and the +tune of "My friend, my tender friend" was still ringing in his +head. . . . + +Two days later Laptev looked in upon him for a moment to tell him +that Lida was ill with diphtheria, and that Yulia Sergeyevna and +her baby had caught it from her, and five days later came the news +that Lida and Yulia were recovering, but the baby was dead, and +that the Laptevs had left their villa at Sokolniki and had hastened +back to Moscow. + +XIV + +It had become distasteful to Laptev to be long at home. His wife +was constantly away in the lodge declaring that she had to look +after the little girls, but he knew that she did not go to the lodge +to give them lessons but to cry in Kostya's room. The ninth day +came, then the twentieth, and then the fortieth, and still he had +to go to the cemetery to listen to the requiem, and then to wear +himself out for a whole day and night thinking of nothing but that +unhappy baby, and trying to comfort his wife with all sorts of +commonplace expressions. He went rarely to the warehouse now, and +spent most of his time in charitable work, seizing upon every pretext +requiring his attention, and he was glad when he had for some trivial +reason to be out for the whole day. He had been intending of late +to go abroad, to study night-refuges, and that idea attracted him +now. + +It was an autumn day. Yulia had just gone to the lodge to cry, while +Laptev lay on a sofa in the study thinking where he could go. Just +at that moment Pyotr announced Polina Razsudin. Laptev was delighted; +he leapt up and went to meet the unexpected visitor, who had been +his closest friend, though he had almost begun to forget her. She +had not changed in the least since that evening when he had seen +her for the last time, and was just the same as ever. + +"Polina," he said, holding out both hands to her. "What ages! If +you only knew how glad I am to see you! Do come in!" + +Polina greeted him, jerked him by the hand, and without taking off +her coat and hat, went into the study and sat down. + +"I've come to you for one minute," she said. "I haven't time to +talk of any nonsense. Sit down and listen. Whether you are glad to +see me or not is absolutely nothing to me, for I don't care a straw +for the gracious attentions of you lords of creation. I've only +come to you because I've been to five other places already to-day, +and everywhere I was met with a refusal, and it's a matter that +can't be put off. Listen," she went on, looking into his face. "Five +students of my acquaintance, stupid, unintelligent people, but +certainly poor, have neglected to pay their fees, and are being +excluded from the university. Your wealth makes it your duty to go +straight to the university and pay for them." + +"With pleasure, Polina." + +"Here are their names," she said, giving him a list. "Go this minute; +you'll have plenty of time to enjoy your domestic happiness +afterwards." + +At that moment a rustle was heard through the door that led into +the drawing-room; probably the dog was scratching itself. Polina +turned crimson and jumped up. + +"Your Dulcinea's eavesdropping," she said. "That's horrid!" + +Laptev was offended at this insult to Yulia. + +"She's not here; she's in the lodge," he said. "And don't speak of +her like that. Our child is dead, and she is in great distress." + +"You can console her," Polina scoffed, sitting down again; "she'll +have another dozen. You don't need much sense to bring children +into the world." + +Laptev remembered that he had heard this, or something very like +it, many times in old days, and it brought back a whiff of the +romance of the past, of solitary freedom, of his bachelor life, +when he was young and thought he could do anything he chose, when +he had neither love for his wife nor memory of his baby. + +"Let us go together," he said, stretching. + +When they reached the university Polina waited at the gate, while +Laptev went into the office; he came back soon afterwards and handed +Polina five receipts. + +"Where are you going now?" he asked. + +"To Yartsev's." + +"I'll come with you." + +"But you'll prevent him from writing." + +"No, I assure you I won't," he said, and looked at her imploringly. + +She had on a black hat trimmed with crape, as though she were in +mourning, and a short, shabby coat, the pockets of which stuck out. +Her nose looked longer than it used to be, and her face looked +bloodless in spite of the cold. Laptev liked walking with her, doing +what she told him, and listening to her grumbling. He walked along +thinking about her, what inward strength there must be in this +woman, since, though she was so ugly, so angular, so restless, +though she did not know how to dress, and always had untidy hair, +and was always somehow out of harmony, she was yet so fascinating. + +They went into Yartsev's flat by the back way through the kitchen, +where they were met by the cook, a clean little old woman with grey +curls; she was overcome with embarrassment, and with a honeyed smile +which made her little face look like a pie, said: + +"Please walk in." + +Yartsev was not at home. Polina sat down to the piano, and beginning +upon a tedious, difficult exercise, told Laptev not to hinder her. +And without distracting her attention by conversation, he sat on +one side and began turning over the pages of a "The Messenger of +Europe." After practising for two hours--it was the task she set +herself every day--she ate something in the kitchen and went out +to her lessons. Laptev read the continuation of a story, then sat +for a long time without reading and without being bored, glad to +think that he was too late for dinner at home. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" came Yartsev's laugh, and he walked in with ruddy +cheeks, looking strong and healthy, wearing a new coat with bright +buttons. "Ha, ha, ha!" + +The friends dined together. Then Laptev lay on the sofa while Yartsev +sat near and lighted a cigar. It got dark. + +"I must be getting old," said Laptev. "Ever since my sister Nina +died, I've taken to constantly thinking of death." + +They began talking of death, of the immortality of the soul, of how +nice it would be to rise again and fly off somewhere to Mars, to +be always idle and happy, and, above all, to think in a new special +way, not as on earth. + +"One doesn't want to die," said Yartsev softly. "No sort of philosophy +can reconcile me to death, and I look on it simply as annihilation. +One wants to live." + +"You love life, Gavrilitch?" + +"Yes, I love it." + +"Do you know, I can never understand myself about that. I'm always +in a gloomy mood or else indifferent. I'm timid, without self-confidence; +I have a cowardly conscience; I never can adapt myself to life, or +become its master. Some people talk nonsense or cheat, and even so +enjoy life, while I consciously do good, and feel nothing but +uneasiness or complete indifference. I explain all that, Gavrilitch, +by my being a slave, the grandson of a serf. Before we plebeians +fight our way into the true path, many of our sort will perish on +the way." + +"That's all quite right, my dear fellow," said Yartsev, and he +sighed. "That only proves once again how rich and varied Russian +life is. Ah, how rich it is! Do you know, I feel more convinced +every day that we are on the eve of the greatest triumph, and I +should like to live to take part in it. Whether you like to believe +it or not, to my thinking a remarkable generation is growing up. +It gives me great enjoyment to teach the children, especially the +girls. They are wonderful children!" + +Yartsev went to the piano and struck a chord. + +"I'm a chemist, I think in chemical terms, and I shall die a chemist," +he went on. "But I am greedy, and I am afraid of dying unsatisfied; +and chemistry is not enough for me, and I seize upon Russian history, +history of art, the science of teaching music. . . . Your wife asked +me in the summer to write an historical play, and now I'm longing +to write and write. I feel as though I could sit for three days and +three nights without moving, writing all the time. I am worn out +with ideas--my brain's crowded with them, and I feel as though +there were a pulse throbbing in my head. I don't in the least want +to become anything special, to create something great. I simply +want to live, to dream, to hope, to be in the midst of everything +. . . . Life is short, my dear fellow, and one must make the most of +everything." + +After this friendly talk, which was not over till midnight, Laptev +took to coming to see Yartsev almost every day. He felt drawn to +him. As a rule he came towards evening, lay down on the sofa, and +waited patiently for Yartsev to come in, without feeling in the +least bored. When Yartsev came back from his work, he had dinner, +and sat down to work; but Laptev would ask him a questions a +conversation would spring up, and there was no more thought of work +and at midnight the friends parted very well pleased with one +another. + +But this did not last long. Arriving one day at Yartsev's, Laptev +found no one there but Polina, who was sitting at the piano practising +her exercises. She looked at him with a cold, almost hostile +expression, and asked without shaking hands: + +"Tell me, please: how much longer is this going on?" + +"This? What?" asked Laptev, not understanding. + +"You come here every day and hinder Yartsev from working. Yartsev +is not a tradesman; he is a scientific man, and every moment of his +life is precious. You ought to understand and to have some little +delicacy!" + +"If you think that I hinder him," said Laptev, mildly, disconcerted, +"I will give up my visits." + +"Quite right, too. You had better go, or he may be home in a minute +and find you here." + +The tone in which this was said, and the indifference in Polina's +eyes, completely disconcerted him. She had absolutely no sort of +feeling for him now, except the desire that he should go as soon +as possible--and what a contrast it was to her old love for him! +He went out without shaking hands with her, and he fancied she would +call out to him, bring him back, but he heard the scales again, and +as he slowly went down the stairs he realised that he had become a +stranger to her now. + +Three days later Yartsev came to spend the evening with him. + +"I have news," he said, laughing. "Polina Nikolaevna has moved into +my rooms altogether." He was a little confused, and went on in a +low voice: "Well, we are not in love with each other, of course, +but I suppose that . . . that doesn't matter. I am glad I can give +her a refuge and peace and quiet, and make it possible for her not +to work if she's ill. She fancies that her coming to live with me +will make things more orderly, and that under her influence I shall +become a great scientist. That's what she fancies. And let her fancy +it. In the South they have a saying: 'Fancy makes the fool a rich +man.' Ha, ha, ha!" + +Laptev said nothing. Yartsev walked up and down the study, looking +at the pictures he had seen so many times before, and said with a +sigh: + +"Yes, my dear fellow, I am three years older than you are, and it's +too late for me to think of real love, and in reality a woman like +Polina Nikolaevna is a godsend to me, and, of course, I shall get +on capitally with her till we're both old people; but, goodness +knows why, one still regrets something, one still longs for something, +and I still feel as though I am lying in the Vale of Daghestan and +dreaming of a ball. In short, man's never satisfied with what he +has." + +He went into the drawing-room and began singing as though nothing +had happened, and Laptev sat in his study with his eyes shut, and +tried to understand why Polina had gone to live with Yartsev. And +then he felt sad that there were no lasting, permanent attachments. +And he felt vexed that Polina Nikolaevna had gone to live with +Yartsev, and vexed with himself that his feeling for his wife was +not what it had been. + +XV + +Laptev sat reading and swaying to and fro in a rocking-chair; Yulia +was in the study, and she, too, was reading. It seemed there was +nothing to talk about; they had both been silent all day. From time +to time he looked at her from over his book and thought: "Whether +one marries from passionate love, or without love at all, doesn't +it come to the same thing?" And the time when he used to be jealous, +troubled, distressed, seemed to him far away. He had succeeded in +going abroad, and now he was resting after the journey and looking +forward to another visit in the spring to England, which he had +very much liked. + +And Yulia Sergeyevna had grown used to her sorrow, and had left off +going to the lodge to cry. That winter she had given up driving out +shopping, had given up the theatres and concerts, and had stayed +at home. She never cared for big rooms, and always sat in her +husband's study or in her own room, where she had shrines of ikons +that had come to her on her marriage, and where there hung on the +wall the landscape that had pleased her so much at the exhibition. +She spent hardly any money on herself, and was almost as frugal now +as she had been in her father's house. + +The winter passed cheerlessly. Card-playing was the rule everywhere +in Moscow, and if any other recreation was attempted, such as +singing, reading, drawing, the result was even more tedious. And +since there were few talented people in Moscow, and the same singers +and reciters performed at every entertainment, even the enjoyment +of art gradually palled and became for many people a tiresome and +monotonous social duty. + +Moreover, the Laptevs never had a day without something vexatious +happening. Old Laptev's eyesight was failing; he no longer went to +the warehouse, and the oculist told them that he would soon be +blind. Fyodor had for some reason given up going to the warehouse +and spent his time sitting at home writing something. Panaurov had +got a post in another town, and had been promoted an actual civil +councillor, and was now staying at the Dresden. He came to the +Laptevs' almost every day to ask for money. Kish had finished his +studies at last, and while waiting for Laptev to find him a job, +used to spend whole days at a time with them, telling them long, +tedious stories. All this was irritating and exhausting, and made +daily life unpleasant. + +Pyotr came into the study, and announced an unknown lady. On the +card he brought in was the name "Josephina Iosefovna Milan." + +Yulia Sergeyevna got up languidly and went out limping slightly, +as her foot had gone to sleep. In the doorway appeared a pale, thin +lady with dark eyebrows, dressed altogether in black. She clasped +her hands on her bosom and said supplicatingly: + +"M. Laptev, save my children!" + +The jingle of her bracelets sounded familiar to him, and he knew +the face with patches of powder on it; he recognised her as the +lady with whom he had once so inappropriately dined before his +marriage. It was Panaurov's second wife. + +"Save my children," she repeated, and her face suddenly quivered +and looked old and pitiful. "You alone can save us, and I have spent +my last penny coming to Moscow to see you! My children are starving!" + +She made a motion as though she were going to fall on her knees. +Laptev was alarmed, and clutched her by the arm. + +"Sit down, sit down . . ." he muttered, making her sit down. "I beg +you to be seated." + +"We have no money to buy bread," she said. "Grigory Nikolaevitch +is going away to a new post, but he will not take the children and +me with him, and the money which you so generously send us he spends +only on himself. What are we to do? What? My poor, unhappy children!" + +"Calm yourself, I beg. I will give orders that that money shall be +made payable to you." + +She began sobbing, and then grew calmer, and he noticed that the +tears had made little pathways through the powder on her cheeks, +and that she was growing a moustache. + +"You are infinitely generous, M. Laptev. But be our guardian angel, +our good fairy, persuade Grigory Nikolaevitch not to abandon me, +but to take me with him. You know I love him--I love him insanely; +he's the comfort of my life." + +Laptev gave her a hundred roubles, and promised to talk to Panaurov, +and saw her out to the hall in trepidation the whole time, for fear +she should break into sobs or fall on her knees. + +After her, Kish made his appearance. Then Kostya came in with his +photographic apparatus. Of late he had been attracted by photography +and took photographs of every one in the house several times a day. +This new pursuit caused him many disappointments, and he had actually +grown thinner. + +Before evening tea Fyodor arrived. Sitting in a corner in the study, +he opened a book and stared for a long time at a page, obviously +not reading. Then he spent a long time drinking tea; his face turned +red. In his presence Laptev felt a load on his heart; even his +silence was irksome to him. + +"Russia may be congratulated on the appearance of a new author," +said Fyodor. "Joking apart, though, brother, I have turned out a +little article--the firstfruits of my pen, so to say--and I've +brought it to show you. Read it, dear boy, and tell me your opinion +--but sincerely." + +He took a manuscript out of his pocket and gave it to his brother. +The article was called "The Russian Soul"; it was written tediously, +in the colourless style in which people with no talent, but full +of secret vanity, usually write. The leading idea of it was that +the intellectual man has the right to disbelieve in the supernatural, +but it is his duty to conceal his lack of faith, that he may not +be a stumbling-block and shake the faith of others. Without faith +there is no idealism, and idealism is destined to save Europe and +guide humanity into the true path. + +"But you don't say what Europe has to be saved from," said Laptev. + +"That's intelligible of itself." + +"Nothing is intelligible," said Laptev, and he walked about the +room in agitation. "It's not intelligible to me why you wrote it. +But that's your business." + +"I want to publish it in pamphlet form." + +"That's your affair." + +They were silent for a minute. Fyodor sighed and said: + +"It's an immense regret to me, dear brother, that we think differently. +Oh, Alyosha, Alyosha, my darling brother! You and I are true Russians, +true believers, men of broad nature; all of these German and Jewish +crochets are not for us. You and I are not wretched upstarts, you +know, but representatives of a distinguished merchant family." + +"What do you mean by a distinguished family?" said Laptev, restraining +his irritation. "A distinguished family! The landowners beat our +grandfather and every low little government clerk punched him in +the face. Our grandfather thrashed our father, and our father +thrashed us. What has your distinguished family done for us? What +sort of nerves, what sort of blood, have we inherited? For nearly +three years you've been arguing like an ignorant deacon, and talking +all sorts of nonsense, and now you've written--this slavish drivel +here! While I, while I! Look at me. . . . No elasticity, no boldness, +no strength of will; I tremble over every step I take as though I +should be flogged for it. I am timid before nonentities, idiots, +brutes, who are immeasurably my inferiors mentally and morally; I +am afraid of porters, doorkeepers, policemen, gendarmes. I am afraid +of every one, because I was born of a mother who was terrified, and +because from a child I was beaten and frightened! . . . You and I +will do well to have no children. Oh, God, grant that this distinguished +merchant family may die with us!" + +Yulia Sergeyevna came into the study and sat down at the table. + +"Are you arguing about something here?" she asked. "Am I interrupting?" + +"No, little sister," answered Fyodor. "Our discussion was of +principles. Here, you are abusing the family," he added, turning +to his brother. "That family has created a business worth a million, +though. That stands for something, anyway!" + +"A great distinction--a business worth a million! A man with no +particular brains, without abilities, by chance becomes a trader, +and then when he has grown rich he goes on trading from day to day, +with no sort of system, with no aim, without having any particular +greed for money. He trades mechanically, and money comes to him of +itself, without his going to meet it. He sits all his life at his +work, likes it only because he can domineer over his clerks and get +the better of his customers. He's a churchwarden because he can +domineer over the choristers and keep them under his thumb; he's +the patron of a school because he likes to feel the teacher is his +subordinate and enjoys lording it over him. The merchant does not +love trading, he loves dominating, and your warehouse is not so +much a commercial establishment as a torture chamber! And for a +business like yours, you want clerks who have been deprived of +individual character and personal life--and you make them such +by forcing them in childhood to lick the dust for a crust of bread, +and you've trained them from childhood to believe that you are their +benefactors. No fear of your taking a university man into your +warehouse!" + +"University men are not suitable for our business." + +"That's not true," cried Laptev. "It's a lie!" + +"Excuse me, it seems to me you spit into the well from which you +drink yourself," said Fyodor, and he got up. "Our business is hateful +to you, yet you make use of the income from it." + +"Aha! We've spoken our minds," said Laptev, and he laughed, looking +angrily at his brother. "Yes, if I didn't belong to your distinguished +family--if I had an ounce of will and courage, I should long ago +have flung away that income, and have gone to work for my living. +But in your warehouse you've destroyed all character in me from a +child! I'm your product." + +Fyodor looked at the clock and began hurriedly saying good-bye. He +kissed Yulia's hand and went out, but instead of going into the +hall, walked into the drawing-room, then into the bedroom. + +"I've forgotten how the rooms go," he said in extreme confusion. +"It's a strange house. Isn't it a strange house!" + +He seemed utterly overcome as he put on his coat, and there was a +look of pain on his face. Laptev felt no more anger; he was frightened, +and at the same time felt sorry for Fyodor, and the warm, true love +for his brother, which seemed to have died down in his heart during +those three years, awoke, and he felt an intense desire to express +that love. + +"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, Fyodor," he said, and stroked +him on the shoulder. "Will you come?" + +"Yes, yes; but give me some water." + +Laptev ran himself to the dining-room to take the first thing he +could get from the sideboard. This was a tall beer-jug. He poured +water into it and brought it to his brother. Fyodor began drinking, +but bit a piece out of the jug; they heard a crunch, and then sobs. +The water ran over his fur coat and his jacket, and Laptev, who had +never seen men cry, stood in confusion and dismay, not knowing what +to do. He looked on helplessly while Yulia and the servant took off +Fyodor's coat and helped him back again into the room, and went +with him, feeling guilty. + +Yulia made Fyodor lie down on the sofa and knelt beside him. + +"It's nothing," she said, trying to comfort him. "It's your +nerves. . . ." + +"I'm so miserable, my dear!" he said. "I am so unhappy, unhappy +. . . but all the time I've been hiding it, I've been hiding it!" + +He put his arm round her neck and whispered in her ear: + +"Every night I see my sister Nina. She comes and sits in the chair +near my bed. . . ." + +When, an hour later, he put on his fur coat in the hall, he was +smiling again and ashamed to face the servant. Laptev went with him +to Pyatnitsky Street. + +"Come and have dinner with us to-morrow," he said on the way, holding +him by the arm, "and at Easter we'll go abroad together. You +absolutely must have a change, or you'll be getting quite morbid." + +When he got home Laptev found his wife in a state of great nervous +agitation. The scene with Fyodor had upset her, and she could not +recover her composure. She wasn't crying but kept tossing on the +bed, clutching with cold fingers at the quilt, at the pillows, at +her husband's hands. Her eyes looked big and frightened. + +"Don't go away from me, don't go away," she said to her husband. +"Tell me, Alyosha, why have I left off saying my prayers? What has +become of my faith? Oh, why did you talk of religion before me? +You've shaken my faith, you and your friends. I never pray now." + +He put compresses on her forehead, chafed her hands, gave her tea +to drink, while she huddled up to him in terror. . . . + +Towards morning she was worn out and fell asleep, while Laptev sat +beside her and held her hand. So that he could get no sleep. The +whole day afterwards he felt shattered and dull, and wandered +listlessly about the rooms without a thought in his head. + +XVI + +The doctor said that Fyodor's mind was affected. Laptev did not +know what to do in his father's house, while the dark warehouse in +which neither his father nor Fyodor ever appeared now seemed to him +like a sepulchre. When his wife told him that he absolutely must +go every day to the warehouse and also to his father's, he either +said nothing, or began talking irritably of his childhood, saying +that it was beyond his power to forgive his father for his past, +that the warehouse and the house in Pyatnitsky Street were hateful +to him, and so on. + +One Sunday morning Yulia went herself to Pyatnitsky Street. She +found old Fyodor Stepanovitch in the same big drawing-room in which +the service had been held on her first arrival. Wearing slippers, +and without a cravat, he was sitting motionless in his arm-chair, +blinking with his sightless eyes. + +"It's I--your daughter-in-law," she said, going up to him. "I've +come to see how you are." + +He began breathing heavily with excitement. + +Touched by his affliction and his loneliness, she kissed his hand; +and he passed his hand over her face and head, and having satisfied +himself that it was she, made the sign of the cross over her. + +"Thank you, thank you," he said. "You know I've lost my eyes and +can see nothing. . . . I can dimly see the window and the fire, but +people and things I cannot see at all. Yes, I'm going blind, and +Fyodor has fallen ill, and without the master's eye things are in +a bad way now. If there is any irregularity there's no one to look +into it; and folks soon get spoiled. And why is it Fyodor has fallen +ill? Did he catch cold? Here I have never ailed in my life and never +taken medicine. I never saw anything of doctors." + +And, as he always did, the old man began boasting. Meanwhile the +servants hurriedly laid the table and brought in lunch and bottles +of wine. + +Ten bottles were put on the table; one of them was in the shape of +the Eiffel Tower. There was a whole dish of hot pies smelling of +jam, rice, and fish. + +"I beg my dear guest to have lunch," said the old man. + +She took him by the arm, led him to the table, and poured him out +a glass of vodka. + +"I will come to you again to-morrow," she said, "and I'll bring +your grandchildren, Sasha and Lida. They will be sorry for you, and +fondle you." + +"There's no need. Don't bring them. They are illegitimate." + +"Why are they illegitimate? Why, their father and mother were +married." + +"Without my permission. I do not bless them, and I don't want to +know them. Let them be." + +"You speak strangely, Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia, with a sigh. + +"It is written in the Gospel: children must fear and honour their +parents." + +"Nothing of the sort. The Gospel tells us that we must forgive even +our enemies." + +"One can't forgive in our business. If you were to forgive every +one, you would come to ruin in three years." + +"But to forgive, to say a kind, friendly word to any one, even a +sinner, is something far above business, far above wealth." + +Yulia longed to soften the old man, to awaken a feeling of compassion +in him, to move him to repentance; but he only listened condescendingly +to all she said, as a grown-up person listens to a child. + +"Fyodor Stepanovitch," said Yulia resolutely, "you are an old man, +and God soon will call you to Himself. He won't ask you how you +managed your business, and whether you were successful in it, but +whether you were gracious to people; or whether you were harsh to +those who were weaker than you, such as your servants, your clerks." + +"I was always the benefactor of those that served me; they ought +to remember me in their prayers forever," said the old man, with +conviction, but touched by Yulia's tone of sincerity, and anxious +to give her pleasure, he said: "Very well; bring my grandchildren +to-morrow. I will tell them to buy me some little presents for +them." + +The old man was slovenly in his dress, and there was cigar ash on +his breast and on his knees; apparently no one cleaned his boots, +or brushed his clothes. The rice in the pies was half cooked, the +tablecloth smelt of soap, the servants tramped noisily about the +room. And the old man and the whole house had a neglected look, and +Yulia, who felt this, was ashamed of herself and of her husband. + +"I will be sure to come and see you to-morrow," she said. + +She walked through the rooms, and gave orders for the old man's +bedroom to be set to rights, and the lamp to be lighted under the +ikons in it. Fyodor, sitting in his own room, was looking at an +open book without reading it. Yulia talked to him and told the +servants to tidy his room, too; then she went downstairs to the +clerks. In the middle of the room where the clerks used to dine, +there was an unpainted wooden post to support the ceiling and to +prevent its coming down. The ceilings in the basement were low, the +walls covered with cheap paper, and there was a smell of charcoal +fumes and cooking. As it was a holiday, all the clerks were at home, +sitting on their bedsteads waiting for dinner. When Yulia went in +they jumped up, and answered her questions timidly, looking up at +her from under their brows like convicts. + +"Good heavens! What a horrid room you have!" she said, throwing up +her hands. "Aren't you crowded here?" + +"Crowded, but not aggrieved," said Makeitchev. "We are greatly +indebted to you, and will offer up our prayers for you to our +Heavenly Father." + +"The congruity of life with the conceit of the personality," said +Potchatkin. + +And noticing that Yulia did not understand Potchatkin, Makeitchev +hastened to explain: + +"We are humble people and must live according to our position." + +She inspected the boys' quarters, and then the kitchen, made +acquaintance with the housekeeper, and was thoroughly dissatisfied. + +When she got home she said to her husband: + +"We ought to move into your father's house and settle there for +good as soon as possible. And you will go every day to the warehouse." + +Then they both sat side by side in the study without speaking. His +heart was heavy, and he did not want to move into Pyatnitsky Street +or to go into the warehouse; but he guessed what his wife was +thinking, and could not oppose her. He stroked her cheek and said: + +"I feel as though our life is already over, and that a grey half-life +is beginning for us. When I knew that my brother Fyodor was hopelessly +ill, I shed tears; we spent our childhood and youth together, when +I loved him with my whole soul. And now this catastrophe has come, +and it seems, too, as though, losing him, I am finally cut away +from my past. And when you said just now that we must move into the +house in Pyatnitsky Street, to that prison, it began to seem to me +that there was no future for me either." + +He got up and walked to the window. + +"However that may be, one has to give up all thoughts of happiness," +he said, looking out into the street. "There is none. I never have +had any, and I suppose it doesn't exist at all. I was happy once +in my life, though, when I sat at night under your parasol. Do you +remember how you left your parasol at Nina's?" he asked, turning +to his wife. "I was in love with you then, and I remember I spent +all night sitting under your parasol, and was perfectly blissful." + +Near the book-case in the study stood a mahogany chest with bronze +fittings where Laptev kept various useless things, including the +parasol. He took it out and handed it to his wife. + +"Here it is." + +Yulia looked for a minute at the parasol, recognised it, and smiled +mournfully. + +"I remember," she said. "When you proposed to me you held it in +your hand." And seeing that he was preparing to go out, she said: +"Please come back early if you can. I am dull without you." + +And then she went into her own room, and gazed for a long time at +the parasol. + +XVII + +In spite of the complexity of the business and the immense turnover, +there were no bookkeepers in the warehouse, and it was impossible +to make anything out of the books kept by the cashier in the office. +Every day the warehouse was visited by agents, German and English, +with whom the clerks talked politics and religion. A man of noble +birth, ruined by drink, an ailing, pitiable creature, used to come +to translate the foreign correspondence in the office; the clerks +used to call him a midge, and put salt in his tea. And altogether +the whole concern struck Laptev as a very queer business. + +He went to the warehouse every day and tried to establish a new +order of things; he forbade them to thrash the boys and to jeer at +the buyers, and was violently angry when the clerks gleefully +despatched to the provinces worthless shop-soiled goods as though +they were new and fashionable. Now he was the chief person in the +warehouse, but still, as before, he did not know how large his +fortune was, whether his business was doing well, how much the +senior clerks were paid, and so on. Potchatkin and Makeitchev looked +upon him as young and inexperienced, concealed a great deal from +him, and whispered mysteriously every evening with his blind old +father. + +It somehow happened at the beginning of June that Laptev went into +the Bubnovsky restaurant with Potchatkin to talk business with him +over lunch. Potchatkin had been with the Laptevs a long while, and +had entered their service at eight years old. He seemed to belong +to them--they trusted him fully; and when on leaving the warehouse +he gathered up all the takings from the till and thrust them into +his pocket, it never aroused the slightest suspicion. He was the +head man in the business and in the house, and also in the church, +where he performed the duties of churchwarden in place of his old +master. He was nicknamed Malyuta Skuratov on account of his cruel +treatment of the boys and clerks under him. + +When they went into the restaurant he nodded to a waiter and said: + +"Bring us, my lad, half a bodkin and twenty-four unsavouries." + +After a brief pause the waiter brought on a tray half a bottle of +vodka and some plates of various kinds of savouries. + +"Look here, my good fellow," said Potchatkin. "Give us a plateful +of the source of all slander and evil-speaking, with mashed potatoes." + +The waiter did not understand; he was puzzled, and would have said +something, but Potchatkin looked at him sternly and said: + +"Except." + +The waiter thought intently, then went to consult with his colleagues, +and in the end guessing what was meant, brought a plateful of tongue. +When they had drunk a couple of glasses and had had lunch, Laptev +asked: + +"Tell me, Ivan Vassilitch, is it true that our business has been +dropping off for the last year?" + +"Not a bit of it." + +"Tell me frankly and honestly what income we have been making and +are making, and what our profits are. We can't go on in the dark. +We had a balancing of the accounts at the warehouse lately, but, +excuse me, I don't believe in it; you think fit to conceal something +from me and only tell the truth to my father. You have been used +to being diplomatic from your childhood, and now you can't get on +without it. And what's the use of it? So I beg you to be open. What +is our position?" + +"It all depends upon the fluctuation of credit," Potchatkin answered +after a moment's pause. + +"What do you understand by the fluctuation of credit?" + +Potchatkin began explaining, but Laptev could make nothing of it, +and sent for Makeitchev. The latter promptly made his appearance, +had some lunch after saying grace, and in his sedate, mellow baritone +began saying first of all that the clerks were in duty bound to +pray night and day for their benefactors. + +"By all means, only allow me not to consider myself your benefactor," +said Laptev. + +"Every man ought to remember what he is, and to be conscious of his +station. By the grace of God you are a father and benefactor to us, +and we are your slaves." + +"I am sick of all that!" said Laptev, getting angry. "Please be a +benefactor to me now. Please explain the position of our business. +Give up looking upon me as a boy, or to-morrow I shall close the +business. My father is blind, my brother is in the asylum, my nieces +are only children. I hate the business; I should be glad to go away, +but there's no one to take my place, as you know. For goodness' +sake, drop your diplomacy!" + +They went to the warehouse to go into the accounts; then they went +on with them at home in the evening, the old father himself assisting. +Initiating his son into his commercial secrets, the old man spoke +as though he were engaged, not in trade, but in sorcery. It appeared +that the profits of the business were increasing approximately ten +per cent. per annum, and that the Laptevs' fortune, reckoning only +money and paper securities, amounted to six million roubles. + +When at one o'clock at night, after balancing the accounts, Laptev +went out into the open air, he was still under the spell of those +figures. It was a still, sultry, moonlight night. The white walls +of the houses beyond the river, the heavy barred gates, the stillness +and the black shadows, combined to give the impression of a fortress, +and nothing was wanting to complete the picture but a sentinel with +a gun. Laptev went into the garden and sat down on a seat near the +fence, which divided them from the neighbour's yard, where there +was a garden, too. The bird-cherry was in bloom. Laptev remembered +that the tree had been just as gnarled and just as big when he was +a child, and had not changed at all since then. Every corner of the +garden and of the yard recalled the far-away past. And in his +childhood, too, just as now, the whole yard bathed in moonlight +could be seen through the sparse trees, the shadows had been +mysterious and forbidding, a black dog had lain in the middle of +the yard, and the clerks' windows had stood wide open. And all these +were cheerless memories. + +The other side of the fence, in the neighbour's yard, there was a +sound of light steps. + +"My sweet, my precious . . ." said a man's voice so near the fence +that Laptev could hear the man's breathing. + +Now they were kissing. Laptev was convinced that the millions and +the business which was so distasteful to him were ruining his life, +and would make him a complete slave. He imagined how, little by +little, he would grow accustomed to his position; would, little by +little, enter into the part of the head of a great firm; would begin +to grow dull and old, die in the end, as the average man usually +does die, in a decrepit, soured old age, making every one about him +miserable and depressed. But what hindered him from giving up those +millions and that business, and leaving that yard and garden which +had been hateful to him from his childhood? + +The whispering and kisses the other side of the fence disturbed +him. He moved into the middle of the yard, and, unbuttoning his +shirt over his chest, looked at the moon, and it seemed to him that +he would order the gate to be unlocked, and would go out and never +come back again. His heart ached sweetly with the foretaste of +freedom; he laughed joyously, and pictured how exquisite, poetical, +and even holy, life might be. . . . + +But he still stood and did not go away, and kept asking himself: +"What keeps me here?" And he felt angry with himself and with the +black dog, which still lay stretched on the stone yard, instead of +running off to the open country, to the woods, where it would have +been free and happy. It was clear that that dog and he were prevented +from leaving the yard by the same thing; the habit of bondage, of +servitude. . . . + +At midday next morning he went to see his wife, and that he might +not be dull, asked Yartsev to go with him. Yulia Sergeyevna was +staying in a summer villa at Butovo, and he had not been to see her +for five days. When they reached the station the friends got into +a carriage, and all the way there Yartsev was singing and in raptures +over the exquisite weather. The villa was in a great park not far +from the station. At the beginning of an avenue, about twenty paces +from the gates, Yulia Sergeyevna was sitting under a broad, spreading +poplar, waiting for her guests. She had on a light, elegant dress +of a pale cream colour trimmed with lace, and in her hand she had +the old familiar parasol. Yartsev greeted her and went on to the +villa from which came the sound of Sasha's and Lida's voices, while +Laptev sat down beside her to talk of business matters. + +"Why is it you haven't been for so long?" she said, keeping his +hand in hers. "I have been sitting here for days watching for you +to come. I miss you so when you are away!" + +She stood up and passed her hand over his hair, and scanned his +face, his shoulders, his hat, with interest. + +"You know I love you," she said, and flushed crimson. "You are +precious to me. Here you've come. I see you, and I'm so happy I +can't tell you. Well, let us talk. Tell me something." + +She had told him she loved him, and he could only feel as though +he had been married to her for ten years, and that he was hungry +for his lunch. She had put her arm round his neck, tickling his +cheek with the silk of her dress; he cautiously removed her hand, +stood up, and without uttering a single word, walked to the villa. +The little girls ran to meet him. + +"How they have grown!" he thought. "And what changes in these three +years. . . . But one may have to live another thirteen years, another +thirty years. . . . What is there in store for us in the future? +If we live, we shall see." + +He embraced Sasha and Lida, who hung upon his neck, and said: + +"Grandpapa sends his love. . . . Uncle Fyodor is dying. Uncle Kostya +has sent a letter from America and sends you his love in it. He's +bored at the exhibition and will soon be back. And Uncle Alyosha +is hungry." + +Then he sat on the verandah and saw his wife walking slowly along +the avenue towards the house. She was deep in thought; there was a +mournful, charming expression in her face, and her eyes were bright +with tears. She was not now the slender, fragile, pale-faced girl +she used to be; she was a mature, beautiful, vigorous woman. And +Laptev saw the enthusiasm with which Yartsev looked at her when he +met her, and the way her new, lovely expression was reflected in +his face, which looked mournful and ecstatic too. One would have +thought that he was seeing her for the first time in his life. And +while they were at lunch on the verandah, Yartsev smiled with a +sort of joyous shyness, and kept gazing at Yulia and at her beautiful +neck. Laptev could not help watching them while he thought that he +had perhaps another thirteen, another thirty years of life before +him. . . . And what would he have to live through in that time? +What is in store for us in the future? + +And he thought: + +"Let us live, and we shall see." + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Darling and Other Stories, by Anton Chekhov + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DARLING AND OTHER STORIES *** + +***** This file should be named 13416.txt or 13416.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/4/1/13416/ + +Produced by James Rusk + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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