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AFTER the festive dinner with its eight courses and its endless conversation, Olga Mihalovna, whose husband’s name-day was being celebrated, went out into the garden. —-
The duty of smiling and talking incessantly, the clatter of the crockery, the stupidity of the servants, the long intervals between the courses, and the stays she had put on to conceal her condition from the visitors, wearied her to exhaustion. —-
She longed to get away from the house, to sit in the shade and rest her heart with thoughts of the baby which was to be born to her in another two months. —-
She was used to these thoughts coming to her as she turned to the left out of the big avenue into the narrow path. —-
Here in the thick shade of the plums and cherry-trees the dry branches used to scratch her neck and shoulders; —-
a spider’s web would settle on her face, and there would rise up in her mind the image of a little creature of undetermined sex and undefined features, and it began to seem as though it were not the spider’s web that tickled her face and neck caressingly, but that little creature. —-
When, at the end of the path, a thin wicker hurdle came into sight, and behind it podgy beehives with tiled roofs; —-
when in the motionless, stagnant air there came a smell of hay and honey, and a soft buzzing of bees was audible, then the little creature would take complete possession of Olga Mihalovna. —-
She used to sit down on a bench near the shanty woven of branches, and fall to thinking.
This time, too, she went on as far as the seat, sat down, and began thinking; —-
but instead of the little creature there rose up in her imagination the figures of the grown-up people whom she had just left. —-
She felt dreadfully uneasy that she, the hostess, had deserted her guests, and she remembered how her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, and her uncle, Nikolay Nikolaitch, had argued at dinner about trial by jury, about the press, and about the higher education of women. —-
Her husband, as usual, argued in order to show off his Conservative ideas before his visitors—and still more in order to disagree with her uncle, whom he disliked. —-
Her uncle contradicted him and wrangled over every word he uttered, so as to show the company that he, Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch, still retained his youthful freshness of spirit and free-thinking in spite of his fifty-nine years. —-
And towards the end of dinner even Olga Mihalovna herself could not resist taking part and unskilfully attempting to defend university education for women—not that that education stood in need of her defence, but simply because she wanted to annoy her husband, who to her mind was unfair. —-
The guests were wearied by this discussion, but they all thought it necessary to take part in it, and talked a great deal, although none of them took any interest in trial by jury or the higher education of women. . . .
Olga Mihalovna was sitting on the nearest side of the hurdle near the shanty. —-
The sun was hidden behind the clouds. The trees and the air were overcast as before rain, but in spite of that it was hot and stifling. —-
The hay cut under the trees on the previous day was lying ungathered, looking melancholy, with here and there a patch of colour from the faded flowers, and from it came a heavy, sickly scent. —-
It was still. The other side of the hurdle there was a monotonous hum of bees. . . .
Suddenly she heard footsteps and voices; some one was coming along the path towards the beehouse.
“How stifling it is!” said a feminine voice. —-
“What do you think— is it going to rain, or not?”
“It is going to rain, my charmer, but not before night,” a very familiar male voice answered languidly. —-
“There will be a good rain.”
Olga Mihalovna calculated that if she made haste to hide in the shanty they would pass by without seeing her, and she would not have to talk and to force herself to smile. —-
She picked up her skirts, bent down and crept into the shanty. —-
At once she felt upon her face, her neck, her arms, the hot air as heavy as steam. —-
If it had not been for the stuffiness and the close smell of rye bread, fennel, and brushwood, which prevented her from breathing freely, it would have been delightful to hide from her visitors here under the thatched roof in the dusk, and to think about the little creature. —-
It was cosy and quiet.
“What a pretty spot!” said a feminine voice. “Let us sit here, Pyotr Dmitritch.”
Olga Mihalovna began peeping through a crack between two branches. —-
She saw her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, and Lubotchka Sheller, a girl of seventeen who had not long left boarding-school. —-
Pyotr Dmitritch, with his hat on the back of his head, languid and indolent from having drunk so much at dinner, slouched by the hurdle and raked the hay into a heap with his foot; —-
Lubotchka, pink with the heat and pretty as ever, stood with her hands behind her, watching the lazy movements of his big handsome person.
Olga Mihalovna knew that her husband was attractive to women, and did not like to see him with them. There was nothing out of the way in Pyotr Dmitritch’s lazily raking together the hay in order to sit down on it with Lubotchka and chatter to her of trivialities; —-
there was nothing out of the way, either, in pretty Lubotchka’s looking at him with her soft eyes; but yet Olga Mihalovna felt vexed with her husband and frightened and pleased that she could listen to them.
“Sit down, enchantress,” said Pyotr Dmitritch, sinking down on the hay and stretching. —-
“That’s right. Come, tell me something.”
“What next! If I begin telling you anything you will go to sleep.”
“Me go to sleep? Allah forbid! Can I go to sleep while eyes like yours are watching me?”
In her husband’s words, and in the fact that he was lolling with his hat on the back of his head in the presence of a lady, there was nothing out of the way either. —-
He was spoilt by women, knew that they found him attractive, and had adopted with them a special tone which every one said suited him. —-
With Lubotchka he behaved as with all women. —-
But, all the same, Olga Mihalovna was jealous.
“Tell me, please,” said Lubotchka, after a brief silence—“is it true that you are to be tried for something?”
“I? Yes, I am . . . numbered among the transgressors, my charmer.”
“But what for?”
“For nothing, but just . . . it’s chiefly a question of politics,” yawned Pyotr Dmitritch—“the antagonisms of Left and Right. I, an obscurantist and reactionary, ventured in an official paper to make use of an expression offensive in the eyes of such immaculate Gladstones as Vladimir Pavlovitch Vladimirov and our local justice of the peace—Kuzma Grigoritch Vostryakov.”
Pytor Dmitritch yawned again and went on:
“And it is the way with us that you may express disapproval of the sun or the moon, or anything you like, but God preserve you from touching the Liberals! —-
Heaven forbid! A Liberal is like the poisonous dry fungus which covers you with a cloud of dust if you accidentally touch it with your finger.”
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing particular. The whole flare-up started from the merest trifle. —-
A teacher, a detestable person of clerical associations, hands to Vostryakov a petition against a tavern-keeper, charging him with insulting language and behaviour in a public place. —-
Everything showed that both the teacher and the tavern-keeper were drunk as cobblers, and that they behaved equally badly. —-
If there had been insulting behaviour, the insult had anyway been mutual. —-
Vostryakov ought to have fined them both for a breach of the peace and have turned them out of the court—that is all. —-
But that’s not our way of doing things. —-
With us what stands first is not the person—not the fact itself, but the trade-mark and label. —-
However great a rascal a teacher may be, he is always in the right because he is a teacher; —-
a tavern-keeper is always in the wrong because he is a tavern-keeper and a money-grubber. —-
Vostryakov placed the tavern-keeper under arrest. The man appealed to the Circuit Court; —-
the Circuit Court triumphantly upheld Vostryakov’s decision. —-
Well, I stuck to my own opinion. . . . Got a little hot. —-
. . . That was all.”
Pyotr Dmitritch spoke calmly with careless irony. —-
In reality the trial that was hanging over him worried him extremely. —-
Olga Mihalovna remembered how on his return from the unfortunate session he had tried to conceal from his household how troubled he was, and how dissatisfied with himself. —-
As an intelligent man he could not help feeling that he had gone too far in expressing his disagreement; —-
and how much lying had been needful to conceal that feeling from himself and from others! —-
How many unnecessary conversations there had been! —-
How much grumbling and insincere laughter at what was not laughable! —-
When he learned that he was to be brought up before the Court, he seemed at once harassed and depressed; —-
he began to sleep badly, stood oftener than ever at the windows, drumming on the panes with his fingers. —-
And he was ashamed to let his wife see that he was worried, and it vexed her.
“They say you have been in the province of Poltava?” Lubotchka questioned him.
“Yes,” answered Pyotr Dmitritch. “I came back the day before yesterday.”
“I expect it is very nice there.”
“Yes, it is very nice, very nice indeed; —-
in fact, I arrived just in time for the haymaking, I must tell you, and in the Ukraine the haymaking is the most poetical moment of the year. —-
Here we have a big house, a big garden, a lot of servants, and a lot going on, so that you don’t see the haymaking; —-
here it all passes unnoticed. There, at the farm, I have a meadow of forty-five acres as flat as my hand. —-
You can see the men mowing from any window you stand at. —-
They are mowing in the meadow, they are mowing in the garden. —-
There are no visitors, no fuss nor hurry either, so that you can’t help seeing, feeling, hearing nothing but the haymaking. —-
There is a smell of hay indoors and outdoors. —-
There’s the sound of the scythes from sunrise to sunset. —-
Altogether Little Russia is a charming country. —-
Would you believe it, when I was drinking water from the rustic wells and filthy vodka in some Jew’s tavern, when on quiet evenings the strains of the Little Russian fiddle and the tambourines reached me, I was tempted by a fascinating idea—to settle down on my place and live there as long as I chose, far away from Circuit Courts, intellectual conversations, philosophizing women, long dinners. . . .”
Pyotr Dmitritch was not lying. He was unhappy and really longed to rest. —-
And he had visited his Poltava property simply to avoid seeing his study, his servants, his acquaintances, and everything that could remind him of his wounded vanity and his mistakes.
Lubotchka suddenly jumped up and waved her hands about in horror.
“Oh! A bee, a bee!” she shrieked. “It will sting!”
“Nonsense; it won’t sting,” said Pyotr Dmitritch. “What a coward you are!”
“No, no, no,” cried Lubotchka; and looking round at the bees, she walked rapidly back.
Pyotr Dmitritch walked away after her, looking at her with a softened and melancholy face. —-
He was probably thinking, as he looked at her, of his farm, of solitude, and—who knows? —-
—perhaps he was even thinking how snug and cosy life would be at the farm if his wife had been this girl—young, pure, fresh, not corrupted by higher education, not with child. . . .
When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Olga Mihalovna came out of the shanty and turned towards the house. —-
She wanted to cry. She was by now acutely jealous. —-
She could understand that her husband was worried, dissatisfied with himself and ashamed, and when people are ashamed they hold aloof, above all from those nearest to them, and are unreserved with strangers; —-
she could understand, also, that she had nothing to fear from Lubotchka or from those women who were now drinking coffee indoors. —-
But everything in general was terrible, incomprehensible, and it already seemed to Olga Mihalovna that Pyotr Dmitritch only half belonged to her.
“He has no right to do it!” she muttered, trying to formulate her jealousy and her vexation with her husband. —-
“He has no right at all. I will tell him so plainly!”
She made up her mind to find her husband at once and tell him all about it: —-
it was disgusting, absolutely disgusting, that he was attractive to other women and sought their admiration as though it were some heavenly manna; —-
it was unjust and dishonourable that he should give to others what belonged by right to his wife, that he should hide his soul and his conscience from his wife to reveal them to the first pretty face he came across. —-
What harm had his wife done him? How was she to blame? Long ago she had been sickened by his lying: —-
he was for ever posing, flirting, saying what he did not think, and trying to seem different from what he was and what he ought to be. —-
Why this falsity? Was it seemly in a decent man? —-
If he lied he was demeaning himself and those to whom he lied, and slighting what he lied about. —-
Could he not understand that if he swaggered and posed at the judicial table, or held forth at dinner on the prerogatives of Government, that he, simply to provoke her uncle, was showing thereby that he had not a ha’p’orth of respect for the Court, or himself, or any of the people who were listening and looking at him?
Coming out into the big avenue, Olga Mihalovna assumed an expression of face as though she had just gone away to look after some domestic matter. —-
In the verandah the gentlemen were drinking liqueur and eating strawberries: —-
one of them, the Examining Magistrate—a stout elderly man, blagueur and wit—must have been telling some rather free anecdote, for, seeing their hostess, he suddenly clapped his hands over his fat lips, rolled his eyes, and sat down. —-
Olga Mihalovna did not like the local officials. —-
She did not care for their clumsy, ceremonious wives, their scandal-mongering, their frequent visits, their flattery of her husband, whom they all hated. —-
Now, when they were drinking, were replete with food and showed no signs of going away, she felt their presence an agonizing weariness; —-
but not to appear impolite, she smiled cordially to the Magistrate, and shook her finger at him. —-
She walked across the dining-room and drawing-room smiling, and looking as though she had gone to give some order and make some arrangement. —-
“God grant no one stops me,” she thought, but she forced herself to stop in the drawing-room to listen from politeness to a young man who was sitting at the piano playing: —-
after standing for a minute, she cried, “Bravo, bravo, M. Georges! —-
” and clapping her hands twice, she went on.
She found her husband in his study. He was sitting at the table, thinking of something. —-
His face looked stern, thoughtful, and guilty. —-
This was not the same Pyotr Dmitritch who had been arguing at dinner and whom his guests knew, but a different man—wearied, feeling guilty and dissatisfied with himself, whom nobody knew but his wife. —-
He must have come to the study to get cigarettes. —-
Before him lay an open cigarette- case full of cigarettes, and one of his hands was in the table drawer; —-
he had paused and sunk into thought as he was taking the cigarettes.
Olga Mihalovna felt sorry for him. It was as clear as day that this man was harassed, could find no rest, and was perhaps struggling with himself. —-
Olga Mihalovna went up to the table in silence: —-
wanting to show that she had forgotten the argument at dinner and was not cross, she shut the cigarette-case and put it in her husband’s coat pocket.
“What should I say to him?” she wondered; —-
“I shall say that lying is like a forest—the further one goes into it the more difficult it is to get out of it. —-
I will say to him, ‘You have been carried away by the false part you are playing; —-
you have insulted people who were attached to you and have done you no harm. —-
Go and apologize to them, laugh at yourself, and you will feel better. —-
And if you want peace and solitude, let us go away together.’”
Meeting his wife’s gaze, Pyotr Dmitritch’s face immediately assumed the expression it had worn at dinner and in the garden—indifferent and slightly ironical. —-
He yawned and got up.
“It’s past five,” he said, looking at his watch. —-
“If our visitors are merciful and leave us at eleven, even then we have another six hours of it. —-
It’s a cheerful prospect, there’s no denying!”
And whistling something, he walked slowly out of the study with his usual dignified gait. —-
She could hear him with dignified firmness cross the dining-room, then the drawing-room, laugh with dignified assurance, and say to the young man who was playing, “Bravo! —-
bravo!” Soon his footsteps died away: he must have gone out into the garden. —-
And now not jealousy, not vexation, but real hatred of his footsteps, his insincere laugh and voice, took possession of Olga Mihalovna. —-
She went to the window and looked out into the garden. —-
Pyotr Dmitritch was already walking along the avenue. —-
Putting one hand in his pocket and snapping the fingers of the other, he walked with confident swinging steps, throwing his head back a little, and looking as though he were very well satisfied with himself, with his dinner, with his digestion, and with nature. . . .
Two little schoolboys, the children of Madame Tchizhevsky, who had only just arrived, made their appearance in the avenue, accompanied by their tutor, a student wearing a white tunic and very narrow trousers. —-
When they reached Pyotr Dmitritch, the boys and the student stopped, and probably congratulated him on his name-day. —-
With a graceful swing of his shoulders, he patted the children on their cheeks, and carelessly offered the student his hand without looking at him. —-
The student must have praised the weather and compared it with the climate of Petersburg, for Pyotr Dmitritch said in a loud voice, in a tone as though he were not speaking to a guest, but to an usher of the court or a witness:
“What! It’s cold in Petersburg? And here, my good sir, we have a salubrious atmosphere and the fruits of the earth in abundance. Eh? What?”
And thrusting one hand in his pocket and snapping the fingers of the other, he walked on. —-
Till he had disappeared behind the nut bushes, Olga Mihalovna watched the back of his head in perplexity. —-
How had this man of thirty-four come by the dignified deportment of a general? —-
How had he come by that impressive, elegant manner? —-
Where had he got that vibration of authority in his voice? —-
Where had he got these “what’s,” “to be sure’s,” and “my good sir’s”?
Olga Mihalovna remembered how in the first months of her marriage she had felt dreary at home alone and had driven into the town to the Circuit Court, at which Pyotr Dmitritch had sometimes presided in place of her godfather, Count Alexey Petrovitch. —-
In the presidential chair, wearing his uniform and a chain on his breast, he was completely changed. Stately gestures, a voice of thunder, “what,” “to be sure,” careless tones. —-
. . . Everything, all that was ordinary and human, all that was individual and personal to himself that Olga Mihalovna was accustomed to seeing in him at home, vanished in grandeur, and in the presidential chair there sat not Pyotr Dmitritch, but another man whom every one called Mr. President. —-
This consciousness of power prevented him from sitting still in his place, and he seized every opportunity to ring his bell, to glance sternly at the public, to shout. —-
. . . Where had he got his short-sight and his deafness when he suddenly began to see and hear with difficulty, and, frowning majestically, insisted on people speaking louder and coming closer to the table? —-
From the height of his grandeur he could hardly distinguish faces or sounds, so that it seemed that if Olga Mihalovna herself had gone up to him he would have shouted even to her, “Your name? —-
” Peasant witnesses he addressed familiarly, he shouted at the public so that his voice could be heard even in the street, and behaved incredibly with the lawyers. —-
If a lawyer had to speak to him, Pyotr Dmitritch, turning a little away from him, looked with half-closed eyes at the ceiling, meaning to signify thereby that the lawyer was utterly superfluous and that he was neither recognizing him nor listening to him; —-
if a badly-dressed lawyer spoke, Pyotr Dmitritch pricked up his ears and looked the man up and down with a sarcastic, annihilating stare as though to say: —-
“Queer sort of lawyers nowadays!”
“What do you mean by that?” he would interrupt.
If a would-be eloquent lawyer mispronounced a foreign word, saying, for instance, “factitious” instead of “fictitious,” Pyotr Dmitritch brightened up at once and asked, “What? —-
How? Factitious? What does that mean?” and then observed impressively: —-
“Don’t make use of words you do not understand. —-
” And the lawyer, finishing his speech, would walk away from the table, red and perspiring, while Pyotr Dmitritch; —-
with a self- satisfied smile, would lean back in his chair triumphant. —-
In his manner with the lawyers he imitated Count Alexey Petrovitch a little, but when the latter said, for instance, “Counsel for the defence, you keep quiet for a little! —-
” it sounded paternally good-natured and natural, while the same words in Pyotr Dmitritch’s mouth were rude and artificial.
II
There were sounds of applause. The young man had finished playing. —-
Olga Mihalovna remembered her guests and hurried into the drawing-room.
“I have so enjoyed your playing,” she said, going up to the piano. “I have so enjoyed it. —-
You have a wonderful talent! But don’t you think our piano’s out of tune?”
At that moment the two schoolboys walked into the room, accompanied by the student.
“My goodness! Mitya and Kolya,” Olga Mihalovna drawled joyfully, going to meet them: —-
“How big they have grown! One would not know you! —-
But where is your mamma?”
“I congratulate you on the name-day,” the student began in a free-and- easy tone, “and I wish you all happiness. —-
Ekaterina Andreyevna sends her congratulations and begs you to excuse her. —-
She is not very well.”
“How unkind of her! I have been expecting her all day. Is it long since you left Petersburg? —-
” Olga Mihalovna asked the student. “What kind of weather have you there now? —-
” And without waiting for an answer, she looked cordially at the schoolboys and repeated:
“How tall they have grown! It is not long since they used to come with their nurse, and they are at school already! —-
The old grow older while the young grow up. . . —-
. Have you had dinner?”
“Oh, please don’t trouble!” said the student.
“Why, you have not had dinner?”
“For goodness’ sake, don’t trouble!”
“But I suppose you are hungry?” Olga Mihalovna said it in a harsh, rude voice, with impatience and vexation—it escaped her unawares, but at once she coughed, smiled, and flushed crimson. —-
“How tall they have grown!” she said softly.
“Please don’t trouble!” the student said once more.
The student begged her not to trouble; the boys said nothing; —-
obviously all three of them were hungry. —-
Olga Mihalovna took them into the dining- room and told Vassily to lay the table.
“How unkind of your mamma!” she said as she made them sit down. “She has quite forgotten me. —-
Unkind, unkind, unkind . . . you must tell her so. —-
What are you studying?” she asked the student.
“Medicine.”
“Well, I have a weakness for doctors, only fancy. I am very sorry my husband is not a doctor. —-
What courage any one must have to perform an operation or dissect a corpse, for instance! Horrible! —-
Aren’t you frightened? I believe I should die of terror! —-
Of course, you drink vodka?”
“Please don’t trouble.”
“After your journey you must have something to drink. —-
Though I am a woman, even I drink sometimes. And Mitya and Kolya will drink Malaga. —-
It’s not a strong wine; you need not be afraid of it. —-
What fine fellows they are, really! They’ll be thinking of getting married next.”
Olga Mihalovna talked without ceasing; she knew by experience that when she had guests to entertain it was far easier and more comfortable to talk than to listen. —-
When you talk there is no need to strain your attention to think of answers to questions, and to change your expression of face. —-
But unawares she asked the student a serious question; —-
the student began a lengthy speech and she was forced to listen. —-
The student knew that she had once been at the University, and so tried to seem a serious person as he talked to her.
“What subject are you studying?” she asked, forgetting that she had already put that question to him.
“Medicine.”
Olga Mihalovna now remembered that she had been away from the ladies for a long while.
“Yes? Then I suppose you are going to be a doctor?” she said, getting up. “That’s splendid. —-
I am sorry I did not go in for medicine myself. —-
So you will finish your dinner here, gentlemen, and then come into the garden. —-
I will introduce you to the young ladies.”
She went out and glanced at her watch: it was five minutes to six. —-
And she wondered that the time had gone so slowly, and thought with horror that there were six more hours before midnight, when the party would break up. —-
How could she get through those six hours? —-
What phrases could she utter? How should she behave to her husband?
There was not a soul in the drawing-room or on the verandah. —-
All the guests were sauntering about the garden.
“I shall have to suggest a walk in the birchwood before tea, or else a row in the boats,” thought Olga Mihalovna, hurrying to the croquet ground, from which came the sounds of voices and laughter.
“And sit the old people down to vint. . . . —-
” She met Grigory the footman coming from the croquet ground with empty bottles.
“Where are the ladies?” she asked.
“Among the raspberry-bushes. The master’s there, too.”
“Oh, good heavens!” some one on the croquet lawn shouted with exasperation. —-
“I have told you a thousand times over! —-
To know the Bulgarians you must see them! —-
You can’t judge from the papers!”
Either because of the outburst or for some other reason, Olga Mihalovna was suddenly aware of a terrible weakness all over, especially in her legs and in her shoulders. —-
She felt she could not bear to speak, to listen, or to move.
“Grigory,” she said faintly and with an effort, “when you have to serve tea or anything, please don’t appeal to me, don’t ask me anything, don’t speak of anything. —-
. . . Do it all yourself, and . . . and don’t make a noise with your feet, I entreat you. —-
. . . I can’t, because . . .”
Without finishing, she walked on towards the croquet lawn, but on the way she thought of the ladies, and turned towards the raspberry-bushes. —-
The sky, the air, and the trees looked gloomy again and threatened rain; it was hot and stifling. —-
An immense flock of crows, foreseeing a storm, flew cawing over the garden. —-
The paths were more overgrown, darker, and narrower as they got nearer the kitchen garden. —-
In one of them, buried in a thick tangle of wild pear, crab-apple, sorrel, young oaks, and hopbine, clouds of tiny black flies swarmed round Olga Mihalovna. —-
She covered her face with her hands and began forcing herself to think of the little creature . . . —-
. There floated through her imagination the figures of Grigory, Mitya, Kolya, the faces of the peasants who had come in the morning to present their congratulations.
She heard footsteps, and she opened her eyes. —-
Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch was coming rapidly towards her.
“It’s you, dear? I am very glad . . .” he began, breathless. “A couple of words. . . . —-
” He mopped with his handkerchief his red shaven chin, then suddenly stepped back a pace, flung up his hands and opened his eyes wide. —-
“My dear girl, how long is this going on?” he said rapidly, spluttering. “I ask you: —-
is there no limit to it? I say nothing of the demoralizing effect of his martinet views on all around him, of the way he insults all that is sacred and best in me and in every honest thinking man—I will say nothing about that, but he might at least behave decently! —-
Why, he shouts, he bellows, gives himself airs, poses as a sort of Bonaparte, does not let one say a word. —-
. . . I don’t know what the devil’s the matter with him! —-
These lordly gestures, this condescending tone; and laughing like a general! —-
Who is he, allow me to ask you? I ask you, who is he? —-
The husband of his wife, with a few paltry acres and the rank of a titular who has had the luck to marry an heiress! —-
An upstart and a junker, like so many others! A type out of Shtchedrin! —-
Upon my word, it’s either that he’s suffering from megalomania, or that old rat in his dotage, Count Alexey Petrovitch, is right when he says that children and young people are a long time growing up nowadays, and go on playing they are cabmen and generals till they are forty!”
“That’s true, that’s true,” Olga Mihalovna assented. “Let me pass.”
“Now just consider: what is it leading to?” her uncle went on, barring her way. —-
“How will this playing at being a general and a Conservative end? —-
Already he has got into trouble! Yes, to stand his trial! I am very glad of it! —-
That’s what his noise and shouting has brought him to—to stand in the prisoner’s dock. —-
And it’s not as though it were the Circuit Court or something: it’s the Central Court! —-
Nothing worse could be imagined, I think! And then he has quarrelled with every one! —-
He is celebrating his name-day, and look, Vostryakov’s not here, nor Yahontov, nor Vladimirov, nor Shevud, nor the Count. . —-
. . There is no one, I imagine, more Conservative than Count Alexey Petrovitch, yet even he has not come. —-
And he never will come again. He won’t come, you will see!”
“My God! but what has it to do with me?” asked Olga Mihalovna.
“What has it to do with you? Why, you are his wife! —-
You are clever, you have had a university education, and it was in your power to make him an honest worker!”
“At the lectures I went to they did not teach us how to influence tiresome people. —-
It seems as though I should have to apologize to all of you for having been at the University,” said Olga Mihalovna sharply. —-
“Listen, uncle. If people played the same scales over and over again the whole day long in your hearing, you wouldn’t be able to sit still and listen, but would run away. —-
I hear the same thing over again for days together all the year round. —-
You must have pity on me at last.”
Her uncle pulled a very long face, then looked at her searchingly and twisted his lips into a mocking smile.
“So that’s how it is,” he piped in a voice like an old woman’s. “I beg your pardon! —-
” he said, and made a ceremonious bow. “If you have fallen under his influence yourself, and have abandoned your convictions, you should have said so before. —-
I beg your pardon!”
“Yes, I have abandoned my convictions,” she cried. “There; make the most of it!”
“I beg your pardon!”
Her uncle for the last time made her a ceremonious bow, a little on one side, and, shrinking into himself, made a scrape with his foot and walked back.
“Idiot!” thought Olga Mihalovna. “I hope he will go home.”
She found the ladies and the young people among the raspberries in the kitchen garden. —-
Some were eating raspberries; others, tired of eating raspberries, were strolling about the strawberry beds or foraging among the sugar-peas. —-
A little on one side of the raspberry bed, near a branching appletree propped up by posts which had been pulled out of an old fence, Pyotr Dmitritch was mowing the grass. —-
His hair was falling over his forehead, his cravat was untied. His watch-chain was hanging loose. —-
Every step and every swing of the scythe showed skill and the possession of immense physical strength. —-
Near him were standing Lubotchka and the daughters of a neighbour, Colonel Bukryeev—two anaemic and unhealthily stout fair girls, Natalya and Valentina, or, as they were always called, Nata and Vata, both wearing white frocks and strikingly like each other. —-
Pyotr Dmitritch was teaching them to mow.
“It’s very simple,” he said. “You have only to know how to hold the scythe and not to get too hot over it—that is, not to use more force than is necessary! —-
Like this. . . . Wouldn’t you like to try? —-
” he said, offering the scythe to Lubotchka. “Come!”
Lubotchka took the scythe clumsily, blushed crimson, and laughed.
“Don’t be afraid, Lubov Alexandrovna! —-
” cried Olga Mihalovna, loud enough for all the ladies to hear that she was with them. —-
“Don’t be afraid! You must learn! If you marry a Tolstoyan he will make you mow.”
Lubotchka raised the scythe, but began laughing again, and, helpless with laughter, let go of it at once. —-
She was ashamed and pleased at being talked to as though grown up. —-
Nata, with a cold, serious face, with no trace of smiling or shyness, took the scythe, swung it and caught it in the grass; —-
Vata, also without a smile, as cold and serious as her sister, took the scythe, and silently thrust it into the earth. —-
Having done this, the two sisters linked arms and walked in silence to the raspberries.
Pyotr Dmitritch laughed and played about like a boy, and this childish, frolicsome mood in which he became exceedingly good-natured suited him far better than any other. —-
Olga Mihalovna loved him when he was like that. But his boyishness did not usually last long. —-
It did not this time; after playing with the scythe, he for some reason thought it necessary to take a serious tone about it.
“When I am mowing, I feel, do you know, healthier and more normal,” he said. —-
“If I were forced to confine myself to an intellectual life I believe I should go out of my mind. —-
I feel that I was not born to be a man of culture! —-
I ought to mow, plough, sow, drive out the horses.”
And Pyotr Dmitritch began a conversation with the ladies about the advantages of physical labour, about culture, and then about the pernicious effects of money, of property. —-
Listening to her husband, Olga Mihalovna, for some reason, thought of her dowry.
“And the time will come, I suppose,” she thought, “when he will not forgive me for being richer than he. —-
He is proud and vain. Maybe he will hate me because he owes so much to me.”
She stopped near Colonel Bukryeev, who was eating raspberries and also taking part in the conversation.
“Come,” he said, making room for Olga Mihalovna and Pyotr Dmitritch. “The ripest are here. . —-
. . And so, according to Proudhon,” he went on, raising his voice, “property is robbery. —-
But I must confess I don’t believe in Proudhon, and don’t consider him a philosopher. —-
The French are not authorities, to my thinking—God bless them!”
“Well, as for Proudhons and Buckles and the rest of them, I am weak in that department,” said Pyotr Dmitritch. —-
“For philosophy you must apply to my wife. —-
She has been at University lectures and knows all your Schopenhauers and Proudhons by heart. . . .”
Olga Mihalovna felt bored again. She walked again along a little path by apple and pear trees, and looked again as though she was on some very important errand. —-
She reached the gardener’s cottage. In the doorway the gardener’s wife, Varvara, was sitting together with her four little children with big shaven heads. —-
Varvara, too, was with child and expecting to be confined on Elijah’s Day. After greeting her, Olga Mihalovna looked at her and the children in silence and asked:
“Well, how do you feel?”
“Oh, all right. . . .”
A silence followed. The two women seemed to understand each other without words.
“It’s dreadful having one’s first baby,” said Olga Mihalovna after a moment’s thought. —-
“I keep feeling as though I shall not get through it, as though I shall die.”
“I fancied that, too, but here I am alive. One has all sorts of fancies.”
Varvara, who was just going to have her fifth, looked down a little on her mistress from the height of her experience and spoke in a rather didactic tone, and Olga Mihalovna could not help feeling her authority; —-
she would have liked to have talked of her fears, of the child, of her sensations, but she was afraid it might strike Varvara as naïve and trivial. —-
And she waited in silence for Varvara to say something herself.
“Olya, we are going indoors,” Pyotr Dmitritch called from the raspberries.
Olga Mihalovna liked being silent, waiting and watching Varvara. —-
She would have been ready to stay like that till night without speaking or having any duty to perform. —-
But she had to go. She had hardly left the cottage when Lubotchka, Nata, and Vata came running to meet her. —-
The sisters stopped short abruptly a couple of yards away; —-
Lubotchka ran right up to her and flung herself on her neck.
“You dear, darling, precious,” she said, kissing her face and her neck. —-
“Let us go and have tea on the island!”
“On the island, on the island!” said the precisely similar Nata and Vata, both at once, without a smile.
“But it’s going to rain, my dears.”
“It’s not, it’s not,” cried Lubotchka with a woebegone face. —-
“They’ve all agreed to go. Dear! darling!”
“They are all getting ready to have tea on the island,” said Pyotr Dmitritch, coming up. —-
“See to arranging things. . . . We will all go in the boats, and the samovars and all the rest of it must be sent in the carriage with the servants.”
He walked beside his wife and gave her his arm. —-
Olga Mihalovna had a desire to say something disagreeable to her husband, something biting, even about her dowry perhaps—the crueller the better, she felt. —-
She thought a little, and said:
“Why is it Count Alexey Petrovitch hasn’t come? What a pity!”
“I am very glad he hasn’t come,” said Pyotr Dmitritch, lying. —-
“I’m sick to death of that old lunatic.”
“But yet before dinner you were expecting him so eagerly!”
III
Half an hour later all the guests were crowding on the bank near the pile to which the boats were fastened. —-
They were all talking and laughing, and were in such excitement and commotion that they could hardly get into the boats. —-
Three boats were crammed with passengers, while two stood empty. —-
The keys for unfastening these two boats had been somehow mislaid, and messengers were continually running from the river to the house to look for them. —-
Some said Grigory had the keys, others that the bailiff had them, while others suggested sending for a blacksmith and breaking the padlocks. —-
And all talked at once, interrupting and shouting one another down. —-
Pyotr Dmitritch paced impatiently to and fro on the bank, shouting:
“What the devil’s the meaning of it! The keys ought always to be lying in the hall window! —-
Who has dared to take them away? The bailiff can get a boat of his own if he wants one!”
At last the keys were found. Then it appeared that two oars were missing. —-
Again there was a great hullabaloo. Pyotr Dmitritch, who was weary of pacing about the bank, jumped into a long, narrow boat hollowed out of the trunk of a poplar, and, lurching from side to side and almost falling into the water, pushed off from the bank. —-
The other boats followed him one after another, amid loud laughter and the shrieks of the young ladies.
The white cloudy sky, the trees on the riverside, the boats with the people in them, and the oars, were reflected in the water as in a mirror; —-
under the boats, far away below in the bottomless depths, was a second sky with the birds flying across it. —-
The bank on which the house and gardens stood was high, steep, and covered with trees; —-
on the other, which was sloping, stretched broad green water-meadows with sheets of water glistening in them. —-
The boats had floated a hundred yards when, behind the mournfully drooping willows on the sloping banks, huts and a herd of cows came into sight; —-
they began to hear songs, drunken shouts, and the strains of a concertina.
Here and there on the river fishing-boats were scattered about, setting their nets for the night. —-
In one of these boats was the festive party, playing on home-made violins and violoncellos.
Olga Mihalovna was sitting at the rudder; —-
she was smiling affably and talking a great deal to entertain her visitors, while she glanced stealthily at her husband. —-
He was ahead of them all, standing up punting with one oar. —-
The light sharp-nosed canoe, which all the guests called the “death-trap”—while Pyotr Dmitritch, for some reason, called it Penderaklia—flew along quickly; —-
it had a brisk, crafty expression, as though it hated its heavy occupant and was looking out for a favourable moment to glide away from under his feet. —-
Olga Mihalovna kept looking at her husband, and she loathed his good looks which attracted every one, the back of his head, his attitude, his familiar manner with women; —-
she hated all the women sitting in the boat with her, was jealous, and at the same time was trembling every minute in terror that the frail craft would upset and cause an accident.
“Take care, Pyotr!” she cried, while her heart fluttered with terror. —-
“Sit down! We believe in your courage without all that!”
She was worried, too, by the people who were in the boat with her. —-
They were all ordinary good sort of people like thousands of others, but now each one of them struck her as exceptional and evil. —-
In each one of them she saw nothing but falsity. —-
“That young man,” she thought, “rowing, in gold-rimmed spectacles, with chestnut hair and a nice-looking beard: —-
he is a mamma’s darling, rich, and well-fed, and always fortunate, and every one considers him an honourable, free-thinking, advanced man. —-
It’s not a year since he left the University and came to live in the district, but he already talks of himself as ‘we active members of the Zemstvo. —-
’ But in another year he will be bored like so many others and go off to Petersburg, and to justify running away, will tell every one that the Zemstvos are good-for-nothing, and that he has been deceived in them. —-
While from the other boat his young wife keeps her eyes fixed on him, and believes that he is ‘an active member of the Zemstvo,’ just as in a year she will believe that the Zemstvo is good-for-nothing. —-
And that stout, carefully shaven gentleman in the straw hat with the broad ribbon, with an expensive cigar in his mouth: —-
he is fond of saying, ‘It is time to put away dreams and set to work! —-
’ He has Yorkshire pigs, Butler’s hives, rape-seed, pine-apples, a dairy, a cheese factory, Italian bookkeeping by double entry; —-
but every summer he sells his timber and mortgages part of his land to spend the autumn with his mistress in the Crimea. —-
And there’s Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch, who has quarrelled with Pyotr Dmitritch, and yet for some reason does not go home.”
Olga Mihalovna looked at the other boats, and there, too, she saw only uninteresting, queer creatures, affected or stupid people. —-
She thought of all the people she knew in the district, and could not remember one person of whom one could say or think anything good. —-
They all seemed to her mediocre, insipid, unintelligent, narrow, false, heartless; —-
they all said what they did not think, and did what they did not want to. —-
Dreariness and despair were stifling her; —-
she longed to leave off smiling, to leap up and cry out, “I am sick of you,” and then jump out and swim to the bank.
“I say, let’s take Pyotr Dmitritch in tow!” some one shouted.
“In tow, in tow!” the others chimed in. “Olga Mihalovna, take your husband in tow.”
To take him in tow, Olga Mihalovna, who was steering, had to seize the right moment and to catch bold of his boat by the chain at the beak. —-
When she bent over to the chain Pyotr Dmitritch frowned and looked at her in alarm.
“I hope you won’t catch cold,” he said.
“If you are uneasy about me and the child, why do you torment me?” thought Olga Mihalovna.
Pyotr Dmitritch acknowledged himself vanquished, and, not caring to be towed, jumped from the Penderaklia into the boat which was overful already, and jumped so carelessly that the boat lurched violently, and every one cried out in terror.
“He did that to please the ladies,” thought Olga Mihalovna; “he knows it’s charming. —-
” Her hands and feet began trembling, as she supposed, from boredom, vexation from the strain of smiling and the discomfort she felt all over her body. —-
And to conceal this trembling from her guests, she tried to talk more loudly, to laugh, to move.
“If I suddenly begin to cry,” she thought, “I shall say I have toothache. . . .”
But at last the boats reached the “Island of Good Hope,” as they called the peninsula formed by a bend in the river at an acute angle, covered with a copse of old birch-trees, oaks, willows, and poplars. —-
The tables were already laid under the trees; —-
the samovars were smoking, and Vassily and Grigory, in their swallow-tails and white knitted gloves, were already busy with the tea-things. —-
On the other bank, opposite the “Island of Good Hope,” there stood the carriages which had come with the provisions. —-
The baskets and parcels of provisions were carried across to the island in a little boat like the Penderaklia. —-
The footmen, the coachmen, and even the peasant who was sitting in the boat, had the solemn expression befitting a name-day such as one only sees in children and servants.
While Olga Mihalovna was making the tea and pouring out the first glasses, the visitors were busy with the liqueurs and sweet things. —-
Then there was the general commotion usual at picnics over drinking tea, very wearisome and exhausting for the hostess. —-
Grigory and Vassily had hardly had time to take the glasses round before hands were being stretched out to Olga Mihalovna with empty glasses. —-
One asked for no sugar, another wanted it stronger, another weak, a fourth declined another glass. —-
And all this Olga Mihalovna had to remember, and then to call, “Ivan Petrovitch, is it without sugar for you? —-
” or, “Gentlemen, which of you wanted it weak? —-
” But the guest who had asked for weak tea, or no sugar, had by now forgotten it, and, absorbed in agreeable conversation, took the first glass that came. —-
Depressed-looking figures wandered like shadows at a little distance from the table, pretending to look for mushrooms in the grass, or reading the labels on the boxes—these were those for whom there were not glasses enough. —-
“Have you had tea?” Olga Mihalovna kept asking, and the guest so addressed begged her not to trouble, and said, “I will wait,” though it would have suited her better for the visitors not to wait but to make haste.
Some, absorbed in conversation, drank their tea slowly, keeping their glasses for half an hour; —-
others, especially some who had drunk a good deal at dinner, would not leave the table, and kept on drinking glass after glass, so that Olga Mihalovna scarcely had time to fill them. —-
One jocular young man sipped his tea through a lump of sugar, and kept saying, “Sinful man that I am, I love to indulge myself with the Chinese herb. —-
” He kept asking with a heavy sigh: “Another tiny dish of tea more, if you please. —-
” He drank a great deal, nibbled his sugar, and thought it all very amusing and original, and imagined that he was doing a clever imitation of a Russian merchant. —-
None of them understood that these trifles were agonizing to their hostess, and, indeed, it was hard to understand it, as Olga Mihalovna went on all the time smiling affably and talking nonsense.
But she felt ill. . . . She was irritated by the crowd of people, the laughter, the questions, the jocular young man, the footmen harassed and run off their legs, the children who hung round the table; —-
she was irritated at Vata’s being like Nata, at Kolya’s being like Mitya, so that one could not tell which of them had had tea and which of them had not. —-
She felt that her smile of forced affability was passing into an expression of anger, and she felt every minute as though she would burst into tears.
“Rain, my friends,” cried some one.
Every one looked at the sky.
“Yes, it really is rain . . .” Pyotr Dmitritch assented, and wiped his cheek.
Only a few drops were falling from the sky—the real rain had not begun yet; —-
but the company abandoned their tea and made haste to get off. —-
At first they all wanted to drive home in the carriages, but changed their minds and made for the boats. —-
On the pretext that she had to hasten home to give directions about the supper, Olga Mihalovna asked to be excused for leaving the others, and went home in the carriage.
When she got into the carriage, she first of all let her face rest from smiling. —-
With an angry face she drove through the village, and with an angry face acknowledged the bows of the peasants she met. —-
When she got home, she went to the bedroom by the back way and lay down on her husband’s bed.
“Merciful God!” she whispered. “What is all this hard labour for? —-
Why do all these people hustle each other here and pretend that they are enjoying themselves? —-
Why do I smile and lie? I don’t understand it.”
She heard steps and voices. The visitors had come back.
“Let them come,” thought Olga Mihalovna; “I shall lie a little longer.”
But a maid-servant came and said:
“Marya Grigoryevna is going, madam.”
Olga Mihalovna jumped up, tidied her hair and hurried out of the room.
“Marya Grigoryevna, what is the meaning of this? —-
” she began in an injured voice, going to meet Marya Grigoryevna. —-
“Why are you in such a hurry?”
“I can’t help it, darling! I’ve stayed too long as it is; my children are expecting me home.”
“It’s too bad of you! Why didn’t you bring your children with you?”
“If you will let me, dear, I will bring them on some ordinary day, but to-day . . .”
“Oh, please do,” Olga Mihalovna interrupted; “I shall be delighted! —-
Your children are so sweet! Kiss them all for me. . . . —-
But, really, I am offended with you! I don’t understand why you are in such a hurry!”
“I really must, I really must. . . . Good-bye, dear. —-
Take care of yourself. In your condition, you know . . .”
And the ladies kissed each other. After seeing the departing guest to her carriage, Olga Mihalovna went in to the ladies in the drawing-room. —-
There the lamps were already lighted and the gentlemen were sitting down to cards.
IV
The party broke up after supper about a quarter past twelve. —-
Seeing her visitors off, Olga Mihalovna stood at the door and said:
“You really ought to take a shawl! It’s turning a little chilly. —-
Please God, you don’t catch cold!”
“Don’t trouble, Olga Mihalovna,” the ladies answered as they got into the carriage. —-
“Well, good-bye. Mind now, we are expecting you; don’t play us false!”
“Wo-o-o!” the coachman checked the horses.
“Ready, Denis! Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna!”
“Kiss the children for me!”
The carriage started and immediately disappeared into the darkness. —-
In the red circle of light cast by the lamp in the road, a fresh pair or trio of impatient horses, and the silhouette of a coachman with his hands held out stiffly before him, would come into view. —-
Again there began kisses, reproaches, and entreaties to come again or to take a shawl. —-
Pyotr Dmitritch kept running out and helping the ladies into their carriages.
“You go now by Efremovshtchina,” he directed the coachman; —-
“it’s nearer through Mankino, but the road is worse that way. —-
You might have an upset. . . . Good-bye, my charmer. —-
Mille compliments to your artist!”
“Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna, darling! Go indoors, or you will catch cold! It’s damp!”
“Wo-o-o! you rascal!”
“What horses have you got here?” Pyotr Dmitritch asked.
“They were bought from Haidorov, in Lent,” answered the coachman.
“Capital horses. . . .”
And Pyotr Dmitritch patted the trace horse on the haunch.
“Well, you can start! God give you good luck!”
The last visitor was gone at last; the red circle on the road quivered, moved aside, contracted and went out, as Vassily carried away the lamp from the entrance. —-
On previous occasions when they had seen off their visitors, Pyotr Dmitritch and Olga Mihalovna had begun dancing about the drawing-room, facing each other, clapping their hands and singing: —-
“They’ve gone! They’ve gone!” But now Olga Mihalovna was not equal to that. —-
She went to her bedroom, undressed, and got into bed.
She fancied she would fall asleep at once and sleep soundly. —-
Her legs and her shoulders ached painfully, her head was heavy from the strain of talking, and she was conscious, as before, of discomfort all over her body. —-
Covering her head over, she lay still for three or four minutes, then peeped out from under the bed-clothes at the lamp before the ikon, listened to the silence, and smiled.
“It’s nice, it’s nice,” she whispered, curling up her legs, which felt as if they had grown longer from so much walking. —-
“Sleep, sleep . . . .”
Her legs would not get into a comfortable position; —-
she felt uneasy all over, and she turned on the other side. —-
A big fly blew buzzing about the bedroom and thumped against the ceiling. —-
She could hear, too, Grigory and Vassily stepping cautiously about the drawing-room, putting the chairs back in their places; —-
it seemed to Olga Mihalovna that she could not go to sleep, nor be comfortable till those sounds were hushed. —-
And again she turned over on the other side impatiently.
She heard her husband’s voice in the drawing-room. —-
Some one must be staying the night, as Pyotr Dmitritch was addressing some one and speaking loudly:
“I don’t say that Count Alexey Petrovitch is an impostor. —-
But he can’t help seeming to be one, because all of you gentlemen attempt to see in him something different from what he really is. —-
His craziness is looked upon as originality, his familiar manners as good-nature, and his complete absence of opinions as Conservatism. —-
Even granted that he is a Conservative of the stamp of ‘84, what after all is Conservatism?”
Pyotr Dmitritch, angry with Count Alexey Petrovitch, his visitors, and himself, was relieving his heart. —-
He abused both the Count and his visitors, and in his vexation with himself was ready to speak out and to hold forth upon anything. —-
After seeing his guest to his room, he walked up and down the drawing-room, walked through the dining-room, down the corridor, then into his study, then again went into the drawing-room, and came into the bedroom. —-
Olga Mihalovna was lying on her back, with the bed-clothes only to her waist (by now she felt hot), and with an angry face, watched the fly that was thumping against the ceiling.
“Is some one staying the night?” she asked.
“Yegorov.”
Pyotr Dmitritch undressed and got into his bed.
Without speaking, he lighted a cigarette, and he, too, fell to watching the fly. —-
There was an uneasy and forbidding look in his eyes. —-
Olga Mihalovna looked at his handsome profile for five minutes in silence. —-
It seemed to her for some reason that if her husband were suddenly to turn facing her, and to say, “Olga, I am unhappy,” she would cry or laugh, and she would be at ease. —-
She fancied that her legs were aching and her body was uncomfortable all over because of the strain on her feelings.
“Pyotr, what are you thinking of?” she said.
“Oh, nothing . . .” her husband answered.
“You have taken to having secrets from me of late: that’s not right.”
“Why is it not right?” answered Pyotr Dmitritch drily and not at once. —-
“We all have our personal life, every one of us, and we are bound to have our secrets.”
“Personal life, our secrets . . . that’s all words! Understand you are wounding me! —-
” said Olga Mihalovna, sitting up in bed. —-
“If you have a load on your heart, why do you hide it from me? —-
And why do you find it more suitable to open your heart to women who are nothing to you, instead of to your wife? —-
I overheard your outpourings to Lubotchka by the bee-house to-day.”
“Well, I congratulate you. I am glad you did overhear it.”
This meant “Leave me alone and let me think.” Olga Mihalovna was indignant. —-
Vexation, hatred, and wrath, which had been accumulating within her during the whole day, suddenly boiled over; —-
she wanted at once to speak out, to hurt her husband without putting it off till to- morrow, to wound him, to punish him. —-
. . . Making an effort to control herself and not to scream, she said:
“Let me tell you, then, that it’s all loathsome, loathsome, loathsome! —-
I’ve been hating you all day; you see what you’ve done.”
Pyotr Dmitritch, too, got up and sat on the bed.
“It’s loathsome, loathsome, loathsome,” Olga Mihalovna went on, beginning to tremble all over. “There’s no need to congratulate me; —-
you had better congratulate yourself! It’s a shame, a disgrace. —-
You have wrapped yourself in lies till you are ashamed to be alone in the room with your wife! —-
You are a deceitful man! I see through you and understand every step you take!”
“Olya, I wish you would please warn me when you are out of humour. —-
Then I will sleep in the study.”
Saying this, Pyotr Dmitritch picked up his pillow and walked out of the bedroom. —-
Olga Mihalovna had not foreseen this. For some minutes she remained silent with her mouth open, trembling all over and looking at the door by which her husband had gone out, and trying to understand what it meant. —-
Was this one of the devices to which deceitful people have recourse when they are in the wrong, or was it a deliberate insult aimed at her pride? —-
How was she to take it? Olga Mihalovna remembered her cousin, a lively young officer, who often used to tell her, laughing, that when “his spouse nagged at him” at night, he usually picked up his pillow and went whistling to spend the night in his study, leaving his wife in a foolish and ridiculous position. —-
This officer was married to a rich, capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not respect but simply put up with.
Olga Mihalovna jumped out of bed. To her mind there was only one thing left for her to do now; —-
to dress with all possible haste and to leave the house forever. —-
The house was her own, but so much the worse for Pyotr Dmitritch. —-
Without pausing to consider whether this was necessary or not, she went quickly to the study to inform her husband of her intention (“Feminine logic! —-
” flashed through her mind), and to say something wounding and sarcastic at parting. . . .
Pyotr Dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a newspaper. —-
There was a candle burning on a chair near him. —-
His face could not be seen behind the newspaper.
“Be so kind as to tell me what this means? I am asking you.”
“Be so kind . . .” Pyotr Dmitritch mimicked her, not showing his face. —-
“It’s sickening, Olga! Upon my honour, I am exhausted and not up to it. —-
. . . Let us do our quarrelling to-morrow.”
“No, I understand you perfectly!” Olga Mihalovna went on. “You hate me! Yes, yes! —-
You hate me because I am richer than you! —-
You will never forgive me for that, and will always be lying to me!” (“Feminine logic! —-
” flashed through her mind again.) “You are laughing at me now. . . . —-
I am convinced, in fact, that you only married me in order to have property qualifications and those wretched horses. —-
. . . Oh, I am miserable!”
Pyotr Dmitritch dropped the newspaper and got up. The unexpected insult overwhelmed him. —-
With a childishly helpless smile he looked desperately at his wife, and holding out his hands to her as though to ward off blows, he said imploringly:
“Olya!”
And expecting her to say something else awful, he leaned back in his chair, and his huge figure seemed as helplessly childish as his smile.
“Olya, how could you say it?” he whispered.
Olga Mihalovna came to herself. She was suddenly aware of her passionate love for this man, remembered that he was her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch, without whom she could not live for a day, and who loved her passionately, too. —-
She burst into loud sobs that sounded strange and unlike her, and ran back to her bedroom.
She fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, choking her and making her arms and legs twitch, filled the bedroom. —-
Remembering there was a visitor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried her head under the pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow rolled on to the floor, and she almost fell on the floor herself when she stooped to pick it up. —-
She pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands would not obey her, but tore convulsively at everything she clutched.
She thought that everything was lost, that the falsehood she had told to wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments. —-
Her husband would not forgive her. The insult she had hurled at him was not one that could be effaced by any caresses, by any vows. —-
. . . How could she convince her husband that she did not believe what she had said?
“It’s all over, it’s all over!” she cried, not noticing that the pillow had slipped on to the floor again. —-
“For God’s sake, for God’s sake!”
Probably roused by her cries, the guest and the servants were now awake; —-
next day all the neighbourhood would know that she had been in hysterics and would blame Pyotr Dmitritch. —-
She made an effort to restrain herself, but her sobs grew louder and louder every minute.
“For God’s sake,” she cried in a voice not like her own, and not knowing why she cried it. —-
“For God’s sake!”
She felt as though the bed were heaving under her and her feet were entangled in the bed-clothes. —-
Pyotr Dmitritch, in his dressing-gown, with a candle in his hand, came into the bedroom.
“Olya, hush!” he said.
She raised herself, and kneeling up in bed, screwing up her eyes at the light, articulated through her sobs:
“Understand . . . understand! . . . .”
She wanted to tell him that she was tired to death by the party, by his falsity, by her own falsity, that it had all worked together, but she could only articulate:
“Understand . . . understand!”
“Come, drink!” he said, handing her some water.
She took the glass obediently and began drinking, but the water splashed over and was spilt on her arms, her throat and knees.
“I must look horribly unseemly,” she thought.
Pyotr Dmitritch put her back in bed without a word, and covered her with the quilt, then he took the candle and went out.
“For God’s sake!” Olga Mihalovna cried again. “Pyotr, understand, understand!”
Suddenly something gripped her in the lower part of her body and back with such violence that her wailing was cut short, and she bit the pillow from the pain. —-
But the pain let her go again at once, and she began sobbing again.
The maid came in, and arranging the quilt over her, asked in alarm:
“Mistress, darling, what is the matter?”
“Go out of the room,” said Pyotr Dmitritch sternly, going up to the bed.
“Understand . . . understand! . . .” Olga Mihalovna began.
“Olya, I entreat you, calm yourself,” he said. “I did not mean to hurt you. —-
I would not have gone out of the room if I had known it would have hurt you so much; I simply felt depressed. —-
I tell you, on my honour . . .”
“Understand! . . . You were lying, I was lying. . . .”
“I understand. . . . Come, come, that’s enough! —-
I understand,” said Pyotr Dmitritch tenderly, sitting down on her bed. “You said that in anger; —-
I quite understand. I swear to God I love you beyond anything on earth, and when I married you I never once thought of your being rich. —-
I loved you immensely, and that’s all . . . I assure you. —-
I have never been in want of money or felt the value of it, and so I cannot feel the difference between your fortune and mine. —-
It always seemed to me we were equally well off. —-
And that I have been deceitful in little things, that . . . of course, is true. —-
My life has hitherto been arranged in such a frivolous way that it has somehow been impossible to get on without paltry lying. —-
It weighs on me, too, now. . . . Let us leave off talking about it, for goodness’ sake!”
Olga Mihalovna again felt in acute pain, and clutched her husband by the sleeve.
“I am in pain, in pain, in pain . . .” she said rapidly. “Oh, what pain!”
“Damnation take those visitors!” muttered Pyotr Dmitritch, getting up. —-
“You ought not to have gone to the island to-day!” he cried. —-
“What an idiot I was not to prevent you! Oh, my God!”
He scratched his head in vexation, and, with a wave of his hand, walked out of the room.
Then he came into the room several times, sat down on the bed beside her, and talked a great deal, sometimes tenderly, sometimes angrily, but she hardly heard him. —-
Her sobs were continually interrupted by fearful attacks of pain, and each time the pain was more acute and prolonged. —-
At first she held her breath and bit the pillow during the pain, but then she began screaming on an unseemly piercing note. —-
Once seeing her husband near her, she remembered that she had insulted him, and without pausing to think whether it were really Pyotr Dmitritch or whether she were in delirium, clutched his hand in both hers and began kissing it.
“You were lying, I was lying . . .” she began justifying herself. —-
“Understand, understand. . . . They have exhausted me, driven me out of all patience.”
“Olya, we are not alone,” said Pyotr Dmitritch.
Olga Mihalovna raised her head and saw Varvara, who was kneeling by the chest of drawers and pulling out the bottom drawer. —-
The top drawers were already open. Then Varvara got up, red from the strained position, and with a cold, solemn face began trying to unlock a box.
“Marya, I can’t unlock it!” she said in a whisper. “You unlock it, won’t you?”
Marya, the maid, was digging a candle end out of the candlestick with a pair of scissors, so as to put in a new candle; —-
she went up to Varvara and helped her to unlock the box.
“There should be nothing locked . . .” whispered Varvara. —-
“Unlock this basket, too, my good girl. —-
Master,” she said, “you should send to Father Mihail to unlock the holy gates! You must!”
“Do what you like,” said Pyotr Dmitritch, breathing hard, “only, for God’s sake, make haste and fetch the doctor or the midwife! —-
Has Vassily gone? Send some one else. Send your husband!”
“It’s the birth,” Olga Mihalovna thought. —-
“Varvara,” she moaned, “but he won’t be born alive!”
“It’s all right, it’s all right, mistress,” whispered Varvara. —-
“Please God, he will be alive! he will be alive!”
When Olga Mihalovna came to herself again after a pain she was no longer sobbing nor tossing from side to side, but moaning. —-
She could not refrain from moaning even in the intervals between the pains. —-
The candles were still burning, but the morning light was coming through the blinds. —-
It was probably about five o’clock in the morning. —-
At the round table there was sitting some unknown woman with a very discreet air, wearing a white apron. —-
From her whole appearance it was evident she had been sitting there a long time. —-
Olga Mihalovna guessed that she was the midwife.
“Will it soon be over?” she asked, and in her voice she heard a peculiar and unfamiliar note which had never been there before. —-
“I must be dying in childbirth,” she thought.
Pyotr Dmitritch came cautiously into the bedroom, dressed for the day, and stood at the window with his back to his wife. —-
He lifted the blind and looked out of window.
“What rain!” he said.
“What time is it?” asked Olga Mihalovna, in order to hear the unfamiliar note in her voice again.
“A quarter to six,” answered the midwife.
“And what if I really am dying?” thought Olga Mihalovna, looking at her husband’s head and the window-panes on which the rain was beating. —-
“How will he live without me? With whom will he have tea and dinner, talk in the evenings, sleep?”
And he seemed to her like a forlorn child; —-
she felt sorry for him and wanted to say something nice, caressing and consolatory. —-
She remembered how in the spring he had meant to buy himself some harriers, and she, thinking it a cruel and dangerous sport, had prevented him from doing it.
“Pyotr, buy yourself harriers,” she moaned.
He dropped the blind and went up to the bed, and would have said something; —-
but at that moment the pain came back, and Olga Mihalovna uttered an unseemly, piercing scream.
The pain and the constant screaming and moaning stupefied her. —-
She heard, saw, and sometimes spoke, but hardly understood anything, and was only conscious that she was in pain or was just going to be in pain. —-
It seemed to her that the nameday party had been long, long ago—not yesterday, but a year ago perhaps; —-
and that her new life of agony had lasted longer than her childhood, her school-days, her time at the University, and her marriage, and would go on for a long, long time, endlessly. —-
She saw them bring tea to the midwife, and summon her at midday to lunch and afterwards to dinner; —-
she saw Pyotr Dmitritch grow used to coming in, standing for long intervals by the window, and going out again; —-
saw strange men, the maid, Varvara, come in as though they were at home. . . . —-
Varvara said nothing but, “He will, he will,” and was angry when any one closed the drawers and the chest. —-
Olga Mihalovna saw the light change in the room and in the windows: —-
at one time it was twilight, then thick like fog, then bright daylight as it had been at dinner-time the day before, then again twilight . —-
. . and each of these changes lasted as long as her childhood, her school-days, her life at the University. . . .
In the evening two doctors—one bony, bald, with a big red beard; —-
the other with a swarthy Jewish face and cheap spectacles—performed some sort of operation on Olga Mihalovna. —-
To these unknown men touching her body she felt utterly indifferent. —-
By now she had no feeling of shame, no will, and any one might do what he would with her. —-
If any one had rushed at her with a knife, or had insulted Pyotr Dmitritch, or had robbed her of her right to the little creature, she would not have said a word.
They gave her chloroform during the operation. —-
When she came to again, the pain was still there and insufferable. It was night. —-
And Olga Mihalovna remembered that there had been just such a night with the stillness, the lamp, with the midwife sitting motionless by the bed, with the drawers of the chest pulled out, with Pyotr Dmitritch standing by the window, but some time very, very long ago. . . . V
“I am not dead . . .” thought Olga Mihalovna when she began to understand her surroundings again, and when the pain was over.
A bright summer day looked in at the widely open windows; —-
in the garden below the windows, the sparrows and the magpies never ceased chattering for one instant.
The drawers were shut now, her husband’s bed had been made. —-
There was no sign of the midwife or of the maid, or of Varvara in the room, only Pyotr Dmitritch was standing, as before, motionless by the window looking into the garden. —-
There was no sound of a child’s crying, no one was congratulating her or rejoicing, it was evident that the little creature had not been born alive.
“Pyotr!”
Olga Mihalovna called to her husband.
Pyotr Dmitritch looked round. It seemed as though a long time must have passed since the last guest had departed and Olga Mihalovna had insulted her husband, for Pyotr Dmitritch was perceptibly thinner and hollow- eyed.
“What is it?” he asked, coming up to the bed.
He looked away, moved his lips and smiled with childlike helplessness.
“Is it all over?” asked Olga Mihalovna.
Pyotr Dmitritch tried to make some answer, but his lips quivered and his mouth worked like a toothless old man’s, like Uncle Nikolay Nikolaitch’s.
“Olya,” he said, wringing his hands; big tears suddenly dropping from his eyes. —-
“Olya, I don’t care about your property qualification, nor the Circuit Courts . . . —-
” (he gave a sob) “nor particular views, nor those visitors, nor your fortune. . . . —-
I don’t care about anything! Why didn’t we take care of our child? —-
Oh, it’s no good talking!”
With a despairing gesture he went out of the bedroom.
But nothing mattered to Olga Mihalovna now, there was a mistiness in her brain from the chloroform, an emptiness in her soul. —-
. . . The dull indifference to life which had overcome her when the two doctors were performing the operation still had possession of her.
