THE TALES OF CHEKHOV

VOLUME 3

THE LADY WITH THE DOG AND OTHER STORIES

BY

ANTON TCHEKHOV

Translated by CONSTANCE GARNETT

CONTENTS

THE LADY WITH THE DOGA DOCTOR'S VISITAN UPHEAVALIONITCHTHE HEAD OF THE FAMILYTHE BLACK MONKVOLODYAAN ANONYMOUS STORYTHE HUSBAND

THE LADY WITH THE DOG

I

IT was said that a new person had appeared on the sea-front: a ladywith a little dog. Dmitri Dmitritch Gurov, who had by then been afortnight at Yalta, and so was fairly at home there, had begun totake an interest in new arrivals. Sitting in Verney's pavilion, hesaw, walking on the sea-front, a fair-haired young lady of mediumheight, wearing a _béret_; a white Pomeranian dog was running behindher. 

And afterwards he met her in the public gardens and in the squareseveral times a day. She was walking alone, always wearing the same_béret_, and always with the same white dog; no one knew who shewas, and every one called her simply "the lady with the dog. "

"If she is here alone without a husband or friends, it wouldn't beamiss to make her acquaintance, " Gurov reflected. 

He was under forty, but he had a daughter already twelve years old, and two sons at school. He had been married young, when he was astudent in his second year, and by now his wife seemed half as oldagain as he. She was a tall, erect woman with dark eyebrows, staidand dignified, and, as she said of herself, intellectual. She reada great deal, used phonetic spelling, called her husband, not Dmitri, but Dimitri, and he secretly considered her unintelligent, narrow, inelegant, was afraid of her, and did not like to be at home. Hehad begun being unfaithful to her long ago--had been unfaithfulto her often, and, probably on that account, almost always spokeill of women, and when they were talked about in his presence, usedto call them "the lower race. "

It seemed to him that he had been so schooled by bitter experiencethat he might call them what he liked, and yet he could not get onfor two days together without "the lower race. " In the society ofmen he was bored and not himself, with them he was cold anduncommunicative; but when he was in the company of women he feltfree, and knew what to say to them and how to behave; and he wasat ease with them even when he was silent. In his appearance, inhis character, in his whole nature, there was something attractiveand elusive which allured women and disposed them in his favour;he knew that, and some force seemed to draw him, too, to them. 

Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught himlong ago that with decent people, especially Moscow people--alwaysslow to move and irresolute--every intimacy, which at first soagreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, andin the long run the situation becomes unbearable. But at every freshmeeting with an interesting woman this experience seemed to slipout of his memory, and he was eager for life, and everything seemedsimple and amusing. 

One evening he was dining in the gardens, and the lady in the _béret_came up slowly to take the next table. Her expression, her gait, her dress, and the way she did her hair told him that she was alady, that she was married, that she was in Yalta for the firsttime and alone, and that she was dull there. . . . The stories toldof the immorality in such places as Yalta are to a great extentuntrue; he despised them, and knew that such stories were for themost part made up by persons who would themselves have been gladto sin if they had been able; but when the lady sat down at thenext table three paces from him, he remembered these tales of easyconquests, of trips to the mountains, and the tempting thought ofa swift, fleeting love affair, a romance with an unknown woman, whose name he did not know, suddenly took possession of him. 

He beckoned coaxingly to the Pomeranian, and when the dog came upto him he shook his finger at it. The Pomeranian growled: Gurovshook his finger at it again. 

The lady looked at him and at once dropped her eyes. 

"He doesn't bite, " she said, and blushed. 

"May I give him a bone?" he asked; and when she nodded he askedcourteously, "Have you been long in Yalta?"

"Five days. "

"And I have already dragged out a fortnight here. "

There was a brief silence. 

"Time goes fast, and yet it is so dull here!" she said, not lookingat him. 

"That's only the fashion to say it is dull here. A provincial willlive in Belyov or Zhidra and not be dull, and when he comes hereit's 'Oh, the dulness! Oh, the dust!' One would think he came fromGrenada. "

She laughed. Then both continued eating in silence, like strangers, but after dinner they walked side by side; and there sprang upbetween them the light jesting conversation of people who are freeand satisfied, to whom it does not matter where they go or whatthey talk about. They walked and talked of the strange light on thesea: the water was of a soft warm lilac hue, and there was a goldenstreak from the moon upon it. They talked of how sultry it was aftera hot day. Gurov told her that he came from Moscow, that he hadtaken his degree in Arts, but had a post in a bank; that he hadtrained as an opera-singer, but had given it up, that he owned twohouses in Moscow. . . . And from her he learnt that she had grownup in Petersburg, but had lived in S---- since her marriage twoyears before, that she was staying another month in Yalta, and thather husband, who needed a holiday too, might perhaps come and fetchher. She was not sure whether her husband had a post in a CrownDepartment or under the Provincial Council--and was amused by herown ignorance. And Gurov learnt, too, that she was called AnnaSergeyevna. 

Afterwards he thought about her in his room at the hotel--thoughtshe would certainly meet him next day; it would be sure to happen. As he got into bed he thought how lately she had been a girl atschool, doing lessons like his own daughter; he recalled thediffidence, the angularity, that was still manifest in her laughand her manner of talking with a stranger. This must have been thefirst time in her life she had been alone in surroundings in whichshe was followed, looked at, and spoken to merely from a secretmotive which she could hardly fail to guess. He recalled her slender, delicate neck, her lovely grey eyes. 

"There's something pathetic about her, anyway, " he thought, andfell asleep. 

II

A week had passed since they had made acquaintance. It was a holiday. It was sultry indoors, while in the street the wind whirled thedust round and round, and blew people's hats off. It was a thirstyday, and Gurov often went into the pavilion, and pressed AnnaSergeyevna to have syrup and water or an ice. One did not know whatto do with oneself. 

In the evening when the wind had dropped a little, they went outon the groyne to see the steamer come in. There were a great manypeople walking about the harbour; they had gathered to welcome someone, bringing bouquets. And two peculiarities of a well-dressedYalta crowd were very conspicuous: the elderly ladies were dressedlike young ones, and there were great numbers of generals. 

Owing to the roughness of the sea, the steamer arrived late, afterthe sun had set, and it was a long time turning about before itreached the groyne. Anna Sergeyevna looked through her lorgnetteat the steamer and the passengers as though looking for acquaintances, and when she turned to Gurov her eyes were shining. She talked agreat deal and asked disconnected questions, forgetting next momentwhat she had asked; then she dropped her lorgnette in the crush. 

The festive crowd began to disperse; it was too dark to see people'sfaces. The wind had completely dropped, but Gurov and Anna Sergeyevnastill stood as though waiting to see some one else come from thesteamer. Anna Sergeyevna was silent now, and sniffed the flowerswithout looking at Gurov. 

"The weather is better this evening, " he said. "Where shall we gonow? Shall we drive somewhere?"

She made no answer. 

Then he looked at her intently, and all at once put his arm roundher and kissed her on the lips, and breathed in the moisture andthe fragrance of the flowers; and he immediately looked round him, anxiously wondering whether any one had seen them. 

"Let us go to your hotel, " he said softly. And both walked quickly. 

The room was close and smelt of the scent she had bought at theJapanese shop. Gurov looked at her and thought: "What differentpeople one meets in the world!" From the past he preserved memoriesof careless, good-natured women, who loved cheerfully and weregrateful to him for the happiness he gave them, however brief itmight be; and of women like his wife who loved without any genuinefeeling, with superfluous phrases, affectedly, hysterically, withan expression that suggested that it was not love nor passion, butsomething more significant; and of two or three others, verybeautiful, cold women, on whose faces he had caught a glimpse of arapacious expression--an obstinate desire to snatch from lifemore than it could give, and these were capricious, unreflecting, domineering, unintelligent women not in their first youth, and whenGurov grew cold to them their beauty excited his hatred, and thelace on their linen seemed to him like scales. 

But in this case there was still the diffidence, the angularity ofinexperienced youth, an awkward feeling; and there was a sense ofconsternation as though some one had suddenly knocked at the door. The attitude of Anna Sergeyevna--"the lady with the dog"--towhat had happened was somehow peculiar, very grave, as though itwere her fall--so it seemed, and it was strange and inappropriate. Her face dropped and faded, and on both sides of it her long hairhung down mournfully; she mused in a dejected attitude like "thewoman who was a sinner" in an old-fashioned picture. 

"It's wrong, " she said. "You will be the first to despise me now. "

There was a water-melon on the table. Gurov cut himself a slice andbegan eating it without haste. There followed at least half an hourof silence. 

Anna Sergeyevna was touching; there was about her the purity of agood, simple woman who had seen little of life. The solitary candleburning on the table threw a faint light on her face, yet it wasclear that she was very unhappy. 

"How could I despise you?" asked Gurov. "You don't know what youare saying. "

"God forgive me, " she said, and her eyes filled with tears. "It'sawful. "

"You seem to feel you need to be forgiven. "

"Forgiven? No. I am a bad, low woman; I despise myself and don'tattempt to justify myself. It's not my husband but myself I havedeceived. And not only just now; I have been deceiving myself fora long time. My husband may be a good, honest man, but he is aflunkey! I don't know what he does there, what his work is, but Iknow he is a flunkey! I was twenty when I was married to him. Ihave been tormented by curiosity; I wanted something better. 'Theremust be a different sort of life, ' I said to myself. I wanted tolive! To live, to live! . . . I was fired by curiosity . . . Youdon't understand it, but, I swear to God, I could not control myself;something happened to me: I could not be restrained. I told myhusband I was ill, and came here. . . . And here I have been walkingabout as though I were dazed, like a mad creature; . . . And now Ihave become a vulgar, contemptible woman whom any one may despise. "

Gurov felt bored already, listening to her. He was irritated by thenaïve tone, by this remorse, so unexpected and inopportune; but forthe tears in her eyes, he might have thought she was jesting orplaying a part. 

"I don't understand, " he said softly. "What is it you want?"

She hid her face on his breast and pressed close to him. 

"Believe me, believe me, I beseech you . . . " she said. "I love apure, honest life, and sin is loathsome to me. I don't know what Iam doing. Simple people say: 'The Evil One has beguiled me. ' And Imay say of myself now that the Evil One has beguiled me. "

"Hush, hush! . . . " he muttered. 

He looked at her fixed, scared eyes, kissed her, talked softly andaffectionately, and by degrees she was comforted, and her gaietyreturned; they both began laughing. 

Afterwards when they went out there was not a soul on the sea-front. The town with its cypresses had quite a deathlike air, but the seastill broke noisily on the shore; a single barge was rocking on thewaves, and a lantern was blinking sleepily on it. 

They found a cab and drove to Oreanda. 

"I found out your surname in the hall just now: it was written onthe board--Von Diderits, " said Gurov. "Is your husband a German?"

"No; I believe his grandfather was a German, but he is an OrthodoxRussian himself. "

At Oreanda they sat on a seat not far from the church, looked downat the sea, and were silent. Yalta was hardly visible through themorning mist; white clouds stood motionless on the mountain-tops. The leaves did not stir on the trees, grasshoppers chirruped, andthe monotonous hollow sound of the sea rising up from below, spokeof the peace, of the eternal sleep awaiting us. So it must havesounded when there was no Yalta, no Oreanda here; so it sounds now, and it will sound as indifferently and monotonously when we are allno more. And in this constancy, in this complete indifference tothe life and death of each of us, there lies hid, perhaps, a pledgeof our eternal salvation, of the unceasing movement of life uponearth, of unceasing progress towards perfection. Sitting beside ayoung woman who in the dawn seemed so lovely, soothed and spellboundin these magical surroundings--the sea, mountains, clouds, theopen sky--Gurov thought how in reality everything is beautifulin this world when one reflects: everything except what we thinkor do ourselves when we forget our human dignity and the higheraims of our existence. 

A man walked up to them--probably a keeper--looked at them andwalked away. And this detail seemed mysterious and beautiful, too. They saw a steamer come from Theodosia, with its lights out in theglow of dawn. 

"There is dew on the grass, " said Anna Sergeyevna, after a silence. 

"Yes. It's time to go home. "

They went back to the town. 

Then they met every day at twelve o'clock on the sea-front, lunchedand dined together, went for walks, admired the sea. She complainedthat she slept badly, that her heart throbbed violently; asked thesame questions, troubled now by jealousy and now by the fear thathe did not respect her sufficiently. And often in the square orgardens, when there was no one near them, he suddenly drew her tohim and kissed her passionately. Complete idleness, these kissesin broad daylight while he looked round in dread of some one'sseeing them, the heat, the smell of the sea, and the continualpassing to and fro before him of idle, well-dressed, well-fed people, made a new man of him; he told Anna Sergeyevna how beautiful shewas, how fascinating. He was impatiently passionate, he would notmove a step away from her, while she was often pensive and continuallyurged him to confess that he did not respect her, did not love herin the least, and thought of her as nothing but a common woman. Rather late almost every evening they drove somewhere out of town, to Oreanda or to the waterfall; and the expedition was always asuccess, the scenery invariably impressed them as grand and beautiful. 

They were expecting her husband to come, but a letter came fromhim, saying that there was something wrong with his eyes, and heentreated his wife to come home as quickly as possible. AnnaSergeyevna made haste to go. 

"It's a good thing I am going away, " she said to Gurov. "It's thefinger of destiny!"

She went by coach and he went with her. They were driving the wholeday. When she had got into a compartment of the express, and whenthe second bell had rung, she said:

"Let me look at you once more . . . Look at you once again. That'sright. "

She did not shed tears, but was so sad that she seemed ill, and herface was quivering. 

"I shall remember you . . . Think of you, " she said. "God be withyou; be happy. Don't remember evil against me. We are parting forever--it must be so, for we ought never to have met. Well, God be withyou. "

The train moved off rapidly, its lights soon vanished from sight, and a minute later there was no sound of it, as though everythinghad conspired together to end as quickly as possible that sweetdelirium, that madness. Left alone on the platform, and gazing intothe dark distance, Gurov listened to the chirrup of the grasshoppersand the hum of the telegraph wires, feeling as though he had onlyjust waked up. And he thought, musing, that there had been anotherepisode or adventure in his life, and it, too, was at an end, andnothing was left of it but a memory. . . . He was moved, sad, andconscious of a slight remorse. This young woman whom he would nevermeet again had not been happy with him; he was genuinely warm andaffectionate with her, but yet in his manner, his tone, and hiscaresses there had been a shade of light irony, the coarse condescensionof a happy man who was, besides, almost twice her age. All the timeshe had called him kind, exceptional, lofty; obviously he had seemedto her different from what he really was, so he had unintentionallydeceived her. . . . 

Here at the station was already a scent of autumn; it was a coldevening. 

"It's time for me to go north, " thought Gurov as he left the platform. "High time!"

III

At home in Moscow everything was in its winter routine; the stoveswere heated, and in the morning it was still dark when the childrenwere having breakfast and getting ready for school, and the nursewould light the lamp for a short time. The frosts had begun already. When the first snow has fallen, on the first day of sledge-drivingit is pleasant to see the white earth, the white roofs, to drawsoft, delicious breath, and the season brings back the days of one'syouth. The old limes and birches, white with hoar-frost, have agood-natured expression; they are nearer to one's heart than cypressesand palms, and near them one doesn't want to be thinking of the seaand the mountains. 

Gurov was Moscow born; he arrived in Moscow on a fine frosty day, and when he put on his fur coat and warm gloves, and walked alongPetrovka, and when on Saturday evening he heard the ringing of thebells, his recent trip and the places he had seen lost all charmfor him. Little by little he became absorbed in Moscow life, greedilyread three newspapers a day, and declared he did not read the Moscowpapers on principle! He already felt a longing to go to restaurants, clubs, dinner-parties, anniversary celebrations, and he felt flatteredat entertaining distinguished lawyers and artists, and at playingcards with a professor at the doctors' club. He could already eata whole plateful of salt fish and cabbage. 

In another month, he fancied, the image of Anna Sergeyevna wouldbe shrouded in a mist in his memory, and only from time to timewould visit him in his dreams with a touching smile as others did. But more than a month passed, real winter had come, and everythingwas still clear in his memory as though he had parted with AnnaSergeyevna only the day before. And his memories glowed more andmore vividly. When in the evening stillness he heard from his studythe voices of his children, preparing their lessons, or when helistened to a song or the organ at the restaurant, or the stormhowled in the chimney, suddenly everything would rise up in hismemory: what had happened on the groyne, and the early morning withthe mist on the mountains, and the steamer coming from Theodosia, and the kisses. He would pace a long time about his room, rememberingit all and smiling; then his memories passed into dreams, and inhis fancy the past was mingled with what was to come. Anna Sergeyevnadid not visit him in dreams, but followed him about everywhere likea shadow and haunted him. When he shut his eyes he saw her as thoughshe were living before him, and she seemed to him lovelier, younger, tenderer than she was; and he imagined himself finer than he hadbeen in Yalta. In the evenings she peeped out at him from thebookcase, from the fireplace, from the corner--he heard herbreathing, the caressing rustle of her dress. In the street hewatched the women, looking for some one like her. 

He was tormented by an intense desire to confide his memories tosome one. But in his home it was impossible to talk of his love, and he had no one outside; he could not talk to his tenants nor toany one at the bank. And what had he to talk of? Had he been inlove, then? Had there been anything beautiful, poetical, or edifyingor simply interesting in his relations with Anna Sergeyevna? Andthere was nothing for him but to talk vaguely of love, of woman, and no one guessed what it meant; only his wife twitched her blackeyebrows, and said:

"The part of a lady-killer does not suit you at all, Dimitri. "

One evening, coming out of the doctors' club with an official withwhom he had been playing cards, he could not resist saying:

"If only you knew what a fascinating woman I made the acquaintanceof in Yalta!"

The official got into his sledge and was driving away, but turnedsuddenly and shouted:

"Dmitri Dmitritch!"

"What?"

"You were right this evening: the sturgeon was a bit too strong!"

These words, so ordinary, for some reason moved Gurov to indignation, and struck him as degrading and unclean. What savage manners, whatpeople! What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days!The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, thecontinual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits andconversations always about the same things absorb the better partof one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the endthere is left a life grovelling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it--just as thoughone were in a madhouse or a prison. 

Gurov did not sleep all night, and was filled with indignation. Andhe had a headache all next day. And the next night he slept badly;he sat up in bed, thinking, or paced up and down his room. He wassick of his children, sick of the bank; he had no desire to goanywhere or to talk of anything. 

In the holidays in December he prepared for a journey, and told hiswife he was going to Petersburg to do something in the interestsof a young friend--and he set off for S----. What for? He did notvery well know himself. He wanted to see Anna Sergeyevna and totalk with her--to arrange a meeting, if possible. 

He reached S---- in the morning, and took the best room at thehotel, in which the floor was covered with grey army cloth, and onthe table was an inkstand, grey with dust and adorned with a figureon horseback, with its hat in its hand and its head broken off. Thehotel porter gave him the necessary information; Von Diderits livedin a house of his own in Old Gontcharny Street--it was not farfrom the hotel: he was rich and lived in good style, and had hisown horses; every one in the town knew him. The porter pronouncedthe name "Dridirits. "

Gurov went without haste to Old Gontcharny Street and found thehouse. Just opposite the house stretched a long grey fence adornedwith nails. 

"One would run away from a fence like that, " thought Gurov, lookingfrom the fence to the windows of the house and back again. 

He considered: to-day was a holiday, and the husband would probablybe at home. And in any case it would be tactless to go into thehouse and upset her. If he were to send her a note it might fallinto her husband's hands, and then it might ruin everything. Thebest thing was to trust to chance. And he kept walking up and downthe street by the fence, waiting for the chance. He saw a beggargo in at the gate and dogs fly at him; then an hour later he hearda piano, and the sounds were faint and indistinct. Probably it wasAnna Sergeyevna playing. The front door suddenly opened, and an oldwoman came out, followed by the familiar white Pomeranian. Gurovwas on the point of calling to the dog, but his heart began beatingviolently, and in his excitement he could not remember the dog'sname. 

He walked up and down, and loathed the grey fence more and more, and by now he thought irritably that Anna Sergeyevna had forgottenhim, and was perhaps already amusing herself with some one else, and that that was very natural in a young woman who had nothing tolook at from morning till night but that confounded fence. He wentback to his hotel room and sat for a long while on the sofa, notknowing what to do, then he had dinner and a long nap. 

"How stupid and worrying it is!" he thought when he woke and lookedat the dark windows: it was already evening. "Here I've had a goodsleep for some reason. What shall I do in the night?"

He sat on the bed, which was covered by a cheap grey blanket, suchas one sees in hospitals, and he taunted himself in his vexation:

"So much for the lady with the dog . . . So much for the adventure. . . . You're in a nice fix. . . . "

That morning at the station a poster in large letters had caughthis eye. "The Geisha" was to be performed for the first time. Hethought of this and went to the theatre. 

"It's quite possible she may go to the first performance, " hethought. 

The theatre was full. As in all provincial theatres, there was afog above the chandelier, the gallery was noisy and restless; inthe front row the local dandies were standing up before the beginningof the performance, with their hands behind them; in the Governor'sbox the Governor's daughter, wearing a boa, was sitting in the frontseat, while the Governor himself lurked modestly behind the curtainwith only his hands visible; the orchestra was a long time tuningup; the stage curtain swayed. All the time the audience were comingin and taking their seats Gurov looked at them eagerly. 

Anna Sergeyevna, too, came in. She sat down in the third row, andwhen Gurov looked at her his heart contracted, and he understoodclearly that for him there was in the whole world no creature sonear, so precious, and so important to him; she, this little woman, in no way remarkable, lost in a provincial crowd, with a vulgarlorgnette in her hand, filled his whole life now, was his sorrowand his joy, the one happiness that he now desired for himself, andto the sounds of the inferior orchestra, of the wretched provincialviolins, he thought how lovely she was. He thought and dreamed. 

A young man with small side-whiskers, tall and stooping, came inwith Anna Sergeyevna and sat down beside her; he bent his head atevery step and seemed to be continually bowing. Most likely thiswas the husband whom at Yalta, in a rush of bitter feeling, she hadcalled a flunkey. And there really was in his long figure, hisside-whiskers, and the small bald patch on his head, something ofthe flunkey's obsequiousness; his smile was sugary, and in hisbuttonhole there was some badge of distinction like the number ona waiter. 

During the first interval the husband went away to smoke; sheremained alone in her stall. Gurov, who was sitting in the stalls, too, went up to her and said in a trembling voice, with a forcedsmile:

"Good-evening. "

She glanced at him and turned pale, then glanced again with horror, unable to believe her eyes, and tightly gripped the fan and thelorgnette in her hands, evidently struggling with herself not tofaint. Both were silent. She was sitting, he was standing, frightenedby her confusion and not venturing to sit down beside her. Theviolins and the flute began tuning up. He felt suddenly frightened;it seemed as though all the people in the boxes were looking atthem. She got up and went quickly to the door; he followed her, andboth walked senselessly along passages, and up and down stairs, andfigures in legal, scholastic, and civil service uniforms, all wearingbadges, flitted before their eyes. They caught glimpses of ladies, of fur coats hanging on pegs; the draughts blew on them, bringinga smell of stale tobacco. And Gurov, whose heart was beatingviolently, thought:

"Oh, heavens! Why are these people here and this orchestra! . . . "

And at that instant he recalled how when he had seen Anna Sergeyevnaoff at the station he had thought that everything was over and theywould never meet again. But how far they were still from the end!

On the narrow, gloomy staircase over which was written "To theAmphitheatre, " she stopped. 

"How you have frightened me!" she said, breathing hard, still paleand overwhelmed. "Oh, how you have frightened me! I am half dead. Why have you come? Why?"

"But do understand, Anna, do understand . . . " he said hastily ina low voice. "I entreat you to understand. . . . "

She looked at him with dread, with entreaty, with love; she lookedat him intently, to keep his features more distinctly in her memory. 

"I am so unhappy, " she went on, not heeding him. "I have thoughtof nothing but you all the time; I live only in the thought of you. And I wanted to forget, to forget you; but why, oh, why, have youcome?"

On the landing above them two schoolboys were smoking and lookingdown, but that was nothing to Gurov; he drew Anna Sergeyevna tohim, and began kissing her face, her cheeks, and her hands. 

"What are you doing, what are you doing!" she cried in horror, pushing him away. "We are mad. Go away to-day; go away at once. . . . I beseech you by all that is sacred, I implore you. . . . Thereare people coming this way!"

Some one was coming up the stairs. 

"You must go away, " Anna Sergeyevna went on in a whisper. "Do youhear, Dmitri Dmitritch? I will come and see you in Moscow. I havenever been happy; I am miserable now, and I never, never shall behappy, never! Don't make me suffer still more! I swear I'll cometo Moscow. But now let us part. My precious, good, dear one, wemust part!"

She pressed his hand and began rapidly going downstairs, lookinground at him, and from her eyes he could see that she really wasunhappy. Gurov stood for a little while, listened, then, when allsound had died away, he found his coat and left the theatre. 

IV

And Anna Sergeyevna began coming to see him in Moscow. Once in twoor three months she left S----, telling her husband that she wasgoing to consult a doctor about an internal complaint--and herhusband believed her, and did not believe her. In Moscow she stayedat the Slaviansky Bazaar hotel, and at once sent a man in a red capto Gurov. Gurov went to see her, and no one in Moscow knew of it. 

Once he was going to see her in this way on a winter morning (themessenger had come the evening before when he was out). With himwalked his daughter, whom he wanted to take to school: it was onthe way. Snow was falling in big wet flakes. 

"It's three degrees above freezing-point, and yet it is snowing, "said Gurov to his daughter. "The thaw is only on the surface of theearth; there is quite a different temperature at a greater heightin the atmosphere. "

"And why are there no thunderstorms in the winter, father?"

He explained that, too. He talked, thinking all the while that hewas going to see her, and no living soul knew of it, and probablynever would know. He had two lives: one, open, seen and known byall who cared to know, full of relative truth and of relativefalsehood, exactly like the lives of his friends and acquaintances;and another life running its course in secret. And through somestrange, perhaps accidental, conjunction of circumstances, everythingthat was essential, of interest and of value to him, everything inwhich he was sincere and did not deceive himself, everything thatmade the kernel of his life, was hidden from other people; and allthat was false in him, the sheath in which he hid himself to concealthe truth--such, for instance, as his work in the bank, hisdiscussions at the club, his "lower race, " his presence with hiswife at anniversary festivities--all that was open. And he judgedof others by himself, not believing in what he saw, and alwaysbelieving that every man had his real, most interesting life underthe cover of secrecy and under the cover of night. All personallife rested on secrecy, and possibly it was partly on that accountthat civilised man was so nervously anxious that personal privacyshould be respected. 

After leaving his daughter at school, Gurov went on to the SlavianskyBazaar. He took off his fur coat below, went upstairs, and softlyknocked at the door. Anna Sergeyevna, wearing his favourite greydress, exhausted by the journey and the suspense, had been expectinghim since the evening before. She was pale; she looked at him, anddid not smile, and he had hardly come in when she fell on his breast. Their kiss was slow and prolonged, as though they had not met fortwo years. 

"Well, how are you getting on there?" he asked. "What news?"

"Wait; I'll tell you directly. . . . I can't talk. "

She could not speak; she was crying. She turned away from him, andpressed her handkerchief to her eyes. 

"Let her have her cry out. I'll sit down and wait, " he thought, andhe sat down in an arm-chair. 

Then he rang and asked for tea to be brought him, and while he drankhis tea she remained standing at the window with her back to him. She was crying from emotion, from the miserable consciousness thattheir life was so hard for them; they could only meet in secret, hiding themselves from people, like thieves! Was not their lifeshattered?

"Come, do stop!" he said. 

It was evident to him that this love of theirs would not soon beover, that he could not see the end of it. Anna Sergeyevna grewmore and more attached to him. She adored him, and it was unthinkableto say to her that it was bound to have an end some day; besides, she would not have believed it!

He went up to her and took her by the shoulders to say somethingaffectionate and cheering, and at that moment he saw himself in thelooking-glass. 

His hair was already beginning to turn grey. And it seemed strangeto him that he had grown so much older, so much plainer during thelast few years. The shoulders on which his hands rested were warmand quivering. He felt compassion for this life, still so warm andlovely, but probably already not far from beginning to fade andwither like his own. Why did she love him so much? He always seemedto women different from what he was, and they loved in him nothimself, but the man created by their imagination, whom they hadbeen eagerly seeking all their lives; and afterwards, when theynoticed their mistake, they loved him all the same. And not one ofthem had been happy with him. Time passed, he had made theiracquaintance, got on with them, parted, but he had never once loved;it was anything you like, but not love. 

And only now when his head was grey he had fallen properly, reallyin love--for the first time in his life. 

Anna Sergeyevna and he loved each other like people very close andakin, like husband and wife, like tender friends; it seemed to themthat fate itself had meant them for one another, and they could notunderstand why he had a wife and she a husband; and it was as thoughthey were a pair of birds of passage, caught and forced to live indifferent cages. They forgave each other for what they were ashamedof in their past, they forgave everything in the present, and feltthat this love of theirs had changed them both. 

In moments of depression in the past he had comforted himself withany arguments that came into his mind, but now he no longer caredfor arguments; he felt profound compassion, he wanted to be sincereand tender. . . . 

"Don't cry, my darling, " he said. "You've had your cry; that'senough. . . . Let us talk now, let us think of some plan. "

Then they spent a long while taking counsel together, talked of howto avoid the necessity for secrecy, for deception, for living indifferent towns and not seeing each other for long at a time. Howcould they be free from this intolerable bondage?

"How? How?" he asked, clutching his head. "How?"

And it seemed as though in a little while the solution would befound, and then a new and splendid life would begin; and it wasclear to both of them that they had still a long, long road beforethem, and that the most complicated and difficult part of it wasonly just beginning. 

A DOCTOR'S VISIT

THE Professor received a telegram from the Lyalikovs' factory; hewas asked to come as quickly as possible. The daughter of someMadame Lyalikov, apparently the owner of the factory, was ill, andthat was all that one could make out of the long, incoherent telegram. And the Professor did not go himself, but sent instead his assistant, Korolyov. 

It was two stations from Moscow, and there was a drive of threemiles from the station. A carriage with three horses had been sentto the station to meet Korolyov; the coachman wore a hat with apeacock's feather on it, and answered every question in a loud voicelike a soldier: "No, sir!" "Certainly, sir!"

It was Saturday evening; the sun was setting, the workpeople werecoming in crowds from the factory to the station, and they bowedto the carriage in which Korolyov was driving. And he was charmedwith the evening, the farmhouses and villas on the road, and thebirch-trees, and the quiet atmosphere all around, when the fieldsand woods and the sun seemed preparing, like the workpeople now onthe eve of the holiday, to rest, and perhaps to pray. . . . 

He was born and had grown up in Moscow; he did not know the country, and he had never taken any interest in factories, or been insideone, but he had happened to read about factories, and had been inthe houses of manufacturers and had talked to them; and wheneverhe saw a factory far or near, he always thought how quiet andpeaceable it was outside, but within there was always sure to beimpenetrable ignorance and dull egoism on the side of the owners, wearisome, unhealthy toil on the side of the workpeople, squabbling, vermin, vodka. And now when the workpeople timidly and respectfullymade way for the carriage, in their faces, their caps, their walk, he read physical impurity, drunkenness, nervous exhaustion, bewilderment. 

They drove in at the factory gates. On each side he caught glimpsesof the little houses of workpeople, of the faces of women, of quiltsand linen on the railings. "Look out!" shouted the coachman, notpulling up the horses. It was a wide courtyard without grass, withfive immense blocks of buildings with tall chimneys a little distanceone from another, warehouses and barracks, and over everything asort of grey powder as though from dust. Here and there, like oasesin the desert, there were pitiful gardens, and the green and redroofs of the houses in which the managers and clerks lived. Thecoachman suddenly pulled up the horses, and the carriage stoppedat the house, which had been newly painted grey; here was a flowergarden, with a lilac bush covered with dust, and on the yellow stepsat the front door there was a strong smell of paint. 

"Please come in, doctor, " said women's voices in the passage andthe entry, and at the same time he heard sighs and whisperings. "Pray walk in. . . . We've been expecting you so long . . . We'rein real trouble. Here, this way. "

Madame Lyalikov--a stout elderly lady wearing a black silk dresswith fashionable sleeves, but, judging from her face, a simpleuneducated woman--looked at the doctor in a flutter, and couldnot bring herself to hold out her hand to him; she did not dare. Beside her stood a personage with short hair and a pince-nez; shewas wearing a blouse of many colours, and was very thin and nolonger young. The servants called her Christina Dmitryevna, andKorolyov guessed that this was the governess. Probably, as theperson of most education in the house, she had been charged to meetand receive the doctor, for she began immediately, in great haste, stating the causes of the illness, giving trivial and tiresomedetails, but without saying who was ill or what was the matter. 

The doctor and the governess were sitting talking while the ladyof the house stood motionless at the door, waiting. From theconversation Korolyov learned that the patient was Madame Lyalikov'sonly daughter and heiress, a girl of twenty, called Liza; she hadbeen ill for a long time, and had consulted various doctors, andthe previous night she had suffered till morning from such violentpalpitations of the heart, that no one in the house had slept, andthey had been afraid she might die. 

"She has been, one may say, ailing from a child, " said ChristinaDmitryevna in a sing-song voice, continually wiping her lips withher hand. "The doctors say it is nerves; when she was a little girlshe was scrofulous, and the doctors drove it inwards, so I thinkit may be due to that. "

They went to see the invalid. Fully grown up, big and tall, butugly like her mother, with the same little eyes and disproportionatebreadth of the lower part of the face, lying with her hair indisorder, muffled up to the chin, she made upon Korolyov at thefirst minute the impression of a poor, destitute creature, shelteredand cared for here out of charity, and he could hardly believe thatthis was the heiress of the five huge buildings. 

"I am the doctor come to see you, " said Korolyov. "Good evening. "

He mentioned his name and pressed her hand, a large, cold, uglyhand; she sat up, and, evidently accustomed to doctors, let herselfbe sounded, without showing the least concern that her shouldersand chest were uncovered. 

"I have palpitations of the heart, " she said, "It was so awful allnight. . . . I almost died of fright! Do give me something. "

"I will, I will; don't worry yourself. "

Korolyov examined her and shrugged his shoulders. 

"The heart is all right, " he said; "it's all going on satisfactorily;everything is in good order. Your nerves must have been playingpranks a little, but that's so common. The attack is over by now, one must suppose; lie down and go to sleep. "

At that moment a lamp was brought into the bed-room. The patientscrewed up her eyes at the light, then suddenly put her hands toher head and broke into sobs. And the impression of a destitute, ugly creature vanished, and Korolyov no longer noticed the littleeyes or the heavy development of the lower part of the face. He sawa soft, suffering expression which was intelligent and touching:she seemed to him altogether graceful, feminine, and simple; andhe longed to soothe her, not with drugs, not with advice, but withsimple, kindly words. Her mother put her arms round her head andhugged her. What despair, what grief was in the old woman's face!She, her mother, had reared her and brought her up, spared nothing, and devoted her whole life to having her daughter taught French, dancing, music: had engaged a dozen teachers for her; had consultedthe best doctors, kept a governess. And now she could not make outthe reason of these tears, why there was all this misery, she couldnot understand, and was bewildered; and she had a guilty, agitated, despairing expression, as though she had omitted something veryimportant, had left something undone, had neglected to call insomebody--and whom, she did not know. 

"Lizanka, you are crying again . . . Again, " she said, hugging herdaughter to her. "My own, my darling, my child, tell me what it is!Have pity on me! Tell me. "

Both wept bitterly. Korolyov sat down on the side of the bed andtook Liza's hand. 

"Come, give over; it's no use crying, " he said kindly. "Why, thereis nothing in the world that is worth those tears. Come, we won'tcry; that's no good. . . . "

And inwardly he thought:

"It's high time she was married. . . . "

"Our doctor at the factory gave her kalibromati, " said the governess, "but I notice it only makes her worse. I should have thought thatif she is given anything for the heart it ought to be drops. . . . I forget the name. . . . Convallaria, isn't it?"

And there followed all sorts of details. She interrupted the doctor, preventing his speaking, and there was a look of effort on her face, as though she supposed that, as the woman of most education in thehouse, she was duty bound to keep up a conversation with the doctor, and on no other subject but medicine. 

Korolyov felt bored. 

"I find nothing special the matter, " he said, addressing the motheras he went out of the bedroom. "If your daughter is being attendedby the factory doctor, let him go on attending her. The treatmentso far has been perfectly correct, and I see no reason for changingyour doctor. Why change? It's such an ordinary trouble; there'snothing seriously wrong. "

He spoke deliberately as he put on his gloves, while Madame Lyalikovstood without moving, and looked at him with her tearful eyes. 

"I have half an hour to catch the ten o'clock train, " he said. "Ihope I am not too late. "

"And can't you stay?" she asked, and tears trickled down her cheeksagain. "I am ashamed to trouble you, but if you would be so good. . . . For God's sake, " she went on in an undertone, glancing towardsthe door, "do stay to-night with us! She is all I have . . . Myonly daughter. . . . She frightened me last night; I can't get overit. . . . Don't go away, for goodness' sake! . . . "

He wanted to tell her that he had a great deal of work in Moscow, that his family were expecting him home; it was disagreeable to himto spend the evening and the whole night in a strange house quiteneedlessly; but he looked at her face, heaved a sigh, and begantaking off his gloves without a word. 

All the lamps and candles were lighted in his honour in thedrawing-room and the dining-room. He sat down at the piano and beganturning over the music. Then he looked at the pictures on the walls, at the portraits. The pictures, oil-paintings in gold frames, wereviews of the Crimea--a stormy sea with a ship, a Catholic monkwith a wineglass; they were all dull, smooth daubs, with no traceof talent in them. There was not a single good-looking face amongthe portraits, nothing but broad cheekbones and astonished-lookingeyes. Lyalikov, Liza's father, had a low forehead and a self-satisfiedexpression; his uniform sat like a sack on his bulky plebeian figure;on his breast was a medal and a Red Cross Badge. There was littlesign of culture, and the luxury was senseless and haphazard, andwas as ill fitting as that uniform. The floors irritated him withtheir brilliant polish, the lustres on the chandelier irritatedhim, and he was reminded for some reason of the story of the merchantwho used to go to the baths with a medal on his neck. . . . 

He heard a whispering in the entry; some one was softly snoring. And suddenly from outside came harsh, abrupt, metallic sounds, suchas Korolyov had never heard before, and which he did not understandnow; they roused strange, unpleasant echoes in his soul. 

"I believe nothing would induce me to remain here to live . . . "he thought, and went back to the music-books again. 

"Doctor, please come to supper!" the governess called him in a lowvoice. 

He went into supper. The table was large and laid with a vast numberof dishes and wines, but there were only two to supper: himself andChristina Dmitryevna. She drank Madeira, ate rapidly, and talked, looking at him through her pince-nez:

"Our workpeople are very contented. We have performances at thefactory every winter; the workpeople act themselves. They havelectures with a magic lantern, a splendid tea-room, and everythingthey want. They are very much attached to us, and when they heardthat Lizanka was worse they had a service sung for her. Though theyhave no education, they have their feelings, too. "

"It looks as though you have no man in the house at all, " saidKorolyov. 

"Not one. Pyotr Nikanoritch died a year and a half ago, and leftus alone. And so there are the three of us. In the summer we livehere, and in winter we live in Moscow, in Polianka. I have beenliving with them for eleven years--as one of the family. "

At supper they served sterlet, chicken rissoles, and stewed fruit;the wines were expensive French wines. 

"Please don't stand on ceremony, doctor, " said Christina Dmitryevna, eating and wiping her mouth with her fist, and it was evident shefound her life here exceedingly pleasant. "Please have some more. "

After supper the doctor was shown to his room, where a bed had beenmade up for him, but he did not feel sleepy. The room was stuffyand it smelt of paint; he put on his coat and went out. 

It was cool in the open air; there was already a glimmer of dawn, and all the five blocks of buildings, with their tall chimneys, barracks, and warehouses, were distinctly outlined against the dampair. As it was a holiday, they were not working, and the windowswere dark, and in only one of the buildings was there a furnaceburning; two windows were crimson, and fire mixed with smoke camefrom time to time from the chimney. Far away beyond the yard thefrogs were croaking and the nightingales singing. 

Looking at the factory buildings and the barracks, where theworkpeople were asleep, he thought again what he always thoughtwhen he saw a factory. They may have performances for the workpeople, magic lanterns, factory doctors, and improvements of all sorts, but, all the same, the workpeople he had met that day on his wayfrom the station did not look in any way different from those hehad known long ago in his childhood, before there were factoryperformances and improvements. As a doctor accustomed to judgingcorrectly of chronic complaints, the radical cause of which wasincomprehensible and incurable, he looked upon factories as somethingbaffling, the cause of which also was obscure and not removable, and all the improvements in the life of the factory hands he lookedupon not as superfluous, but as comparable with the treatment ofincurable illnesses. 

"There is something baffling in it, of course . . . " he thought, looking at the crimson windows. "Fifteen hundred or two thousandworkpeople are working without rest in unhealthy surroundings, making bad cotton goods, living on the verge of starvation, andonly waking from this nightmare at rare intervals in the tavern; ahundred people act as overseers, and the whole life of that hundredis spent in imposing fines, in abuse, in injustice, and only twoor three so-called owners enjoy the profits, though they don't workat all, and despise the wretched cotton. But what are the profits, and how do they enjoy them? Madame Lyalikov and her daughter areunhappy--it makes one wretched to look at them; the only one whoenjoys her life is Christina Dmitryevna, a stupid, middle-agedmaiden lady in pince-nez. And so it appears that all these fiveblocks of buildings are at work, and inferior cotton is sold in theEastern markets, simply that Christina Dmitryevna may eat sterletand drink Madeira. "

Suddenly there came a strange noise, the same sound Korolyov hadheard before supper. Some one was striking on a sheet of metal nearone of the buildings; he struck a note, and then at once checkedthe vibrations, so that short, abrupt, discordant sounds wereproduced, rather like "Dair . . . Dair . . . Dair. . . . " Then therewas half a minute of stillness, and from another building therecame sounds equally abrupt and unpleasant, lower bass notes: "Drin. . . Drin . . . Drin. . . " Eleven times. Evidently it was thewatchman striking the hour. Near the third building he heard: "Zhuk. . . Zhuk . . . Zhuk. . . . " And so near all the buildings, andthen behind the barracks and beyond the gates. And in the stillnessof the night it seemed as though these sounds were uttered by amonster with crimson eyes--the devil himself, who controlled theowners and the work-people alike, and was deceiving both. 

Korolyov went out of the yard into the open country. 

"Who goes there?" some one called to him at the gates in an abruptvoice. 

"It's just like being in prison, " he thought, and made no answer. 

Here the nightingales and the frogs could be heard more distinctly, and one could feel it was a night in May. From the station came thenoise of a train; somewhere in the distance drowsy cocks werecrowing; but, all the same, the night was still, the world wassleeping tranquilly. In a field not far from the factory there couldbe seen the framework of a house and heaps of building material:

Korolyov sat down on the planks and went on thinking. 

"The only person who feels happy here is the governess, and thefactory hands are working for her gratification. But that's onlyapparent: she is only the figurehead. The real person, for whomeverything is being done, is the devil. "

And he thought about the devil, in whom he did not believe, and helooked round at the two windows where the fires were gleaming. Itseemed to him that out of those crimson eyes the devil himself waslooking at him--that unknown force that had created the mutualrelation of the strong and the weak, that coarse blunder which onecould never correct. The strong must hinder the weak from living--such was the law of Nature; but only in a newspaper article orin a school book was that intelligible and easily accepted. In thehotchpotch which was everyday life, in the tangle of trivialitiesout of which human relations were woven, it was no longer a law, but a logical absurdity, when the strong and the weak were bothequally victims of their mutual relations, unwillingly submittingto some directing force, unknown, standing outside life, apart fromman. 

So thought Korolyov, sitting on the planks, and little by littlehe was possessed by a feeling that this unknown and mysterious forcewas really close by and looking at him. Meanwhile the east wasgrowing paler, time passed rapidly; when there was not a soulanywhere near, as though everything were dead, the five buildingsand their chimneys against the grey background of the dawn had apeculiar look--not the same as by day; one forgot altogether thatinside there were steam motors, electricity, telephones, and keptthinking of lake-dwellings, of the Stone Age, feeling the presenceof a crude, unconscious force. . . . 

And again there came the sound: "Dair . . . Dair . . . Dair . . . Dair . . . " twelve times. Then there was stillness, stillness forhalf a minute, and at the other end of the yard there rang out. 

"Drin . . . Drin . . . Drin. . . . "

"Horribly disagreeable, " thought Korolyov. 

"Zhuk . . . Zhuk . . . " there resounded from a third place, abruptly, sharply, as though with annoyance--"Zhuk . . . Zhuk. . . . "

And it took four minutes to strike twelve. Then there was a hush;and again it seemed as though everything were dead. 

Korolyov sat a little longer, then went to the house, but sat upfor a good while longer. In the adjoining rooms there was whispering, there was a sound of shuffling slippers and bare feet. 

"Is she having another attack?" thought Korolyov. 

He went out to have a look at the patient. By now it was quite lightin the rooms, and a faint glimmer of sunlight, piercing through themorning mist, quivered on the floor and on the wall of the drawing-room. The door of Liza's room was open, and she was sitting in a low chairbeside her bed, with her hair down, wearing a dressing-gown andwrapped in a shawl. The blinds were down on the windows. 

"How do you feel?" asked Korolyov. 

"Well, thank you. "

He touched her pulse, then straightened her hair, that had fallenover her forehead. 

"You are not asleep, " he said. "It's beautiful weather outside. It's spring. The nightingales are singing, and you sit in the darkand think of something. "

She listened and looked into his face; her eyes were sorrowful andintelligent, and it was evident she wanted to say something to him. 

"Does this happen to you often?" he said. 

She moved her lips, and answered:

"Often, I feel wretched almost every night. "

At that moment the watchman in the yard began striking two o'clock. They heard: "Dair . . . Dair . . . " and she shuddered. 

"Do those knockings worry you?" he asked. 

"I don't know. Everything here worries me, " she answered, andpondered. "Everything worries me. I hear sympathy in your voice;it seemed to me as soon as I saw you that I could tell you all aboutit. "

"Tell me, I beg you. "

"I want to tell you of my opinion. It seems to me that I have noillness, but that I am weary and frightened, because it is boundto be so and cannot be otherwise. Even the healthiest person can'thelp being uneasy if, for instance, a robber is moving about underhis window. I am constantly being doctored, " she went on, lookingat her knees, and she gave a shy smile. "I am very grateful, ofcourse, and I do not deny that the treatment is a benefit; but Ishould like to talk, not with a doctor, but with some intimatefriend who would understand me and would convince me that I wasright or wrong. "

"Have you no friends?" asked Korolyov. 

"I am lonely. I have a mother; I love her, but, all the same, I amlonely. That's how it happens to be. . . . Lonely people read agreat deal, but say little and hear little. Life for them ismysterious; they are mystics and often see the devil where he isnot. Lermontov's Tamara was lonely and she saw the devil. "

"Do you read a great deal?"

"Yes. You see, my whole time is free from morning till night. Iread by day, and by night my head is empty; instead of thoughtsthere are shadows in it. "

"Do you see anything at night?" asked Korolyov. 

"No, but I feel. . . . "

She smiled again, raised her eyes to the doctor, and looked at himso sorrowfully, so intelligently; and it seemed to him that shetrusted him, and that she wanted to speak frankly to him, and thatshe thought the same as he did. But she was silent, perhaps waitingfor him to speak. 

And he knew what to say to her. It was clear to him that she neededas quickly as possible to give up the five buildings and the millionif she had it--to leave that devil that looked out at night; itwas clear to him, too, that she thought so herself, and was onlywaiting for some one she trusted to confirm her. 

But he did not know how to say it. How? One is shy of asking menunder sentence what they have been sentenced for; and in the sameway it is awkward to ask very rich people what they want so muchmoney for, why they make such a poor use of their wealth, why theydon't give it up, even when they see in it their unhappiness; andif they begin a conversation about it themselves, it is usuallyembarrassing, awkward, and long. 

"How is one to say it?" Korolyov wondered. "And is it necessary tospeak?"

And he said what he meant in a roundabout way:

"You in the position of a factory owner and a wealthy heiress aredissatisfied; you don't believe in your right to it; and here nowyou can't sleep. That, of course, is better than if you weresatisfied, slept soundly, and thought everything was satisfactory. Your sleeplessness does you credit; in any case, it is a good sign. In reality, such a conversation as this between us now would havebeen unthinkable for our parents. At night they did not talk, butslept sound; we, our generation, sleep badly, are restless, buttalk a great deal, and are always trying to settle whether we areright or not. For our children or grandchildren that question--whether they are right or not--will have been settled. Thingswill be clearer for them than for us. Life will be good in fiftyyears' time; it's only a pity we shall not last out till then. Itwould be interesting to have a peep at it. "

"What will our children and grandchildren do?" asked Liza. 

"I don't know. . . . I suppose they will throw it all up and goaway. "

"Go where?"

"Where? . . . Why, where they like, " said Korolyov; and he laughed. "There are lots of places a good, intelligent person can go to. "

He glanced at his watch. 

"The sun has risen, though, " he said. "It is time you were asleep. Undress and sleep soundly. Very glad to have made your acquaintance, "he went on, pressing her hand. "You are a good, interesting woman. Good-night!"

He went to his room and went to bed. 

In the morning when the carriage was brought round they all cameout on to the steps to see him off. Liza, pale and exhausted, wasin a white dress as though for a holiday, with a flower in her hair;she looked at him, as yesterday, sorrowfully and intelligently, smiled and talked, and all with an expression as though she wantedto tell him something special, important--him alone. They couldhear the larks trilling and the church bells pealing. The windowsin the factory buildings were sparkling gaily, and, driving acrossthe yard and afterwards along the road to the station, Korolyovthought neither of the workpeople nor of lake dwellings, nor of thedevil, but thought of the time, perhaps close at hand, when lifewould be as bright and joyous as that still Sunday morning; and hethought how pleasant it was on such a morning in the spring to drivewith three horses in a good carriage, and to bask in the sunshine. 

AN UPHEAVAL

MASHENKA PAVLETSKY, a young girl who had only just finished herstudies at a boarding school, returning from a walk to the houseof the Kushkins, with whom she was living as a governess, found thehousehold in a terrible turmoil. Mihailo, the porter who opened thedoor to her, was excited and red as a crab. 

Loud voices were heard from upstairs. 

"Madame Kushkin is in a fit, most likely, or else she has quarrelledwith her husband, " thought Mashenka. 

In the hall and in the corridor she met maid-servants. One of themwas crying. Then Mashenka saw, running out of her room, the masterof the house himself, Nikolay Sergeitch, a little man with a flabbyface and a bald head, though he was not old. He was red in the faceand twitching all over. He passed the governess without noticingher, and throwing up his arms, exclaimed:

"Oh, how horrible it is! How tactless! How stupid! How barbarous!Abominable!"

Mashenka went into her room, and then, for the first time in herlife, it was her lot to experience in all its acuteness the feelingthat is so familiar to persons in dependent positions, who eat thebread of the rich and powerful, and cannot speak their minds. Therewas a search going on in her room. The lady of the house, FedosyaVassilyevna, a stout, broad-shouldered, uncouth woman with thickblack eyebrows, a faintly perceptible moustache, and red hands, whowas exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners, wasstanding, without her cap on, at the table, putting back intoMashenka's workbag balls of wool, scraps of materials, and bits ofpaper. . . . Evidently the governess's arrival took her by surprise, since, on looking round and seeing the girl's pale and astonishedface, she was a little taken aback, and muttered:

"_Pardon_. I . . . I upset it accidentally. . . . My sleeve caughtin it. . . "

And saying something more, Madame Kushkin rustled her long skirtsand went out. Mashenka looked round her room with wondering eyes, and, unable to understand it, not knowing what to think, shruggedher shoulders, and turned cold with dismay. What had FedosyaVassilyevna been looking for in her work-bag? If she really had, as she said, caught her sleeve in it and upset everything, why hadNikolay Sergeitch dashed out of her room so excited and red in theface? Why was one drawer of the table pulled out a little way? Themoney-box, in which the governess put away ten kopeck pieces andold stamps, was open. They had opened it, but did not know how toshut it, though they had scratched the lock all over. The whatnotwith her books on it, the things on the table, the bed--all borefresh traces of a search. Her linen-basket, too. The linen had beencarefully folded, but it was not in the same order as Mashenka hadleft it when she went out. So the search had been thorough, mostthorough. But what was it for? Why? What had happened? Mashenkaremembered the excited porter, the general turmoil which was stillgoing on, the weeping servant-girl; had it not all some connectionwith the search that had just been made in her room? Was not shemixed up in something dreadful? Mashenka turned pale, and feelingcold all over, sank on to her linen-basket. 

A maid-servant came into the room. 

"Liza, you don't know why they have been rummaging in my room?" thegoverness asked her. 

"Mistress has lost a brooch worth two thousand, " said Liza. 

"Yes, but why have they been rummaging in my room?"

"They've been searching every one, miss. They've searched all mythings, too. They stripped us all naked and searched us. . . . Godknows, miss, I never went near her toilet-table, let alone touchingthe brooch. I shall say the same at the police-station. "

"But . . . Why have they been rummaging here?" the governess stillwondered. 

"A brooch has been stolen, I tell you. The mistress has been rummagingin everything with her own hands. She even searched Mihailo, theporter, herself. It's a perfect disgrace! Nikolay Sergeitch simplylooks on and cackles like a hen. But you've no need to tremble likethat, miss. They found nothing here. You've nothing to be afraidof if you didn't take the brooch. "

"But, Liza, it's vile . . . It's insulting, " said Mashenka, breathlesswith indignation. "It's so mean, so low! What right had she tosuspect me and to rummage in my things?"

"You are living with strangers, miss, " sighed Liza. "Though you area young lady, still you are . . . As it were . . . A servant. . . . It's not like living with your papa and mamma. "

Mashenka threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly. Never in herlife had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she beenso deeply insulted. . . . She, well-educated, refined, the daughterof a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like astreet-walker! She could not imagine a greater insult. And to thisfeeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what wouldcome next. All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind. If theycould suspect her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip hernaked, and search her, then lead her through the street with anescort of soldiers, cast her into a cold, dark cell with mice andwoodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which Princess Tarakanov wasimprisoned. Who would stand up for her? Her parents lived far awayin the provinces; they had not the money to come to her. In thecapital she was as solitary as in a desert, without friends orkindred. They could do what they liked with her. 

"I will go to all the courts and all the lawyers, " Mashenka thought, trembling. "I will explain to them, I will take an oath. . . . Theywill believe that I could not be a thief!"

Mashenka remembered that under the sheets in her basket she hadsome sweetmeats, which, following the habits of her schooldays, shehad put in her pocket at dinner and carried off to her room. Shefelt hot all over, and was ashamed at the thought that her littlesecret was known to the lady of the house; and all this terror, shame, resentment, brought on an attack of palpitation of the heart, which set up a throbbing in her temples, in her heart, and deepdown in her stomach. 

"Dinner is ready, " the servant summoned Mashenka. 

"Shall I go, or not?"

Mashenka brushed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, andwent into the dining-room. There they had already begun dinner. Atone end of the table sat Fedosya Vassilyevna with a stupid, solemn, serious face; at the other end Nikolay Sergeitch. At the sides therewere the visitors and the children. The dishes were handed by twofootmen in swallowtails and white gloves. Every one knew that therewas an upset in the house, that Madame Kushkin was in trouble, andevery one was silent. Nothing was heard but the sound of munchingand the rattle of spoons on the plates. 

The lady of the house, herself, was the first to speak. 

"What is the third course?" she asked the footman in a weary, injuredvoice. 

"_Esturgeon à la russe_, " answered the footman. 

"I ordered that, Fenya, " Nikolay Sergeitch hastened to observe. "Iwanted some fish. If you don't like it, _ma chère_, don't let themserve it. I just ordered it. . . . "

Fedosya Vassilyevna did not like dishes that she had not orderedherself, and now her eyes filled with tears. 

"Come, don't let us agitate ourselves, " Mamikov, her householddoctor, observed in a honeyed voice, just touching her arm, with asmile as honeyed. "We are nervous enough as it is. Let us forgetthe brooch! Health is worth more than two thousand roubles!"

"It's not the two thousand I regret, " answered the lady, and a bigtear rolled down her cheek. "It's the fact itself that revolts me!I cannot put up with thieves in my house. I don't regret it--Iregret nothing; but to steal from me is such ingratitude! That'show they repay me for my kindness. . . . "

They all looked into their plates, but Mashenka fancied after thelady's words that every one was looking at her. A lump rose in herthroat; she began crying and put her handkerchief to her lips. 

"_Pardon_, " she muttered. "I can't help it. My head aches. I'll goaway. "

And she got up from the table, scraping her chair awkwardly, andwent out quickly, still more overcome with confusion. 

"It's beyond everything!" said Nikolay Sergeitch, frowning. "Whatneed was there to search her room? How out of place it was!"

"I don't say she took the brooch, " said Fedosya Vassilyevna, "butcan you answer for her? To tell the truth, I haven't much confidencein these learned paupers. "

"It really was unsuitable, Fenya. . . . Excuse me, Fenya, but you'veno kind of legal right to make a search. "

"I know nothing about your laws. All I know is that I've lost mybrooch. And I will find the brooch!" She brought her fork down onthe plate with a clatter, and her eyes flashed angrily. "And youeat your dinner, and don't interfere in what doesn't concern you!"

Nikolay Sergeitch dropped his eyes mildly and sighed. MeanwhileMashenka, reaching her room, flung herself on her bed. She felt nowneither alarm nor shame, but she felt an intense longing to go andslap the cheeks of this hard, arrogant, dull-witted, prosperouswoman. 

Lying on her bed she breathed into her pillow and dreamed of hownice it would be to go and buy the most expensive brooch and flingit into the face of this bullying woman. If only it were God's willthat Fedosya Vassilyevna should come to ruin and wander aboutbegging, and should taste all the horrors of poverty and dependence, and that Mashenka, whom she had insulted, might give her alms! Oh, if only she could come in for a big fortune, could buy a carriage, and could drive noisily past the windows so as to be envied by thatwoman!

But all these were only dreams, in reality there was only one thingleft to do--to get away as quickly as possible, not to stay anotherhour in this place. It was true it was terrible to lose her place, to go back to her parents, who had nothing; but what could she do?Mashenka could not bear the sight of the lady of the house nor ofher little room; she felt stifled and wretched here. She was sodisgusted with Fedosya Vassilyevna, who was so obsessed by herillnesses and her supposed aristocratic rank, that everything inthe world seemed to have become coarse and unattractive becausethis woman was living in it. Mashenka jumped up from the bed andbegan packing. 

"May I come in?" asked Nikolay Sergeitch at the door; he had comeup noiselessly to the door, and spoke in a soft, subdued voice. "May I?"

"Come in. "

He came in and stood still near the door. His eyes looked dim andhis red little nose was shiny. After dinner he used to drink beer, and the fact was perceptible in his walk, in his feeble, flabbyhands. 

"What's this?" he asked, pointing to the basket. 

"I am packing. Forgive me, Nikolay Sergeitch, but I cannot remainin your house. I feel deeply insulted by this search!"

"I understand. . . . Only you are wrong to go. Why should you?They've searched your things, but you . . . What does it matter toyou? You will be none the worse for it. "

Mashenka was silent and went on packing. Nikolay Sergeitch pinchedhis moustache, as though wondering what he should say next, andwent on in an ingratiating voice:

"I understand, of course, but you must make allowances. You knowmy wife is nervous, headstrong; you mustn't judge her too harshly. "

Mashenka did not speak. 

"If you are so offended, " Nikolay Sergeitch went on, "well, if youlike, I'm ready to apologise. I ask your pardon. "

Mashenka made no answer, but only bent lower over her box. Thisexhausted, irresolute man was of absolutely no significance in thehousehold. He stood in the pitiful position of a dependent andhanger-on, even with the servants, and his apology meant nothingeither. 

"H'm! . . . You say nothing! That's not enough for you. In thatcase, I will apologise for my wife. In my wife's name. . . . Shebehaved tactlessly, I admit it as a gentleman. . . . "

Nikolay Sergeitch walked about the room, heaved a sigh, and wenton:

"Then you want me to have it rankling here, under my heart. . . . You want my conscience to torment me. . . . "

"I know it's not your fault, Nikolay Sergeitch, " said Mashenka, looking him full in the face with her big tear-stained eyes. "Whyshould you worry yourself?"

"Of course, no. . . . But still, don't you . . . Go away. I entreatyou. "

Mashenka shook her head. Nikolay Sergeitch stopped at the windowand drummed on the pane with his finger-tips. 

"Such misunderstandings are simply torture to me, " he said. "Why, do you want me to go down on my knees to you, or what? Your prideis wounded, and here you've been crying and packing up to go; butI have pride, too, and you do not spare it! Or do you want me totell you what I would not tell as Confession? Do you? Listen; youwant me to tell you what I won't tell the priest on my deathbed?"

Mashenka made no answer. 

"I took my wife's brooch, " Nikolay Sergeitch said quickly. "Is thatenough now? Are you satisfied? Yes, I . . . Took it. . . . But, ofcourse, I count on your discretion. . . . For God's sake, not aword, not half a hint to any one!"

Mashenka, amazed and frightened, went on packing; she snatched herthings, crumpled them up, and thrust them anyhow into the box andthe basket. Now, after this candid avowal on the part of NikolaySergeitch, she could not remain another minute, and could notunderstand how she could have gone on living in the house before. 

"And it's nothing to wonder at, " Nikolay Sergeitch went on after apause. "It's an everyday story! I need money, and she . . . Won'tgive it to me. It was my father's money that bought this house andeverything, you know! It's all mine, and the brooch belonged to mymother, and . . . It's all mine! And she took it, took possessionof everything. . . . I can't go to law with her, you'll admit. . . . I beg you most earnestly, overlook it . . . Stay on. _Toutcomprendre, tout pardonner. _ Will you stay?"

"No!" said Mashenka resolutely, beginning to tremble. "Let me alone, I entreat you!"

"Well, God bless you!" sighed Nikolay Sergeitch, sitting down onthe stool near the box. "I must own I like people who still canfeel resentment, contempt, and so on. I could sit here forever andlook at your indignant face. . . . So you won't stay, then? Iunderstand. . . . It's bound to be so. . . Yes, of course. . . . It's all right for you, but for me--wo-o-o-o! . . . I can't stira step out of this cellar. I'd go off to one of our estates, butin every one of them there are some of my wife's rascals. . . Stewards, experts, damn them all! They mortgage and remortgage. . . . You mustn't catch fish, must keep off the grass, mustn't breakthe trees. "

"Nikolay Sergeitch!" his wife's voice called from the drawing-room. "Agnia, call your master!"

"Then you won't stay?" asked Nikolay Sergeitch, getting up quicklyand going towards the door. "You might as well stay, really. In theevenings I could come and have a talk with you. Eh? Stay! If yougo, there won't be a human face left in the house. It's awful!"

Nikolay Sergeitch's pale, exhausted face besought her, but Mashenkashook her head, and with a wave of his hand he went out. 

Half an hour later she was on her way. 

IONITCH

I

WHEN visitors to the provincial town S---- complained of thedreariness and monotony of life, the inhabitants of the town, asthough defending themselves, declared that it was very nice inS----, that there was a library, a theatre, a club; that they hadballs; and, finally, that there were clever, agreeable, and interestingfamilies with whom one could make acquaintance. And they used topoint to the family of the Turkins as the most highly cultivatedand talented. 

This family lived in their own house in the principal street, nearthe Governor's. Ivan Petrovitch Turkin himself--a stout, handsome, dark man with whiskers--used to get up amateur performances forbenevolent objects, and used to take the part of an elderly generaland cough very amusingly. He knew a number of anecdotes, charades, proverbs, and was fond of being humorous and witty, and he alwayswore an expression from which it was impossible to tell whether hewere joking or in earnest. His wife, Vera Iosifovna--a thin, nice-looking lady who wore a pince-nez--used to write novels andstories, and was very fond of reading them aloud to her visitors. The daughter, Ekaterina Ivanovna, a young girl, used to play on thepiano. In short, every member of the family had a special talent. The Turkins welcomed visitors, and good-humouredly displayed theirtalents with genuine simplicity. Their stone house was roomy andcool in summer; half of the windows looked into a shady old garden, where nightingales used to sing in the spring. When there werevisitors in the house, there was a clatter of knives in the kitchenand a smell of fried onions in the yard--and that was always asure sign of a plentiful and savoury supper to follow. 

And as soon as Dmitri Ionitch Startsev was appointed the districtdoctor, and took up his abode at Dyalizh, six miles from S----, he, too, was told that as a cultivated man it was essential for him tomake the acquaintance of the Turkins. In the winter he was introducedto Ivan Petrovitch in the street; they talked about the weather, about the theatre, about the cholera; an invitation followed. On aholiday in the spring--it was Ascension Day--after seeing hispatients, Startsev set off for town in search of a little recreationand to make some purchases. He walked in a leisurely way (he hadnot yet set up his carriage), humming all the time:

 "'Before I'd drunk the tears from life's goblet. . . . '"

In town he dined, went for a walk in the gardens, then IvanPetrovitch's invitation came into his mind, as it were of itself, and he decided to call on the Turkins and see what sort of peoplethey were. 

"How do you do, if you please?" said Ivan Petrovitch, meeting himon the steps. "Delighted, delighted to see such an agreeable visitor. Come along; I will introduce you to my better half. I tell him, Verotchka, " he went on, as he presented the doctor to his wife--"Itell him that he has no human right to sit at home in a hospital;he ought to devote his leisure to society. Oughtn't he, darling?"

"Sit here, " said Vera Iosifovna, making her visitor sit down besideher. "You can dance attendance on me. My husband is jealous--heis an Othello; but we will try and behave so well that he willnotice nothing. "

"Ah, you spoilt chicken!" Ivan Petrovitch muttered tenderly, andhe kissed her on the forehead. "You have come just in the nick oftime, " he said, addressing the doctor again. "My better half haswritten a 'hugeous' novel, and she is going to read it aloud to-day. "

"Petit Jean, " said Vera Iosifovna to her husband, "dites que l'onnous donne du thé. "

Startsev was introduced to Ekaterina Ivanovna, a girl of eighteen, very much like her mother, thin and pretty. Her expression was stillchildish and her figure was soft and slim; and her developed girlishbosom, healthy and beautiful, was suggestive of spring, real spring. 

Then they drank tea with jam, honey, and sweetmeats, and with verynice cakes, which melted in the mouth. As the evening came on, othervisitors gradually arrived, and Ivan Petrovitch fixed his laughingeyes on each of them and said:

"How do you do, if you please?"

Then they all sat down in the drawing-room with very serious faces, and Vera Iosifovna read her novel. It began like this: "The frostwas intense. . . . " The windows were wide open; from the kitchencame the clatter of knives and the smell of fried onions. . . . Itwas comfortable in the soft deep arm-chair; the lights had such afriendly twinkle in the twilight of the drawing-room, and at themoment on a summer evening when sounds of voices and laughter floatedin from the street and whiffs of lilac from the yard, it was difficultto grasp that the frost was intense, and that the setting sun waslighting with its chilly rays a solitary wayfarer on the snowyplain. Vera Iosifovna read how a beautiful young countess foundeda school, a hospital, a library, in her village, and fell in lovewith a wandering artist; she read of what never happens in reallife, and yet it was pleasant to listen--it was comfortable, andsuch agreeable, serene thoughts kept coming into the mind, one hadno desire to get up. 

"Not badsome . . . " Ivan Petrovitch said softly. 

And one of the visitors hearing, with his thoughts far away, saidhardly audibly:

"Yes . . . Truly. . . . "

One hour passed, another. In the town gardens close by a band wasplaying and a chorus was singing. When Vera Iosifovna shut hermanuscript book, the company was silent for five minutes, listeningto "Lutchina" being sung by the chorus, and the song gave what wasnot in the novel and is in real life. 

"Do you publish your stories in magazines?" Startsev asked VeraIosifovna. 

"No, " she answered. "I never publish. I write it and put it awayin my cupboard. Why publish?" she explained. "We have enough tolive on. "

And for some reason every one sighed. 

"And now, Kitten, you play something, " Ivan Petrovitch said to hisdaughter. 

The lid of the piano was raised and the music lying ready was opened. Ekaterina Ivanovna sat down and banged on the piano with both hands, and then banged again with all her might, and then again and again;her shoulders and bosom shook. She obstinately banged on the samenotes, and it sounded as if she would not leave off until she hadhammered the keys into the piano. The drawing-room was filled withthe din; everything was resounding; the floor, the ceiling, thefurniture. . . . Ekaterina Ivanovna was playing a difficult passage, interesting simply on account of its difficulty, long and monotonous, and Startsev, listening, pictured stones dropping down a steep hilland going on dropping, and he wished they would leave off dropping;and at the same time Ekaterina Ivanovna, rosy from the violentexercise, strong and vigorous, with a lock of hair falling over herforehead, attracted him very much. After the winter spent at Dyalizhamong patients and peasants, to sit in a drawing-room, to watchthis young, elegant, and, in all probability, pure creature, andto listen to these noisy, tedious but still cultured sounds, wasso pleasant, so novel. . . . 

"Well, Kitten, you have played as never before, " said Ivan Petrovitch, with tears in his eyes, when his daughter had finished and stoodup. "Die, Denis; you won't write anything better. "

All flocked round her, congratulated her, expressed astonishment, declared that it was long since they had heard such music, and shelistened in silence with a faint smile, and her whole figure wasexpressive of triumph. 

"Splendid, superb!"

"Splendid, " said Startsev, too, carried away by the general enthusiasm. "Where have you studied?" he asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. "At theConservatoire?"

"No, I am only preparing for the Conservatoire, and till now havebeen working with Madame Zavlovsky. "

"Have you finished at the high school here?"

"Oh, no, " Vera Iosifovna answered for her, "We have teachers forher at home; there might be bad influences at the high school or aboarding school, you know. While a young girl is growing up, sheought to be under no influence but her mother's. "

"All the same, I'm going to the Conservatoire, " said EkaterinaIvanovna. 

"No. Kitten loves her mamma. Kitten won't grieve papa and mamma. "

"No, I'm going, I'm going, " said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with playfulcaprice and stamping her foot. 

And at supper it was Ivan Petrovitch who displayed his talents. Laughing only with his eyes, he told anecdotes, made epigrams, askedridiculous riddles and answered them himself, talking the wholetime in his extraordinary language, evolved in the course of prolongedpractice in witticism and evidently now become a habit: "Badsome, ""Hugeous, " "Thank you most dumbly, " and so on. 

But that was not all. When the guests, replete and satisfied, troopedinto the hall, looking for their coats and sticks, there bustledabout them the footman Pavlusha, or, as he was called in the family, Pava--a lad of fourteen with shaven head and chubby cheeks. 

"Come, Pava, perform!" Ivan Petrovitch said to him. 

Pava struck an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragictone: "Unhappy woman, die!"

And every one roared with laughter. 

"It's entertaining, " thought Startsev, as he went out into thestreet. 

He went to a restaurant and drank some beer, then set off to walkhome to Dyalizh; he walked all the way singing:

 "'Thy voice to me so languid and caressing. . . . '"

On going to bed, he felt not the slightest fatigue after the sixmiles' walk. On the contrary, he felt as though he could withpleasure have walked another twenty. 

"Not badsome, " he thought, and laughed as he fell asleep. 

II

Startsev kept meaning to go to the Turkins' again, but there was agreat deal of work in the hospital, and he was unable to find freetime. In this way more than a year passed in work and solitude. Butone day a letter in a light blue envelope was brought him from thetown. 

Vera Iosifovna had been suffering for some time from migraine, butnow since Kitten frightened her every day by saying that she wasgoing away to the Conservatoire, the attacks began to be morefrequent. All the doctors of the town had been at the Turkins'; atlast it was the district doctor's turn. Vera Iosifovna wrote him atouching letter in which she begged him to come and relieve hersufferings. Startsev went, and after that he began to be often, very often at the Turkins'. . . . He really did something for VeraIosifovna, and she was already telling all her visitors that he wasa wonderful and exceptional doctor. But it was not for the sake ofher migraine that he visited the Turkins' now. . . . 

It was a holiday. Ekaterina Ivanovna finished her long, wearisomeexercises on the piano. Then they sat a long time in the dining-room, drinking tea, and Ivan Petrovitch told some amusing story. Thenthere was a ring and he had to go into the hall to welcome a guest;Startsev took advantage of the momentary commotion, and whisperedto Ekaterina Ivanovna in great agitation:

"For God's sake, I entreat you, don't torment me; let us go intothe garden!"

She shrugged her shoulders, as though perplexed and not knowingwhat he wanted of her, but she got up and went. 

"You play the piano for three or four hours, " he said, followingher; "then you sit with your mother, and there is no possibilityof speaking to you. Give me a quarter of an hour at least, I beseechyou. "

Autumn was approaching, and it was quiet and melancholy in the oldgarden; the dark leaves lay thick in the walks. It was alreadybeginning to get dark early. 

"I haven't seen you for a whole week, " Startsev went on, "and ifyou only knew what suffering it is! Let us sit down. Listen to me. "

They had a favourite place in the garden; a seat under an oldspreading maple. And now they sat down on this seat. 

"What do you want?" said Ekaterina Ivanovna drily, in a matter-of-facttone. 

"I have not seen you for a whole week; I have not heard you for solong. I long passionately, I thirst for your voice. Speak. "

She fascinated him by her freshness, the naïve expression of hereyes and cheeks. Even in the way her dress hung on her, he sawsomething extraordinarily charming, touching in its simplicity andnaïve grace; and at the same time, in spite of this naïveté, sheseemed to him intelligent and developed beyond her years. He couldtalk with her about literature, about art, about anything he liked;could complain to her of life, of people, though it sometimeshappened in the middle of serious conversation she would laughinappropriately or run away into the house. Like almost all girlsof her neighbourhood, she had read a great deal (as a rule, peopleread very little in S----, and at the lending library they said ifit were not for the girls and the young Jews, they might as wellshut up the library). This afforded Startsev infinite delight; heused to ask her eagerly every time what she had been reading thelast few days, and listened enthralled while she told him. 

"What have you been reading this week since I saw you last?" heasked now. "Do please tell me. "

"I have been reading Pisemsky. "

"What exactly?"

"'A Thousand Souls, '" answered Kitten. "And what a funny namePisemsky had--Alexey Feofilaktitch!

"Where are you going?" cried Startsev in horror, as she suddenlygot up and walked towards the house. "I must talk to you; I wantto explain myself. . . . Stay with me just five minutes, I supplicateyou!"

She stopped as though she wanted to say something, then awkwardlythrust a note into his hand, ran home and sat down to the pianoagain. 

"Be in the cemetery, " Startsev read, "at eleven o'clock to-night, near the tomb of Demetti. "

"Well, that's not at all clever, " he thought, coming to himself. "Why the cemetery? What for?"

It was clear: Kitten was playing a prank. Who would seriously dreamof making an appointment at night in the cemetery far out of thetown, when it might have been arranged in the street or in the towngardens? And was it in keeping with him--a district doctor, anintelligent, staid man--to be sighing, receiving notes, to hangabout cemeteries, to do silly things that even schoolboys thinkridiculous nowadays? What would this romance lead to? What wouldhis colleagues say when they heard of it? Such were Startsev'sreflections as he wandered round the tables at the club, and athalf-past ten he suddenly set off for the cemetery. 

By now he had his own pair of horses, and a coachman calledPanteleimon, in a velvet waistcoat. The moon was shining. It wasstill warm, warm as it is in autumn. Dogs were howling in the suburbnear the slaughter-house. Startsev left his horses in one of theside-streets at the end of the town, and walked on foot to thecemetery. 

"We all have our oddities, " he thought. "Kitten is odd, too; and--who knows?--perhaps she is not joking, perhaps she will come";and he abandoned himself to this faint, vain hope, and it intoxicatedhim. 

He walked for half a mile through the fields; the cemetery showedas a dark streak in the distance, like a forest or a big garden. The wall of white stone came into sight, the gate. . . . In themoonlight he could read on the gate: "The hour cometh. " Startsevwent in at the little gate, and before anything else he saw thewhite crosses and monuments on both sides of the broad avenue, andthe black shadows of them and the poplars; and for a long way roundit was all white and black, and the slumbering trees bowed theirbranches over the white stones. It seemed as though it were lighterhere than in the fields; the maple-leaves stood out sharply likepaws on the yellow sand of the avenue and on the stones, and theinscriptions on the tombs could be clearly read. For the firstmoments Startsev was struck now by what he saw for the first timein his life, and what he would probably never see again; a worldnot like anything else, a world in which the moonlight was as softand beautiful, as though slumbering here in its cradle, where therewas no life, none whatever; but in every dark poplar, in every tomb, there was felt the presence of a mystery that promised a lifepeaceful, beautiful, eternal. The stones and faded flowers, togetherwith the autumn scent of the leaves, all told of forgiveness, melancholy, and peace. 

All was silence around; the stars looked down from the sky in theprofound stillness, and Startsev's footsteps sounded loud and outof place, and only when the church clock began striking and heimagined himself dead, buried there for ever, he felt as thoughsome one were looking at him, and for a moment he thought that itwas not peace and tranquillity, but stifled despair, the dumbdreariness of non-existence. . . . 

Demetti's tomb was in the form of a shrine with an angel at thetop. The Italian opera had once visited S---- and one of the singershad died; she had been buried here, and this monument put up toher. No one in the town remembered her, but the lamp at the entrancereflected the moonlight, and looked as though it were burning. 

There was no one, and, indeed, who would come here at midnight? ButStartsev waited, and as though the moonlight warmed his passion, he waited passionately, and, in imagination, pictured kisses andembraces. He sat near the monument for half an hour, then paced upand down the side avenues, with his hat in his hand, waiting andthinking of the many women and girls buried in these tombs who hadbeen beautiful and fascinating, who had loved, at night burned withpassion, yielding themselves to caresses. How wickedly Mother Naturejested at man's expense, after all! How humiliating it was torecognise it!

Startsev thought this, and at the same time he wanted to cry outthat he wanted love, that he was eager for it at all costs. To hiseyes they were not slabs of marble, but fair white bodies in themoonlight; he saw shapes hiding bashfully in the shadows of thetrees, felt their warmth, and the languor was oppressive. . . . 

And as though a curtain were lowered, the moon went behind a cloud, and suddenly all was darkness. Startsev could scarcely find thegate--by now it was as dark as it is on an autumn night. Then hewandered about for an hour and a half, looking for the side-streetin which he had left his horses. 

"I am tired; I can scarcely stand on my legs, " he said to Panteleimon. 

And settling himself with relief in his carriage, he thought: "Och!I ought not to get fat!"

III

The following evening he went to the Turkins' to make an offer. Butit turned out to be an inconvenient moment, as Ekaterina Ivanovnawas in her own room having her hair done by a hair-dresser. She wasgetting ready to go to a dance at the club. 

He had to sit a long time again in the dining-room drinking tea. Ivan Petrovitch, seeing that his visitor was bored and preoccupied, drew some notes out of his waistcoat pocket, read a funny letterfrom a German steward, saying that all the ironmongery was ruinedand the plasticity was peeling off the walls. 

"I expect they will give a decent dowry, " thought Startsev, listeningabsent-mindedly. 

After a sleepless night, he found himself in a state of stupefaction, as though he had been given something sweet and soporific to drink;there was fog in his soul, but joy and warmth, and at the same timea sort of cold, heavy fragment of his brain was reflecting:

"Stop before it is too late! Is she the match for you? She is spoilt, whimsical, sleeps till two o'clock in the afternoon, while you area deacon's son, a district doctor. . . . "

"What of it?" he thought. "I don't care. "

"Besides, if you marry her, " the fragment went on, "then her relationswill make you give up the district work and live in the town. "

"After all, " he thought, "if it must be the town, the town it mustbe. They will give a dowry; we can establish ourselves suitably. "

At last Ekaterina Ivanovna came in, dressed for the ball, with alow neck, looking fresh and pretty; and Startsev admired her somuch, and went into such ecstasies, that he could say nothing, butsimply stared at her and laughed. 

She began saying good-bye, and he--he had no reason for stayingnow--got up, saying that it was time for him to go home; hispatients were waiting for him. 

"Well, there's no help for that, " said Ivan Petrovitch. "Go, andyou might take Kitten to the club on the way. "

It was spotting with rain; it was very dark, and they could onlytell where the horses were by Panteleimon's husky cough. The hoodof the carriage was put up. 

"I stand upright; you lie down right; he lies all right, " said IvanPetrovitch as he put his daughter into the carriage. 

They drove off. 

"I was at the cemetery yesterday, " Startsev began. "How ungenerousand merciless it was on your part! . . . "

"You went to the cemetery?"

"Yes, I went there and waited almost till two o'clock. I suffered. . . "

"Well, suffer, if you cannot understand a joke. "

Ekaterina Ivanovna, pleased at having so cleverly taken in a manwho was in love with her, and at being the object of such intenselove, burst out laughing and suddenly uttered a shriek of terror, for, at that very minute, the horses turned sharply in at the gateof the club, and the carriage almost tilted over. Startsev put hisarm round Ekaterina Ivanovna's waist; in her fright she nestled upto him, and he could not restrain himself, and passionately kissedher on the lips and on the chin, and hugged her more tightly. 

"That's enough, " she said drily. 

And a minute later she was not in the carriage, and a policemannear the lighted entrance of the club shouted in a detestable voiceto Panteleimon:

"What are you stopping for, you crow? Drive on. "

Startsev drove home, but soon afterwards returned. Attired in anotherman's dress suit and a stiff white tie which kept sawing at hisneck and trying to slip away from the collar, he was sitting atmidnight in the club drawing-room, and was saying with enthusiasmto Ekaterina Ivanovna. 

"Ah, how little people know who have never loved! It seems to methat no one has ever yet written of love truly, and I doubt whetherthis tender, joyful, agonising feeling can be described, and anyone who has once experienced it would not attempt to put it intowords. What is the use of preliminaries and introductions? What isthe use of unnecessary fine words? My love is immeasurable. I beg, I beseech you, " Startsev brought out at last, "be my wife!"

"Dmitri Ionitch, " said Ekaterina Ivanovna, with a very grave face, after a moment's thought--"Dmitri Ionitch, I am very grateful toyou for the honour. I respect you, but . . . " she got up and continuedstanding, "but, forgive me, I cannot be your wife. Let us talkseriously. Dmitri Ionitch, you know I love art beyond everythingin life. I adore music; I love it frantically; I have dedicated mywhole life to it. I want to be an artist; I want fame, success, freedom, and you want me to go on living in this town, to go onliving this empty, useless life, which has become insufferable tome. To become a wife--oh, no, forgive me! One must strive towardsa lofty, glorious goal, and married life would put me in bondagefor ever. Dmitri Ionitch" (she faintly smiled as she pronounced hisname; she thought of "Alexey Feofilaktitch")--"Dmitri Ionitch, you are a good, clever, honourable man; you are better than anyone. . . . " Tears came into her eyes. "I feel for you with my wholeheart, but . . . But you will understand. . . . "

And she turned away and went out of the drawing-room to preventherself from crying. 

Startsev's heart left off throbbing uneasily. Going out of the clubinto the street, he first of all tore off the stiff tie and drew adeep breath. He was a little ashamed and his vanity was wounded--he had not expected a refusal--and could not believe that all hisdreams, his hopes and yearnings, had led him up to such a stupidend, just as in some little play at an amateur performance, and hewas sorry for his feeling, for that love of his, so sorry that hefelt as though he could have burst into sobs or have violentlybelaboured Panteleimon's broad back with his umbrella. 

For three days he could not get on with anything, he could not eatnor sleep; but when the news reached him that Ekaterina Ivanovnahad gone away to Moscow to enter the Conservatoire, he grew calmerand lived as before. 

Afterwards, remembering sometimes how he had wandered about thecemetery or how he had driven all over the town to get a dress suit, he stretched lazily and said:

"What a lot of trouble, though!"

IV

Four years had passed. Startsev already had a large practice in thetown. Every morning he hurriedly saw his patients at Dyalizh, thenhe drove in to see his town patients. By now he drove, not with apair, but with a team of three with bells on them, and he returnedhome late at night. He had grown broader and stouter, and was notvery fond of walking, as he was somewhat asthmatic. And Panteleimonhad grown stout, too, and the broader he grew, the more mournfullyhe sighed and complained of his hard luck: he was sick of driving!Startsev used to visit various households and met many people, butdid not become intimate with any one. The inhabitants irritated himby their conversation, their views of life, and even their appearance. Experience taught him by degrees that while he played cards orlunched with one of these people, the man was a peaceable, friendly, and even intelligent human being; that as soon as one talked ofanything not eatable, for instance, of politics or science, he wouldbe completely at a loss, or would expound a philosophy so stupidand ill-natured that there was nothing else to do but wave one'shand in despair and go away. Even when Startsev tried to talk toliberal citizens, saying, for instance, that humanity, thank God, was progressing, and that one day it would be possible to dispensewith passports and capital punishment, the liberal citizen wouldlook at him askance and ask him mistrustfully: "Then any one couldmurder any one he chose in the open street?" And when, at tea orsupper, Startsev observed in company that one should work, and thatone ought not to live without working, every one took this as areproach, and began to get angry and argue aggressively. With allthat, the inhabitants did nothing, absolutely nothing, and took nointerest in anything, and it was quite impossible to think ofanything to say. And Startsev avoided conversation, and confinedhimself to eating and playing _vint_; and when there was a familyfestivity in some household and he was invited to a meal, then hesat and ate in silence, looking at his plate. 

And everything that was said at the time was uninteresting, unjust, and stupid; he felt irritated and disturbed, but held his tongue, and, because he sat glumly silent and looked at his plate, he wasnicknamed in the town "the haughty Pole, " though he never had beena Pole. 

All such entertainments as theatres and concerts he declined, buthe played _vint_ every evening for three hours with enjoyment. Hehad another diversion to which he took imperceptibly, little bylittle: in the evening he would take out of his pockets the noteshe had gained by his practice, and sometimes there were stuffed inhis pockets notes--yellow and green, and smelling of scent andvinegar and incense and fish oil--up to the value of seventyroubles; and when they amounted to some hundreds he took them tothe Mutual Credit Bank and deposited the money there to his account. 

He was only twice at the Turkins' in the course of the four yearsafter Ekaterina Ivanovna had gone away, on each occasion at theinvitation of Vera Iosifovna, who was still undergoing treatmentfor migraine. Every summer Ekaterina Ivanovna came to stay with herparents, but he did not once see her; it somehow never happened. 

But now four years had passed. One still, warm morning a letter wasbrought to the hospital. Vera Iosifovna wrote to Dmitri Ionitchthat she was missing him very much, and begged him to come and seethem, and to relieve her sufferings; and, by the way, it was herbirthday. Below was a postscript: "I join in mother's request. --K. "

Startsev considered, and in the evening he went to the Turkins'. 

"How do you do, if you please?" Ivan Petrovitch met him, smilingwith his eyes only. "Bongjour. "

Vera Iosifovna, white-haired and looking much older, shook Startsev'shand, sighed affectedly, and said:

"You don't care to pay attentions to me, doctor. You never come andsee us; I am too old for you. But now some one young has come;perhaps she will be more fortunate. "

And Kitten? She had grown thinner, paler, had grown handsomer andmore graceful; but now she was Ekaterina Ivanovna, not Kitten; shehad lost the freshness and look of childish naïveté. And in herexpression and manners there was something new--guilty anddiffident, as though she did not feel herself at home here in theTurkins' house. 

"How many summers, how many winters!" she said, giving Startsev herhand, and he could see that her heart was beating with excitement;and looking at him intently and curiously, she went on: "How muchstouter you are! You look sunburnt and more manly, but on the wholeyou have changed very little. "

Now, too, he thought her attractive, very attractive, but there wassomething lacking in her, or else something superfluous--he couldnot himself have said exactly what it was, but something preventedhim from feeling as before. He did not like her pallor, her newexpression, her faint smile, her voice, and soon afterwards hedisliked her clothes, too, the low chair in which she was sitting;he disliked something in the past when he had almost married her. He thought of his love, of the dreams and the hopes which hadtroubled him four years before--and he felt awkward. 

They had tea with cakes. Then Vera Iosifovna read aloud a novel;she read of things that never happen in real life, and Startsevlistened, looked at her handsome grey head, and waited for her tofinish. 

"People are not stupid because they can't write novels, but becausethey can't conceal it when they do, " he thought. 

"Not badsome, " said Ivan Petrovitch. 

Then Ekaterina Ivanovna played long and noisily on the piano, andwhen she finished she was profusely thanked and warmly praised. 

"It's a good thing I did not marry her, " thought Startsev. 

She looked at him, and evidently expected him to ask her to go intothe garden, but he remained silent. 

"Let us have a talk, " she said, going up to him. "How are you gettingon? What are you doing? How are things? I have been thinking aboutyou all these days, " she went on nervously. "I wanted to write toyou, wanted to come myself to see you at Dyalizh. I quite made upmy mind to go, but afterwards I thought better of it. God knowswhat your attitude is towards me now; I have been looking forwardto seeing you to-day with such emotion. For goodness' sake let usgo into the garden. "

They went into the garden and sat down on the seat under the oldmaple, just as they had done four years before. It was dark. 

"How are you getting on?" asked Ekaterina Ivanovna. 

"Oh, all right; I am jogging along, " answered Startsev. 

And he could think of nothing more. They were silent. 

"I feel so excited!" said Ekaterina Ivanovna, and she hid her facein her hands. "But don't pay attention to it. I am so happy to beat home; I am so glad to see every one. I can't get used to it. Somany memories! I thought we should talk without stopping tillmorning. "

Now he saw her face near, her shining eyes, and in the darkness shelooked younger than in the room, and even her old childish expressionseemed to have come back to her. And indeed she was looking at himwith naïve curiosity, as though she wanted to get a closer view andunderstanding of the man who had loved her so ardently, with suchtenderness, and so unsuccessfully; her eyes thanked him for thatlove. And he remembered all that had been, every minute detail; howhe had wandered about the cemetery, how he had returned home in themorning exhausted, and he suddenly felt sad and regretted the past. A warmth began glowing in his heart. 

"Do you remember how I took you to the dance at the club?" he asked. "It was dark and rainy then. . . "

The warmth was glowing now in his heart, and he longed to talk, torail at life. . . . 

"Ech!" he said with a sigh. "You ask how I am living. How do welive here? Why, not at all. We grow old, we grow stout, we growslack. Day after day passes; life slips by without colour, withoutexpressions, without thoughts. . . . In the daytime working forgain, and in the evening the club, the company of card-players, alcoholic, raucous-voiced gentlemen whom I can't endure. What isthere nice in it?"

"Well, you have work--a noble object in life. You used to be sofond of talking of your hospital. I was such a queer girl then; Iimagined myself such a great pianist. Nowadays all young ladiesplay the piano, and I played, too, like everybody else, and therewas nothing special about me. I am just such a pianist as my motheris an authoress. And of course I didn't understand you then, butafterwards in Moscow I often thought of you. I thought of no onebut you. What happiness to be a district doctor; to help thesuffering; to be serving the people! What happiness!" EkaterinaIvanovna repeated with enthusiasm. "When I thought of you in Moscow, you seemed to me so ideal, so lofty. . . . "

Startsev thought of the notes he used to take out of his pocketsin the evening with such pleasure, and the glow in his heart wasquenched. 

He got up to go into the house. She took his arm. 

"You are the best man I've known in my life, " she went on. "We willsee each other and talk, won't we? Promise me. I am not a pianist;I am not in error about myself now, and I will not play before youor talk of music. "

When they had gone into the house, and when Startsev saw in thelamplight her face, and her sad, grateful, searching eyes fixedupon him, he felt uneasy and thought again:

"It's a good thing I did not marry her then. "

He began taking leave. 

"You have no human right to go before supper, " said Ivan Petrovitchas he saw him off. "It's extremely perpendicular on your part. Well, now, perform!" he added, addressing Pava in the hall. 

Pava, no longer a boy, but a young man with moustaches, threw himselfinto an attitude, flung up his arm, and said in a tragic voice:

"Unhappy woman, die!"

All this irritated Startsev. Getting into his carriage, and lookingat the dark house and garden which had once been so precious andso dear, he thought of everything at once--Vera Iosifovna's novelsand Kitten's noisy playing, and Ivan Petrovitch's jokes and Pava'stragic posturing, and thought if the most talented people in thetown were so futile, what must the town be?

Three days later Pava brought a letter from Ekaterina Ivanovna. 

"You don't come and see us--why?" she wrote to him. "I am afraidthat you have changed towards us. I am afraid, and I am terrifiedat the very thought of it. Reassure me; come and tell me thateverything is well. 

"I must talk to you. --Your E. I. "

 ----

He read this letter, thought a moment, and said to Pava:

"Tell them, my good fellow, that I can't come to-day; I am verybusy. Say I will come in three days or so. "

But three days passed, a week passed; he still did not go. Happeningonce to drive past the Turkins' house, he thought he must go in, if only for a moment, but on second thoughts . . . Did not go in. 

And he never went to the Turkins' again. 

V

Several more years have passed. Startsev has grown stouter still, has grown corpulent, breathes heavily, and already walks with hishead thrown back. When stout and red in the face, he drives withhis bells and his team of three horses, and Panteleimon, also stoutand red in the face with his thick beefy neck, sits on the box, holding his arms stiffly out before him as though they were madeof wood, and shouts to those he meets: "Keep to the ri-i-ight!" itis an impressive picture; one might think it was not a mortal, butsome heathen deity in his chariot. He has an immense practice inthe town, no time to breathe, and already has an estate and twohouses in the town, and he is looking out for a third more profitable;and when at the Mutual Credit Bank he is told of a house that isfor sale, he goes to the house without ceremony, and, marchingthrough all the rooms, regardless of half-dressed women and childrenwho gaze at him in amazement and alarm, he prods at the doors withhis stick, and says:

"Is that the study? Is that a bedroom? And what's here?"

And as he does so he breathes heavily and wipes the sweat from hisbrow. 

He has a great deal to do, but still he does not give up his workas district doctor; he is greedy for gain, and he tries to be inall places at once. At Dyalizh and in the town he is called simply"Ionitch": "Where is Ionitch off to?" or "Should not we call inIonitch to a consultation?"

Probably because his throat is covered with rolls of fat, his voicehas changed; it has become thin and sharp. His temper has changed, too: he has grown ill-humoured and irritable. When he sees hispatients he is usually out of temper; he impatiently taps the floorwith his stick, and shouts in his disagreeable voice:

"Be so good as to confine yourself to answering my questions! Don'ttalk so much!"

He is solitary. He leads a dreary life; nothing interests him. 

During all the years he had lived at Dyalizh his love for Kittenhad been his one joy, and probably his last. In the evenings heplays _vint_ at the club, and then sits alone at a big table andhas supper. Ivan, the oldest and most respectable of the waiters, serves him, hands him Lafitte No. 17, and every one at the club--the members of the committee, the cook and waiters--know what helikes and what he doesn't like and do their very utmost to satisfyhim, or else he is sure to fly into a rage and bang on the floorwith his stick. 

As he eats his supper, he turns round from time to time and putsin his spoke in some conversation:

"What are you talking about? Eh? Whom?"

And when at a neighbouring table there is talk of the Turkins, heasks:

"What Turkins are you speaking of? Do you mean the people whosedaughter plays on the piano?"

That is all that can be said about him. 

And the Turkins? Ivan Petrovitch has grown no older; he is notchanged in the least, and still makes jokes and tells anecdotes asof old. Vera Iosifovna still reads her novels aloud to her visitorswith eagerness and touching simplicity. And Kitten plays the pianofor four hours every day. She has grown visibly older, is constantlyailing, and every autumn goes to the Crimea with her mother. WhenIvan Petrovitch sees them off at the station, he wipes his tearsas the train starts, and shouts:

"Good-bye, if you please. "

And he waves his handkerchief. 

THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY

IT is, as a rule, after losing heavily at cards or after a drinking-boutwhen an attack of dyspepsia is setting in that Stepan StepanitchZhilin wakes up in an exceptionally gloomy frame of mind. He lookssour, rumpled, and dishevelled; there is an expression of displeasureon his grey face, as though he were offended or disgusted bysomething. He dresses slowly, sips his Vichy water deliberately, and begins walking about the rooms. 

"I should like to know what b-b-beast comes in here and does notshut the door!" he grumbles angrily, wrapping his dressing-gownabout him and spitting loudly. "Take away that paper! Why is itlying about here? We keep twenty servants, and the place is moreuntidy than a pot-house. Who was that ringing? Who the devil isthat?"

"That's Anfissa, the midwife who brought our Fedya into the world, "answers his wife. 

"Always hanging about . . . These cadging toadies!"

"There's no making you out, Stepan Stepanitch. You asked her yourself, and now you scold. "

"I am not scolding; I am speaking. You might find something to do, my dear, instead of sitting with your hands in your lap trying topick a quarrel. Upon my word, women are beyond my comprehension!Beyond my comprehension! How can they waste whole days doing nothing?A man works like an ox, like a b-beast, while his wife, the partnerof his life, sits like a pretty doll, sits and does nothing butwatch for an opportunity to quarrel with her husband by way ofdiversion. It's time to drop these schoolgirlish ways, my dear. Youare not a schoolgirl, not a young lady; you are a wife and mother!You turn away? Aha! It's not agreeable to listen to the bittertruth!

"It's strange that you only speak the bitter truth when your liveris out of order. "

"That's right; get up a scene. "

"Have you been out late? Or playing cards?"

"What if I have? Is that anybody's business? Am I obliged to givean account of my doings to any one? It's my own money I lose, Isuppose? What I spend as well as what is spent in this house belongsto me--me. Do you hear? To me!"

And so on, all in the same style. But at no other time is StepanStepanitch so reasonable, virtuous, stern or just as at dinner, when all his household are sitting about him. It usually beginswith the soup. After swallowing the first spoonful Zhilin suddenlyfrowns and puts down his spoon. 

"Damn it all!" he mutters; "I shall have to dine at a restaurant, I suppose. "

"What's wrong?" asks his wife anxiously. "Isn't the soup good?"

"One must have the taste of a pig to eat hogwash like that! There'stoo much salt in it; it smells of dirty rags . . . More like bugsthan onions. . . . It's simply revolting, Anfissa Ivanovna, " hesays, addressing the midwife. "Every day I give no end of money forhousekeeping. . . . I deny myself everything, and this is what theyprovide for my dinner! I suppose they want me to give up the officeand go into the kitchen to do the cooking myself. "

"The soup is very good to-day, " the governess ventures timidly. 

"Oh, you think so?" says Zhilin, looking at her angrily from underhis eyelids. "Every one to his taste, of course. It must be confessedour tastes are very different, Varvara Vassilyevna. You, for instance, are satisfied with the behaviour of this boy" (Zhilin with a tragicgesture points to his son Fedya); "you are delighted with him, whileI . . . I am disgusted. Yes!"

Fedya, a boy of seven with a pale, sickly face, leaves off eatingand drops his eyes. His face grows paler still. 

"Yes, you are delighted, and I am disgusted. Which of us is right, I cannot say, but I venture to think as his father, I know my ownson better than you do. Look how he is sitting! Is that the waydecently brought up children sit? Sit properly. "

Fedya tilts his chin up, cranes his neck, and fancies that he isholding himself better. Tears come into his eyes. 

"Eat your dinner! Hold your spoon properly! You wait. I'll showyou, you horrid boy! Don't dare to whimper! Look straight at me!"

Fedya tries to look straight at him, but his face is quivering andhis eyes fill with tears. 

"A-ah! . . . You cry? You are naughty and then you cry? Go and standin the corner, you beast!"

"But . . . Let him have his dinner first, " his wife intervenes. 

"No dinner for him! Such bla . . . Such rascals don't deservedinner!"

Fedya, wincing and quivering all over, creeps down from his chairand goes into the corner. 

"You won't get off with that!" his parent persists. "If nobody elsecares to look after your bringing up, so be it; I must begin. . . . I won't let you be naughty and cry at dinner, my lad! Idiot! Youmust do your duty! Do you understand? Do your duty! Your fatherworks and you must work, too! No one must eat the bread of idleness!You must be a man! A m-man!"

"For God's sake, leave off, " says his wife in French. "Don't nagat us before outsiders, at least. . . . The old woman is all ears;and now, thanks to her, all the town will hear of it. "

"I am not afraid of outsiders, " answers Zhilin in Russian. "AnfissaIvanovna sees that I am speaking the truth. Why, do you think Iought to be pleased with the boy? Do you know what he costs me? Doyou know, you nasty boy, what you cost me? Or do you imagine thatI coin money, that I get it for nothing? Don't howl! Hold yourtongue! Do you hear what I say? Do you want me to whip you, youyoung ruffian?"

Fedya wails aloud and begins to sob. 

"This is insufferable, " says his mother, getting up from the tableand flinging down her dinner-napkin. "You never let us have dinnerin peace! Your bread sticks in my throat. "

And putting her handkerchief to her eyes, she walks out of thedining-room. 

"Now she is offended, " grumbles Zhilin, with a forced smile. "She'sbeen spoilt. . . . That's how it is, Anfissa Ivanovna; no one likesto hear the truth nowadays. . . . It's all my fault, it seems. "

Several minutes of silence follow. Zhilin looks round at the plates, and noticing that no one has yet touched their soup, heaves a deepsigh, and stares at the flushed and uneasy face of the governess. 

"Why don't you eat, Varvara Vassilyevna?" he asks. "Offended, Isuppose? I see. . . . You don't like to be told the truth. You mustforgive me, it's my nature; I can't be a hypocrite. . . . I alwaysblurt out the plain truth" (a sigh). "But I notice that my presenceis unwelcome. No one can eat or talk while I am here. . . . Well, you should have told me, and I would have gone away. . . . I willgo. "

Zhilin gets up and walks with dignity to the door. As he passes theweeping Fedya he stops. 

"After all that has passed here, you are free, " he says to Fedya, throwing back his head with dignity. "I won't meddle in your bringingup again. I wash my hands of it! I humbly apologise that as a father, from a sincere desire for your welfare, I have disturbed you andyour mentors. At the same time, once for all I disclaim allresponsibility for your future. . . . "

Fedya wails and sobs more loudly than ever. Zhilin turns with dignityto the door and departs to his bedroom. 

When he wakes from his after-dinner nap he begins to feel the stingsof conscience. He is ashamed to face his wife, his son, AnfissaIvanovna, and even feels very wretched when he recalls the sceneat dinner, but his amour-propre is too much for him; he has not themanliness to be frank, and he goes on sulking and grumbling. 

Waking up next morning, he feels in excellent spirits, and whistlesgaily as he washes. Going into the dining-room to breakfast, hefinds there Fedya, who, at the sight of his father, gets up andlooks at him helplessly. 

"Well, young man?" Zhilin greets him good-humouredly, sitting downto the table. "What have you got to tell me, young man? Are you allright? Well, come, chubby; give your father a kiss. "

With a pale, grave face Fedya goes up to his father and touches hischeek with his quivering lips, then walks away and sits down in hisplace without a word. 

THE BLACK MONK

I

ANDREY VASSILITCH KOVRIN, who held a master's degree at the University, had exhausted himself, and had upset his nerves. He did not sendfor a doctor, but casually, over a bottle of wine, he spoke to afriend who was a doctor, and the latter advised him to spend thespring and summer in the country. Very opportunely a long lettercame from Tanya Pesotsky, who asked him to come and stay with themat Borissovka. And he made up his mind that he really must go. 

To begin with--that was in April--he went to his own home, Kovrinka, and there spent three weeks in solitude; then, as soonas the roads were in good condition, he set off, driving in acarriage, to visit Pesotsky, his former guardian, who had broughthim up, and was a horticulturist well known all over Russia. Thedistance from Kovrinka to Borissovka was reckoned only a littleover fifty miles. To drive along a soft road in May in a comfortablecarriage with springs was a real pleasure. 

Pesotsky had an immense house with columns and lions, off which thestucco was peeling, and with a footman in swallow-tails at theentrance. The old park, laid out in the English style, gloomy andsevere, stretched for almost three-quarters of a mile to the river, and there ended in a steep, precipitous clay bank, where pines grewwith bare roots that looked like shaggy paws; the water shone belowwith an unfriendly gleam, and the peewits flew up with a plaintivecry, and there one always felt that one must sit down and write aballad. But near the house itself, in the courtyard and orchard, which together with the nurseries covered ninety acres, it was alllife and gaiety even in bad weather. Such marvellous roses, lilies, camellias; such tulips of all possible shades, from glistening whiteto sooty black--such a wealth of flowers, in fact, Kovrin hadnever seen anywhere as at Pesotsky's. It was only the beginning ofspring, and the real glory of the flower-beds was still hidden awayin the hot-houses. But even the flowers along the avenues, and hereand there in the flower-beds, were enough to make one feel, as onewalked about the garden, as though one were in a realm of tendercolours, especially in the early morning when the dew was glisteningon every petal. 

What was the decorative part of the garden, and what Pesotskycontemptuously spoke of as rubbish, had at one time in his childhoodgiven Kovrin an impression of fairyland. 

Every sort of caprice, of elaborate monstrosity and mockery atNature was here. There were espaliers of fruit-trees, a pear-treein the shape of a pyramidal poplar, spherical oaks and lime-trees, an apple-tree in the shape of an umbrella, plum-trees trained intoarches, crests, candelabra, and even into the number 1862--theyear when Pesotsky first took up horticulture. One came across, too, lovely, graceful trees with strong, straight stems like palms, and it was only by looking intently that one could recognise thesetrees as gooseberries or currants. But what made the garden mostcheerful and gave it a lively air, was the continual coming andgoing in it, from early morning till evening; people with wheelbarrows, shovels, and watering-cans swarmed round the trees and bushes, inthe avenues and the flower-beds, like ants. . . . 

Kovrin arrived at Pesotsky's at ten o'clock in the evening. He foundTanya and her father, Yegor Semyonitch, in great anxiety. The clearstarlight sky and the thermometer foretold a frost towards morning, and meanwhile Ivan Karlovitch, the gardener, had gone to the town, and they had no one to rely upon. At supper they talked of nothingbut the morning frost, and it was settled that Tanya should not goto bed, and between twelve and one should walk through the garden, and see that everything was done properly, and Yegor Semyonitchshould get up at three o'clock or even earlier. 

Kovrin sat with Tanya all the evening, and after midnight went outwith her into the garden. It was cold. There was a strong smell ofburning already in the garden. In the big orchard, which was calledthe commercial garden, and which brought Yegor Semyonitch severalthousand clear profit, a thick, black, acrid smoke was creepingover the ground and, curling around the trees, was saving thosethousands from the frost. Here the trees were arranged as on achessboard, in straight and regular rows like ranks of soldiers, and this severe pedantic regularity, and the fact that all the treeswere of the same size, and had tops and trunks all exactly alike, made them look monotonous and even dreary. Kovrin and Tanya walkedalong the rows where fires of dung, straw, and all sorts of refusewere smouldering, and from time to time they were met by labourerswho wandered in the smoke like shadows. The only trees in flowerwere the cherries, plums, and certain sorts of apples, but the wholegarden was plunged in smoke, and it was only near the nurseriesthat Kovrin could breathe freely. 

"Even as a child I used to sneeze from the smoke here, " he said, shrugging his shoulders, "but to this day I don't understand howsmoke can keep off frost. "

"Smoke takes the place of clouds when there are none . . . " answeredTanya. 

"And what do you want clouds for?"

"In overcast and cloudy weather there is no frost. "

"You don't say so. "

He laughed and took her arm. Her broad, very earnest face, chilledwith the frost, with her delicate black eyebrows, the turned-upcollar of her coat, which prevented her moving her head freely, andthe whole of her thin, graceful figure, with her skirts tucked upon account of the dew, touched him. 

"Good heavens! she is grown up, " he said. "When I went away fromhere last, five years ago, you were still a child. You were such athin, longlegged creature, with your hair hanging on your shoulders;you used to wear short frocks, and I used to tease you, calling youa heron. . . . What time does!"

"Yes, five years!" sighed Tanya. "Much water has flowed since then. Tell me, Andryusha, honestly, " she began eagerly, looking him inthe face: "do you feel strange with us now? But why do I ask you?You are a man, you live your own interesting life, you are somebody. . . . To grow apart is so natural! But however that may be, Andryusha, I want you to think of us as your people. We have a right to that. "

"I do, Tanya. "

"On your word of honour?"

"Yes, on my word of honour. "

"You were surprised this evening that we have so many of yourphotographs. You know my father adores you. Sometimes it seems tome that he loves you more than he does me. He is proud of you. Youare a clever, extraordinary man, you have made a brilliant careerfor yourself, and he is persuaded that you have turned out likethis because he brought you up. I don't try to prevent him fromthinking so. Let him. "

Dawn was already beginning, and that was especially perceptiblefrom the distinctness with which the coils of smoke and the topsof the trees began to stand out in the air. 

"It's time we were asleep, though, " said Tanya, "and it's cold, too. " She took his arm. "Thank you for coming, Andryusha. We haveonly uninteresting acquaintances, and not many of them. We haveonly the garden, the garden, the garden, and nothing else. Standards, half-standards, " she laughed. "Aports, Reinettes, Borovinkas, buddedstocks, grafted stocks. . . . All, all our life has gone into thegarden. I never even dream of anything but apples and pears. Ofcourse, it is very nice and useful, but sometimes one longs forsomething else for variety. I remember that when you used to cometo us for the summer holidays, or simply a visit, it always seemedto be fresher and brighter in the house, as though the covers hadbeen taken off the lustres and the furniture. I was only a littlegirl then, but yet I understood it. "

She talked a long while and with great feeling. For some reason theidea came into his head that in the course of the summer he mightgrow fond of this little, weak, talkative creature, might be carriedaway and fall in love; in their position it was so possible andnatural! This thought touched and amused him; he bent down to hersweet, preoccupied face and hummed softly:

 "'Onyegin, I won't conceal it; I madly love Tatiana. . . . '"

By the time they reached the house, Yegor Semyonitch had got up. Kovrin did not feel sleepy; he talked to the old man and went tothe garden with him. Yegor Semyonitch was a tall, broad-shouldered, corpulent man, and he suffered from asthma, yet he walked so fastthat it was hard work to hurry after him. He had an extremelypreoccupied air; he was always hurrying somewhere, with an expressionthat suggested that if he were one minute late all would be ruined!

"Here is a business, brother . . . " he began, standing still totake breath. "On the surface of the ground, as you see, is frost;but if you raise the thermometer on a stick fourteen feet above theground, there it is warm. . . . Why is that?"

"I really don't know, " said Kovrin, and he laughed. 

"H'm! . . . One can't know everything, of course. . . . Howeverlarge the intellect may be, you can't find room for everything init. I suppose you still go in chiefly for philosophy?"

"Yes, I lecture in psychology; I am working at philosophy in general. "

"And it does not bore you?"

"On the contrary, it's all I live for. "

"Well, God bless you! . . . " said Yegor Semyonitch, meditativelystroking his grey whiskers. "God bless you! . . . I am delightedabout you . . . Delighted, my boy. . . . "

But suddenly he listened, and, with a terrible face, ran off andquickly disappeared behind the trees in a cloud of smoke. 

"Who tied this horse to an apple-tree?" Kovrin heard his despairing, heart-rending cry. "Who is the low scoundrel who has dared to tiethis horse to an apple-tree? My God, my God! They have ruinedeverything; they have spoilt everything; they have done everythingfilthy, horrible, and abominable. The orchard's done for, theorchard's ruined. My God!"

When he came back to Kovrin, his face looked exhausted and mortified. 

"What is one to do with these accursed people?" he said in a tearfulvoice, flinging up his hands. "Styopka was carting dung at night, and tied the horse to an apple-tree! He twisted the reins round it, the rascal, as tightly as he could, so that the bark is rubbed offin three places. What do you think of that! I spoke to him and hestands like a post and only blinks his eyes. Hanging is too goodfor him. "

Growing calmer, he embraced Kovrin and kissed him on the cheek. 

"Well, God bless you! . . . God bless you! . . . " he muttered. "Iam very glad you have come. Unutterably glad. . . . Thank you. "

Then, with the same rapid step and preoccupied face, he made theround of the whole garden, and showed his former ward all hisgreenhouses and hot-houses, his covered-in garden, and two apiarieswhich he called the marvel of our century. 

While they were walking the sun rose, flooding the garden withbrilliant light. It grew warm. Foreseeing a long, bright, cheerfulday, Kovrin recollected that it was only the beginning of May, andthat he had before him a whole summer as bright, cheerful, and long;and suddenly there stirred in his bosom a joyous, youthful feeling, such as he used to experience in his childhood, running about inthat garden. And he hugged the old man and kissed him affectionately. Both of them, feeling touched, went indoors and drank tea out ofold-fashioned china cups, with cream and satisfying krendels madewith milk and eggs; and these trifles reminded Kovrin again of hischildhood and boyhood. The delightful present was blended with theimpressions of the past that stirred within him; there was a tightnessat his heart; yet he was happy. 

He waited till Tanya was awake and had coffee with her, went for awalk, then went to his room and sat down to work. He read attentively, making notes, and from time to time raised his eyes to look out atthe open windows or at the fresh, still dewy flowers in the vaseson the table; and again he dropped his eyes to his book, and itseemed to him as though every vein in his body was quivering andfluttering with pleasure. 

II

In the country he led just as nervous and restless a life as intown. He read and wrote a great deal, he studied Italian, and whenhe was out for a walk, thought with pleasure that he would soon sitdown to work again. He slept so little that every one wondered athim; if he accidentally dozed for half an hour in the daytime, hewould lie awake all night, and, after a sleepless night, would feelcheerful and vigorous as though nothing had happened. 

He talked a great deal, drank wine, and smoked expensive cigars. Very often, almost every day, young ladies of neighbouring familieswould come to the Pesotskys', and would sing and play the pianowith Tanya; sometimes a young neighbour who was a good violinistwould come, too. Kovrin listened with eagerness to the music andsinging, and was exhausted by it, and this showed itself by hiseyes closing and his head falling to one side. 

One day he was sitting on the balcony after evening tea, reading. At the same time, in the drawing-room, Tanya taking soprano, oneof the young ladies a contralto, and the young man with his violin, were practising a well-known serenade of Braga's. Kovrin listenedto the words--they were Russian--and could not understand theirmeaning. At last, leaving his book and listening attentively, heunderstood: a maiden, full of sick fancies, heard one night in hergarden mysterious sounds, so strange and lovely that she was obligedto recognise them as a holy harmony which is unintelligible to usmortals, and so flies back to heaven. Kovrin's eyes began to close. He got up, and in exhaustion walked up and down the drawing-room, and then the dining-room. When the singing was over he took Tanya'sarm, and with her went out on the balcony. 

"I have been all day thinking of a legend, " he said. "I don'tremember whether I have read it somewhere or heard it, but it is astrange and almost grotesque legend. To begin with, it is somewhatobscure. A thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, wanderedabout the desert, somewhere in Syria or Arabia. . . . Some milesfrom where he was, some fisherman saw another black monk, who wasmoving slowly over the surface of a lake. This second monk was amirage. Now forget all the laws of optics, which the legend doesnot recognise, and listen to the rest. From that mirage there wascast another mirage, then from that other a third, so that the imageof the black monk began to be repeated endlessly from one layer ofthe atmosphere to another. So that he was seen at one time in Africa, at another in Spain, then in Italy, then in the Far North. . . . Then he passed out of the atmosphere of the earth, and now he iswandering all over the universe, still never coming into conditionsin which he might disappear. Possibly he may be seen now in Marsor in some star of the Southern Cross. But, my dear, the real pointon which the whole legend hangs lies in the fact that, exactly athousand years from the day when the monk walked in the desert, themirage will return to the atmosphere of the earth again and willappear to men. And it seems that the thousand years is almost up. . . . According to the legend, we may look out for the black monkto-day or to-morrow. "

"A queer mirage, " said Tanya, who did not like the legend. 

"But the most wonderful part of it all, " laughed Kovrin, "is thatI simply cannot recall where I got this legend from. Have I readit somewhere? Have I heard it? Or perhaps I dreamed of the blackmonk. I swear I don't remember. But the legend interests me. I havebeen thinking about it all day. "

Letting Tanya go back to her visitors, he went out of the house, and, lost in meditation, walked by the flower-beds. The sun wasalready setting. The flowers, having just been watered, gave fortha damp, irritating fragrance. Indoors they began singing again, andin the distance the violin had the effect of a human voice. Kovrin, racking his brains to remember where he had read or heard the legend, turned slowly towards the park, and unconsciously went as far asthe river. By a little path that ran along the steep bank, betweenthe bare roots, he went down to the water, disturbed the peewitsthere and frightened two ducks. The last rays of the setting sunstill threw light here and there on the gloomy pines, but it wasquite dark on the surface of the river. Kovrin crossed to the otherside by the narrow bridge. Before him lay a wide field covered withyoung rye not yet in blossom. There was no living habitation, noliving soul in the distance, and it seemed as though the littlepath, if one went along it, would take one to the unknown, mysteriousplace where the sun had just gone down, and where the evening glowwas flaming in immensity and splendour. 

"How open, how free, how still it is here!" thought Kovrin, walkingalong the path. "And it feels as though all the world were watchingme, hiding and waiting for me to understand it. . . . "

But then waves began running across the rye, and a light eveningbreeze softly touched his uncovered head. A minute later there wasanother gust of wind, but stronger--the rye began rustling, andhe heard behind him the hollow murmur of the pines. Kovrin stoodstill in amazement. From the horizon there rose up to the sky, likea whirlwind or a waterspout, a tall black column. Its outline wasindistinct, but from the first instant it could be seen that it wasnot standing still, but moving with fearful rapidity, moving straighttowards Kovrin, and the nearer it came the smaller and the moredistinct it was. Kovrin moved aside into the rye to make way forit, and only just had time to do so. 

A monk, dressed in black, with a grey head and black eyebrows, hisarms crossed over his breast, floated by him. . . . His bare feetdid not touch the earth. After he had floated twenty feet beyondhim, he looked round at Kovrin, and nodded to him with a friendlybut sly smile. But what a pale, fearfully pale, thin face! Beginningto grow larger again, he flew across the river, collided noiselesslywith the clay bank and pines, and passing through them, vanishedlike smoke. 

"Why, you see, " muttered Kovrin, "there must be truth in the legend. "

Without trying to explain to himself the strange apparition, gladthat he had succeeded in seeing so near and so distinctly, not onlythe monk's black garments, but even his face and eyes, agreeablyexcited, he went back to the house. 

In the park and in the garden people were moving about quietly, inthe house they were playing--so he alone had seen the monk. Hehad an intense desire to tell Tanya and Yegor Semyonitch, but hereflected that they would certainly think his words the ravings ofdelirium, and that would frighten them; he had better say nothing. 

He laughed aloud, sang, and danced the mazurka; he was in highspirits, and all of them, the visitors and Tanya, thought he had apeculiar look, radiant and inspired, and that he was very interesting. 

III

After supper, when the visitors had gone, he went to his room andlay down on the sofa: he wanted to think about the monk. But aminute later Tanya came in. 

"Here, Andryusha; read father's articles, " she said, giving him abundle of pamphlets and proofs. "They are splendid articles. Hewrites capitally. "

"Capitally, indeed!" said Yegor Semyonitch, following her and smilingconstrainedly; he was ashamed. "Don't listen to her, please; don'tread them! Though, if you want to go to sleep, read them by allmeans; they are a fine soporific. "

"I think they are splendid articles, " said Tanya, with deep conviction. "You read them, Andryusha, and persuade father to write oftener. He could write a complete manual of horticulture. "

Yegor Semyonitch gave a forced laugh, blushed, and began utteringthe phrases usually made us of by an embarrassed author. At lasthe began to give way. 

"In that case, begin with Gaucher's article and these Russianarticles, " he muttered, turning over the pamphlets with a tremblinghand, "or else you won't understand. Before you read my objections, you must know what I am objecting to. But it's all nonsense . . . Tiresome stuff. Besides, I believe it's bedtime. "

Tanya went away. Yegor Semyonitch sat down on the sofa by Kovrinand heaved a deep sigh. 

"Yes, my boy . . . " he began after a pause. "That's how it is, mydear lecturer. Here I write articles, and take part in exhibitions, and receive medals. . . . Pesotsky, they say, has apples the sizeof a head, and Pesotsky, they say, has made his fortune with hisgarden. In short, 'Kotcheby is rich and glorious. ' But one asksoneself: what is it all for? The garden is certainly fine, a model. It's not really a garden, but a regular institution, which is ofthe greatest public importance because it marks, so to say, a newera in Russian agriculture and Russian industry. But, what's itfor? What's the object of it?"

"The fact speaks for itself. "

"I do not mean in that sense. I meant to ask: what will happen tothe garden when I die? In the condition in which you see it now, it would not be maintained for one month without me. The wholesecret of success lies not in its being a big garden or a greatnumber of labourers being employed in it, but in the fact that Ilove the work. Do you understand? I love it perhaps more than myself. Look at me; I do everything myself. I work from morning to night:I do all the grafting myself, the pruning myself, the plantingmyself. I do it all myself: when any one helps me I am jealous andirritable till I am rude. The whole secret lies in loving it--that is, in the sharp eye of the master; yes, and in the master'shands, and in the feeling that makes one, when one goes anywherefor an hour's visit, sit, ill at ease, with one's heart far away, afraid that something may have happened in the garden. But when Idie, who will look after it? Who will work? The gardener? Thelabourers? Yes? But I will tell you, my dear fellow, the worst enemyin the garden is not a hare, not a cockchafer, and not the frost, but any outside person. "

"And Tanya?" asked Kovrin, laughing. "She can't be more harmfulthan a hare? She loves the work and understands it. "

"Yes, she loves it and understands it. If after my death the gardengoes to her and she is the mistress, of course nothing better couldbe wished. But if, which God forbid, she should marry, " YegorSemyonitch whispered, and looked with a frightened look at Kovrin, "that's just it. If she marries and children come, she will haveno time to think about the garden. What I fear most is: she willmarry some fine gentleman, and he will be greedy, and he will letthe garden to people who will run it for profit, and everythingwill go to the devil the very first year! In our work females arethe scourge of God!"

Yegor Semyonitch sighed and paused for a while. 

"Perhaps it is egoism, but I tell you frankly: I don't want Tanyato get married. I am afraid of it! There is one young dandy comesto see us, bringing his violin and scraping on it; I know Tanyawill not marry him, I know it quite well; but I can't bear to seehim! Altogether, my boy, I am very queer. I know that. "

Yegor Semyonitch got up and walked about the room in excitement, and it was evident that he wanted to say something very important, but could not bring himself to it. 

"I am very fond of you, and so I am going to speak to you openly, "he decided at last, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I dealplainly with certain delicate questions, and say exactly what Ithink, and I cannot endure so-called hidden thoughts. I will speakplainly: you are the only man to whom I should not be afraid tomarry my daughter. You are a clever man with a good heart, and wouldnot let my beloved work go to ruin; and the chief reason is that Ilove you as a son, and I am proud of you. If Tanya and you couldget up a romance somehow, then--well! I should be very glad andeven happy. I tell you this plainly, without mincing matters, likean honest man. "

Kovrin laughed. Yegor Semyonitch opened the door to go out, andstood in the doorway. 

"If Tanya and you had a son, I would make a horticulturist of him, "he said, after a moment's thought. "However, this is idle dreaming. Goodnight. "

Left alone, Kovrin settled himself more comfortably on the sofa andtook up the articles. The title of one was "On Intercropping"; ofanother, "A few Words on the Remarks of Monsieur Z. Concerning theTrenching of the Soil for a New Garden"; a third, "Additional Matterconcerning Grafting with a Dormant Bud"; and they were all of thesame sort. But what a restless, jerky tone! What nervous, almosthysterical passion! Here was an article, one would have thought, with most peaceable and impersonal contents: the subject of it wasthe Russian Antonovsky Apple. But Yegor Semyonitch began it with"Audiatur altera pars, " and finished it with "Sapienti sat"; andbetween these two quotations a perfect torrent of venomous phrasesdirected "at the learned ignorance of our recognised horticulturalauthorities, who observe Nature from the height of their universitychairs, " or at Monsieur Gaucher, "whose success has been the workof the vulgar and the dilettanti. " "And then followed an inappropriate, affected, and insincere regret that peasants who stole fruit andbroke the branches could not nowadays be flogged. 

"It is beautiful, charming, healthy work, but even in this thereis strife and passion, " thought Kovrin, "I suppose that everywhereand in all careers men of ideas are nervous, and marked by exaggeratedsensitiveness. Most likely it must be so. "

He thought of Tanya, who was so pleased with Yegor Semyonitch'sarticles. Small, pale, and so thin that her shoulder-blades stuckout, her eyes, wide and open, dark and intelligent, had an intentgaze, as though looking for something. She walked like her fatherwith a little hurried step. She talked a great deal and was fondof arguing, accompanying every phrase, however insignificant, withexpressive mimicry and gesticulation. No doubt she was nervous inthe extreme. 

Kovrin went on reading the articles, but he understood nothing ofthem, and flung them aside. The same pleasant excitement with whichhe had earlier in the evening danced the mazurka and listened tothe music was now mastering him again and rousing a multitude ofthoughts. He got up and began walking about the room, thinking aboutthe black monk. It occurred to him that if this strange, supernaturalmonk had appeared to him only, that meant that he was ill and hadreached the point of having hallucinations. This reflection frightenedhim, but not for long. 

"But I am all right, and I am doing no harm to any one; so thereis no harm in my hallucinations, " he thought; and he felt happyagain. 

He sat down on the sofa and clasped his hands round his head. Restraining the unaccountable joy which filled his whole being, hethen paced up and down again, and sat down to his work. But thethought that he read in the book did not satisfy him. He wantedsomething gigantic, unfathomable, stupendous. Towards morning heundressed and reluctantly went to bed: he ought to sleep. 

When he heard the footsteps of Yegor Semyonitch going out into thegarden, Kovrin rang the bell and asked the footman to bring himsome wine. He drank several glasses of Lafitte, then wrapped himselfup, head and all; his consciousness grew clouded and he fell asleep. 

IV

Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya often quarrelled and said nasty thingsto each other. 

They quarrelled about something that morning. Tanya burst out cryingand went to her room. She would not come down to dinner nor to tea. At first Yegor Semyonitch went about looking sulky and dignified, as though to give every one to understand that for him the claimsof justice and good order were more important than anything elsein the world; but he could not keep it up for long, and soon sankinto depression. He walked about the park dejectedly, continuallysighing: "Oh, my God! My God!" and at dinner did not eat a morsel. At last, guilty and conscience-stricken, he knocked at the lockeddoor and called timidly:

"Tanya! Tanya!"

And from behind the door came a faint voice, weak with crying butstill determined:

"Leave me alone, if you please. "

The depression of the master and mistress was reflected in the wholehousehold, even in the labourers working in the garden. Kovrin wasabsorbed in his interesting work, but at last he, too, felt drearyand uncomfortable. To dissipate the general ill-humour in some way, he made up his mind to intervene, and towards evening he knockedat Tanya's door. He was admitted. 

"Fie, fie, for shame!" he began playfully, looking with surpriseat Tanya's tear-stained, woebegone face, flushed in patches withcrying. "Is it really so serious? Fie, fie!"

"But if you knew how he tortures me!" she said, and floods ofscalding tears streamed from her big eyes. "He torments me to death, "she went on, wringing her hands. "I said nothing to him . . . Nothing. . . I only said that there was no need to keep . . . Too manylabourers . . . If we could hire them by the day when we wantedthem. You know . . . You know the labourers have been doing nothingfor a whole week. . . . I . . . I . . . Only said that, and heshouted and . . . Said . . . A lot of horrible insulting things tome. What for?"

"There, there, " said Kovrin, smoothing her hair. "You've quarrelledwith each other, you've cried, and that's enough. You must not beangry for long--that's wrong . . . All the more as he loves youbeyond everything. "

"He has . . . Has spoiled my whole life, " Tanya went on, sobbing. "I hear nothing but abuse and . . . Insults. He thinks I am of nouse in the house. Well! He is right. I shall go away to-morrow; Ishall become a telegraph clerk. . . . I don't care. . . . "

"Come, come, come. . . . You mustn't cry, Tanya. You mustn't, dear. . . . You are both hot-tempered and irritable, and you are both toblame. Come along; I will reconcile you. "

Kovrin talked affectionately and persuasively, while she went oncrying, twitching her shoulders and wringing her hands, as thoughsome terrible misfortune had really befallen her. He felt all thesorrier for her because her grief was not a serious one, yet shesuffered extremely. What trivialities were enough to make thislittle creature miserable for a whole day, perhaps for her wholelife! Comforting Tanya, Kovrin thought that, apart from this girland her father, he might hunt the world over and would not findpeople who would love him as one of themselves, as one of theirkindred. If it had not been for those two he might very likely, having lost his father and mother in early childhood, never to theday of his death have known what was meant by genuine affection andthat naïve, uncritical love which is only lavished on very closeblood relations; and he felt that the nerves of this weeping, shakinggirl responded to his half-sick, overstrained nerves like iron toa magnet. He never could have loved a healthy, strong, rosy-cheekedwoman, but pale, weak, unhappy Tanya attracted him. 

And he liked stroking her hair and her shoulders, pressing her handand wiping away her tears. . . . At last she left off crying. Shewent on for a long time complaining of her father and her hard, insufferable life in that house, entreating Kovrin to put himselfin her place; then she began, little by little, smiling, and sighingthat God had given her such a bad temper. At last, laughing aloud, she called herself a fool, and ran out of the room. 

When a little later Kovrin went into the garden, Yegor Semyonitchand Tanya were walking side by side along an avenue as though nothinghad happened, and both were eating rye bread with salt on it, asboth were hungry. 

V

Glad that he had been so successful in the part of peacemaker, Kovrin went into the park. Sitting on a garden seat, thinking, heheard the rattle of a carriage and a feminine laugh--visitorswere arriving. When the shades of evening began falling on thegarden, the sounds of the violin and singing voices reached himindistinctly, and that reminded him of the black monk. Where, inwhat land or in what planet, was that optical absurdity moving now?

Hardly had he recalled the legend and pictured in his imaginationthe dark apparition he had seen in the rye-field, when, from behinda pine-tree exactly opposite, there came out noiselessly, withoutthe slightest rustle, a man of medium height with uncovered greyhead, all in black, and barefooted like a beggar, and his blackeyebrows stood out conspicuously on his pale, death-like face. Nodding his head graciously, this beggar or pilgrim came noiselesslyto the seat and sat down, and Kovrin recognised him as the blackmonk. 

For a minute they looked at one another, Kovrin with amazement, andthe monk with friendliness, and, just as before, a little slyness, as though he were thinking something to himself. 

"But you are a mirage, " said Kovrin. "Why are you here and sittingstill? That does not fit in with the legend. "

"That does not matter, " the monk answered in a low voice, notimmediately turning his face towards him. "The legend, the mirage, and I are all the products of your excited imagination. I am aphantom. "

"Then you don't exist?" said Kovrin. 

"You can think as you like, " said the monk, with a faint smile. "Iexist in your imagination, and your imagination is part of nature, so I exist in nature. "

"You have a very old, wise, and extremely expressive face, as thoughyou really had lived more than a thousand years, " said Kovrin. "Idid not know that my imagination was capable of creating suchphenomena. But why do you look at me with such enthusiasm? Do youlike me?"

"Yes, you are one of those few who are justly called the chosen ofGod. You do the service of eternal truth. Your thoughts, yourdesigns, the marvellous studies you are engaged in, and all yourlife, bear the Divine, the heavenly stamp, seeing that they areconsecrated to the rational and the beautiful--that is, to whatis eternal. "

"You said 'eternal truth. ' . . . But is eternal truth of use to manand within his reach, if there is no eternal life?"

"There is eternal life, " said the monk. 

"Do you believe in the immortality of man?"

"Yes, of course. A grand, brilliant future is in store for you men. And the more there are like you on earth, the sooner will thisfuture be realised. Without you who serve the higher principle andlive in full understanding and freedom, mankind would be of littleaccount; developing in a natural way, it would have to wait a longtime for the end of its earthly history. You will lead it somethousands of years earlier into the kingdom of eternal truth--andtherein lies your supreme service. You are the incarnation of theblessing of God, which rests upon men. "

"And what is the object of eternal life?" asked Kovrin. 

"As of all life--enjoyment. True enjoyment lies in knowledge, andeternal life provides innumerable and inexhaustible sources ofknowledge, and in that sense it has been said: 'In My Father's housethere are many mansions. '"

"If only you knew how pleasant it is to hear you!" said Kovrin, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 

"I am very glad. "

"But I know that when you go away I shall be worried by the questionof your reality. You are a phantom, an hallucination. So I ammentally deranged, not normal?"

"What if you are? Why trouble yourself? You are ill because youhave overworked and exhausted yourself, and that means that youhave sacrificed your health to the idea, and the time is near athand when you will give up life itself to it. What could be better?That is the goal towards which all divinely endowed, noble naturesstrive. "

"If I know I am mentally affected, can I trust myself?"

"And are you sure that the men of genius, whom all men trust, didnot see phantoms, too? The learned say now that genius is alliedto madness. My friend, healthy and normal people are only the commonherd. Reflections upon the neurasthenia of the age, nervous exhaustionand degeneracy, et cetera, can only seriously agitate those whoplace the object of life in the present--that is, the commonherd. "

"The Romans used to say: _Mens sana in corpore sano. _"

"Not everything the Greeks and the Romans said is true. Exaltation, enthusiasm, ecstasy--all that distinguishes prophets, poets, martyrs for the idea, from the common folk--is repellent to theanimal side of man--that is, his physical health. I repeat, ifyou want to be healthy and normal, go to the common herd. "

"Strange that you repeat what often comes into my mind, " said Kovrin. "It is as though you had seen and overheard my secret thoughts. Butdon't let us talk about me. What do you mean by 'eternal truth'?"

The monk did not answer. Kovrin looked at him and could not distinguishhis face. His features grew blurred and misty. Then the monk's headand arms disappeared; his body seemed merged into the seat and theevening twilight, and he vanished altogether. 

"The hallucination is over, " said Kovrin; and he laughed. "It's apity. "

He went back to the house, light-hearted and happy. The little themonk had said to him had flattered, not his vanity, but his wholesoul, his whole being. To be one of the chosen, to serve eternaltruth, to stand in the ranks of those who could make mankind worthyof the kingdom of God some thousands of years sooner--that is, to free men from some thousands of years of unnecessary struggle, sin, and suffering; to sacrifice to the idea everything--youth, strength, health; to be ready to die for the common weal--whatan exalted, what a happy lot! He recalled his past--pure, chaste, laborious; he remembered what he had learned himself and what hehad taught to others, and decided that there was no exaggerationin the monk's words. 

Tanya came to meet him in the park: she was by now wearing a differentdress. 

"Are you here?" she said. "And we have been looking and looking foryou. . . . But what is the matter with you?" she asked in wonder, glancing at his radiant, ecstatic face and eyes full of tears. "Howstrange you are, Andryusha!"

"I am pleased, Tanya, " said Kovrin, laying his hand on her shoulders. "I am more than pleased: I am happy. Tanya, darling Tanya, you arean extraordinary, nice creature. Dear Tanya, I am so glad, I am soglad!"

He kissed both her hands ardently, and went on:

"I have just passed through an exalted, wonderful, unearthly moment. But I can't tell you all about it or you would call me mad and notbelieve me. Let us talk of you. Dear, delightful Tanya! I love you, and am used to loving you. To have you near me, to meet you a dozentimes a day, has become a necessity of my existence; I don't knowhow I shall get on without you when I go back home. "

"Oh, " laughed Tanya, "you will forget about us in two days. We arehumble people and you are a great man. "

"No; let us talk in earnest!" he said. "I shall take you with me, Tanya. Yes? Will you come with me? Will you be mine?"

"Come, " said Tanya, and tried to laugh again, but the laugh wouldnot come, and patches of colour came into her face. 

She began breathing quickly and walked very quickly, but not to thehouse, but further into the park. 

"I was not thinking of it . . . I was not thinking of it, " she said, wringing her hands in despair. 

And Kovrin followed her and went on talking, with the same radiant, enthusiastic face:

"I want a love that will dominate me altogether; and that love onlyyou, Tanya, can give me. I am happy! I am happy!"

She was overwhelmed, and huddling and shrinking together, seemedten years older all at once, while he thought her beautiful andexpressed his rapture aloud:

"How lovely she is!"

VI

Learning from Kovrin that not only a romance had been got up, butthat there would even be a wedding, Yegor Semyonitch spent a longtime in pacing from one corner of the room to the other, trying toconceal his agitation. His hands began trembling, his neck swelledand turned purple, he ordered his racing droshky and drove offsomewhere. Tanya, seeing how he lashed the horse, and seeing howhe pulled his cap over his ears, understood what he was feeling, shut herself up in her room, and cried the whole day. 

In the hot-houses the peaches and plums were already ripe; thepacking and sending off of these tender and fragile goods to Moscowtook a great deal of care, work, and trouble. Owing to the factthat the summer was very hot and dry, it was necessary to waterevery tree, and a great deal of time and labour was spent on doingit. Numbers of caterpillars made their appearance, which, to Kovrin'sdisgust, the labourers and even Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya squashedwith their fingers. In spite of all that, they had already to bookautumn orders for fruit and trees, and to carry on a great deal ofcorrespondence. And at the very busiest time, when no one seemedto have a free moment, the work of the fields carried off more thanhalf their labourers from the garden. Yegor Semyonitch, sunburnt, exhausted, ill-humoured, galloped from the fields to the garden andback again; cried that he was being torn to pieces, and that heshould put a bullet through his brains. 

Then came the fuss and worry of the trousseau, to which the Pesotskysattached a good deal of importance. Every one's head was in a whirlfrom the snipping of the scissors, the rattle of the sewing-machine, the smell of hot irons, and the caprices of the dressmaker, a huffyand nervous lady. And, as ill-luck would have it, visitors cameevery day, who had to be entertained, fed, and even put up for thenight. But all this hard labour passed unnoticed as though in afog. Tanya felt that love and happiness had taken her unawares, though she had, since she was fourteen, for some reason been convincedthat Kovrin would marry her and no one else. She was bewildered, could not grasp it, could not believe herself. . . . At one minutesuch joy would swoop down upon her that she longed to fly away tothe clouds and there pray to God, at another moment she wouldremember that in August she would have to part from her home andleave her father; or, goodness knows why, the idea would occur toher that she was worthless--insignificant and unworthy of a greatman like Kovrin--and she would go to her room, lock herself in, and cry bitterly for several hours. When there were visitors, shewould suddenly fancy that Kovrin looked extraordinarily handsome, and that all the women were in love with him and envying her, andher soul was filled with pride and rapture, as though she hadvanquished the whole world; but he had only to smile politely atany young lady for her to be trembling with jealousy, to retreatto her room--and tears again. These new sensations mastered hercompletely; she helped her father mechanically, without noticingpeaches, caterpillars or labourers, or how rapidly the time waspassing. 

It was almost the same with Yegor Semyonitch. He worked from morningtill night, was always in a hurry, was irritable, and flew intorages, but all of this was in a sort of spellbound dream. It seemedas though there were two men in him: one was the real Yegor Semyonitch, who was moved to indignation, and clutched his head in despair whenhe heard of some irregularity from Ivan Karlovitch the gardener;and another--not the real one--who seemed as though he werehalf drunk, would interrupt a business conversation at half a word, touch the gardener on the shoulder, and begin muttering:

"Say what you like, there is a great deal in blood. His mother wasa wonderful woman, most high-minded and intelligent. It was apleasure to look at her good, candid, pure face; it was like theface of an angel. She drew splendidly, wrote verses, spoke fiveforeign languages, sang. . . . Poor thing! she died of consumption. The Kingdom of Heaven be hers. "

The unreal Yegor Semyonitch sighed, and after a pause went on:

"When he was a boy and growing up in my house, he had the sameangelic face, good and candid. The way he looks and talks and movesis as soft and elegant as his mother's. And his intellect! We werealways struck with his intelligence. To be sure, it's not for nothinghe's a Master of Arts! It's not for nothing! And wait a bit, IvanKarlovitch, what will he be in ten years' time? He will be far aboveus!"

But at this point the real Yegor Semyonitch, suddenly coming tohimself, would make a terrible face, would clutch his head and cry:

"The devils! They have spoilt everything! They have ruined everything!They have spoilt everything! The garden's done for, the garden'sruined!"

Kovrin, meanwhile, worked with the same ardour as before, and didnot notice the general commotion. Love only added fuel to the flames. After every talk with Tanya he went to his room, happy and triumphant, took up his book or his manuscript with the same passion with whichhe had just kissed Tanya and told her of his love. What the blackmonk had told him of the chosen of God, of eternal truth, of thebrilliant future of mankind and so on, gave peculiar and extraordinarysignificance to his work, and filled his soul with pride and theconsciousness of his own exalted consequence. Once or twice a week, in the park or in the house, he met the black monk and had longconversations with him, but this did not alarm him, but, on thecontrary, delighted him, as he was now firmly persuaded that suchapparitions only visited the elect few who rise up above theirfellows and devote themselves to the service of the idea. 

One day the monk appeared at dinner-time and sat in the dining-roomwindow. Kovrin was delighted, and very adroitly began a conversationwith Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya of what might be of interest to themonk; the black-robed visitor listened and nodded his head graciously, and Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya listened, too, and smiled gailywithout suspecting that Kovrin was not talking to them but to hishallucination. 

Imperceptibly the fast of the Assumption was approaching, and soonafter came the wedding, which, at Yegor Semyonitch's urgent desire, was celebrated with "a flourish"--that is, with senseless festivitiesthat lasted for two whole days and nights. Three thousand roubles'worth of food and drink was consumed, but the music of the wretchedhired band, the noisy toasts, the scurrying to and fro of thefootmen, the uproar and crowding, prevented them from appreciatingthe taste of the expensive wines and wonderful delicacies orderedfrom Moscow. 

VII

One long winter night Kovrin was lying in bed, reading a Frenchnovel. Poor Tanya, who had headaches in the evenings from livingin town, to which she was not accustomed, had been asleep a longwhile, and, from time to time, articulated some incoherent phrasein her restless dreams. 

It struck three o'clock. Kovrin put out the light and lay down tosleep, lay for a long time with his eyes closed, but could not getto sleep because, as he fancied, the room was very hot and Tanyatalked in her sleep. At half-past four he lighted the candle again, and this time he saw the black monk sitting in an arm-chair nearthe bed. 

"Good-morning, " said the monk, and after a brief pause he asked:"What are you thinking of now?"

"Of fame, " answered Kovrin. "In the French novel I have just beenreading, there is a description of a young _savant_, who does sillythings and pines away through worrying about fame. I can't understandsuch anxiety. "

"Because you are wise. Your attitude towards fame is one ofindifference, as towards a toy which no longer interests you. "

"Yes, that is true. "

"Renown does not allure you now. What is there flattering, amusing, or edifying in their carving your name on a tombstone, then timerubbing off the inscription together with the gilding? Moreover, happily there are too many of you for the weak memory of mankindto be able to retain your names. "

"Of course, " assented Kovrin. "Besides, why should they be remembered?But let us talk of something else. Of happiness, for instance. Whatis happiness?"

When the clock struck five, he was sitting on the bed, dangling hisfeet to the carpet, talking to the monk:

"In ancient times a happy man grew at last frightened of his happiness--it was so great!--and to propitiate the gods he brought as asacrifice his favourite ring. Do you know, I, too, like Polykrates, begin to be uneasy of my happiness. It seems strange to me thatfrom morning to night I feel nothing but joy; it fills my wholebeing and smothers all other feelings. I don't know what sadness, grief, or boredom is. Here I am not asleep; I suffer from sleeplessness, but I am not dull. I say it in earnest; I begin to feel perplexed. "

"But why?" the monk asked in wonder. "Is joy a supernatural feeling?Ought it not to be the normal state of man? The more highly a manis developed on the intellectual and moral side, the more independenthe is, the more pleasure life gives him. Socrates, Diogenes, andMarcus Aurelius, were joyful, not sorrowful. And the Apostle tellsus: 'Rejoice continually'; 'Rejoice and be glad. '"

"But will the gods be suddenly wrathful?" Kovrin jested; and helaughed. "If they take from me comfort and make me go cold andhungry, it won't be very much to my taste. "

Meanwhile Tanya woke up and looked with amazement and horror at herhusband. He was talking, addressing the arm-chair, laughing andgesticulating; his eyes were gleaming, and there was somethingstrange in his laugh. 

"Andryusha, whom are you talking to?" she asked, clutching the handhe stretched out to the monk. "Andryusha! Whom?"

"Oh! Whom?" said Kovrin in confusion. "Why, to him. . . . He issitting here, " he said, pointing to the black monk. 

"There is no one here . . . No one! Andryusha, you are ill!"

Tanya put her arm round her husband and held him tight, as thoughprotecting him from the apparition, and put her hand over his eyes. 

"You are ill!" she sobbed, trembling all over. "Forgive me, myprecious, my dear one, but I have noticed for a long time that yourmind is clouded in some way. . . . You are mentally ill, Andryusha. . . . "

Her trembling infected him, too. He glanced once more at thearm-chair, which was now empty, felt a sudden weakness in his armsand legs, was frightened, and began dressing. 

"It's nothing, Tanya; it's nothing, " he muttered, shivering. "Ireally am not quite well . . . It's time to admit that. "

"I have noticed it for a long time . . . And father has noticedit, " she said, trying to suppress her sobs. "You talk to yourself, smile somehow strangely . . . And can't sleep. Oh, my God, my God, save us!" she said in terror. "But don't be frightened, Andryusha;for God's sake don't be frightened. . . . "

She began dressing, too. Only now, looking at her, Kovrin realisedthe danger of his position--realised the meaning of the blackmonk and his conversations with him. It was clear to him now thathe was mad. 

Neither of them knew why they dressed and went into the dining-room:she in front and he following her. There they found Yegor Semyonitchstanding in his dressing-gown and with a candle in his hand. He wasstaying with them, and had been awakened by Tanya's sobs. 

"Don't be frightened, Andryusha, " Tanya was saying, shivering asthough in a fever; "don't be frightened. . . . Father, it will allpass over . . . It will all pass over. . . . "

Kovrin was too much agitated to speak. He wanted to say to hisfather-in-law in a playful tone: "Congratulate me; it appears Ihave gone out of my mind"; but he could only move his lips and smilebitterly. 

At nine o'clock in the morning they put on his jacket and fur coat, wrapped him up in a shawl, and took him in a carriage to a doctor. 

VIII

Summer had come again, and the doctor advised their going into thecountry. Kovrin had recovered; he had left off seeing the blackmonk, and he had only to get up his strength. Staying at hisfather-in-law's, he drank a great deal of milk, worked for only twohours out of the twenty-four, and neither smoked nor drank wine. 

On the evening before Elijah's Day they had an evening service inthe house. When the deacon was handing the priest the censer theimmense old room smelt like a graveyard, and Kovrin felt bored. Hewent out into the garden. Without noticing the gorgeous flowers, he walked about the garden, sat down on a seat, then strolled aboutthe park; reaching the river, he went down and then stood lost inthought, looking at the water. The sullen pines with their shaggyroots, which had seen him a year before so young, so joyful andconfident, were not whispering now, but standing mute and motionless, as though they did not recognise him. And, indeed, his head wasclosely cropped, his beautiful long hair was gone, his step waslagging, his face was fuller and paler than last summer. 

He crossed by the footbridge to the other side. Where the yearbefore there had been rye the oats stood, reaped, and lay in rows. The sun had set and there was a broad stretch of glowing red on thehorizon, a sign of windy weather next day. It was still. Lookingin the direction from which the year before the black monk had firstappeared, Kovrin stood for twenty minutes, till the evening glowhad begun to fade. . . . 

When, listless and dissatisfied, he returned home the service wasover. Yegor Semyonitch and Tanya were sitting on the steps of theverandah, drinking tea. They were talking of something, but, seeingKovrin, ceased at once, and he concluded from their faces that theirtalk had been about him. 

"I believe it is time for you to have your milk, " Tanya said to herhusband. 

"No, it is not time yet . . . " he said, sitting down on the bottomstep. "Drink it yourself; I don't want it. "

Tanya exchanged a troubled glance with her father, and said in aguilty voice:

"You notice yourself that milk does you good. "

"Yes, a great deal of good!" Kovrin laughed. "I congratulate you:I have gained a pound in weight since Friday. " He pressed his headtightly in his hands and said miserably: "Why, why have you curedme? Preparations of bromide, idleness, hot baths, supervision, cowardly consternation at every mouthful, at every step--all thiswill reduce me at last to idiocy. I went out of my mind, I hadmegalomania; but then I was cheerful, confident, and even happy; Iwas interesting and original. Now I have become more sensible andstolid, but I am just like every one else: I am--mediocrity; Iam weary of life. . . . Oh, how cruelly you have treated me! . . . I saw hallucinations, but what harm did that do to any one? I ask, what harm did that do any one?"

"Goodness knows what you are saying!" sighed Yegor Semyonitch. "It'spositively wearisome to listen to it. "

"Then don't listen. "

The presence of other people, especially Yegor Semyonitch, irritatedKovrin now; he answered him drily, coldly, and even rudely, neverlooked at him but with irony and hatred, while Yegor Semyonitch wasovercome with confusion and cleared his throat guiltily, though hewas not conscious of any fault in himself. At a loss to understandwhy their charming and affectionate relations had changed so abruptly, Tanya huddled up to her father and looked anxiously in his face;she wanted to understand and could not understand, and all that wasclear to her was that their relations were growing worse and worseevery day, that of late her father had begun to look much older, and her husband had grown irritable, capricious, quarrelsome anduninteresting. She could not laugh or sing; at dinner she atenothing; did not sleep for nights together, expecting somethingawful, and was so worn out that on one occasion she lay in a deadfaint from dinner-time till evening. During the service she thoughther father was crying, and now while the three of them were sittingtogether on the terrace she made an effort not to think of it. 

"How fortunate Buddha, Mahomed, and Shakespeare were that theirkind relations and doctors did not cure them of their ecstasy andtheir inspiration, " said Kovrin. "If Mahomed had taken bromide forhis nerves, had worked only two hours out of the twenty-four, andhad drunk milk, that remarkable man would have left no more traceafter him than his dog. Doctors and kind relations will succeed instupefying mankind, in making mediocrity pass for genius and inbringing civilisation to ruin. If only you knew, " Kovrin said withannoyance, "how grateful I am to you. "

He felt intense irritation, and to avoid saying too much, he gotup quickly and went into the house. It was still, and the fragranceof the tobacco plant and the marvel of Peru floated in at the openwindow. The moonlight lay in green patches on the floor and on thepiano in the big dark dining-room. Kovrin remembered the rapturesof the previous summer when there had been the same scent of themarvel of Peru and the moon had shone in at the window. To bringback the mood of last year he went quickly to his study, lighted astrong cigar, and told the footman to bring him some wine. But thecigar left a bitter and disgusting taste in his mouth, and the winehad not the same flavour as it had the year before. And so greatis the effect of giving up a habit, the cigar and the two gulps ofwine made him giddy, and brought on palpitations of the heart, sothat he was obliged to take bromide. 

Before going to bed, Tanya said to him:

"Father adores you. You are cross with him about something, and itis killing him. Look at him; he is ageing, not from day to day, butfrom hour to hour. I entreat you, Andryusha, for God's sake, forthe sake of your dead father, for the sake of my peace of mind, beaffectionate to him. "

"I can't, I don't want to. "

"But why?" asked Tanya, beginning to tremble all over. "Explainwhy. "

"Because he is antipathetic to me, that's all, " said Kovrin carelessly;and he shrugged his shoulders. "But we won't talk about him: he isyour father. "

"I can't understand, I can't, " said Tanya, pressing her hands toher temples and staring at a fixed point. "Something incomprehensible, awful, is going on in the house. You have changed, grown unlikeyourself. . . . You, clever, extraordinary man as you are, areirritated over trifles, meddle in paltry nonsense. . . . Such trivialthings excite you, that sometimes one is simply amazed and can'tbelieve that it is you. Come, come, don't be angry, don't be angry, "she went on, kissing his hands, frightened of her own words. "Youare clever, kind, noble. You will be just to father. He is so good. "

"He is not good; he is just good-natured. Burlesque old uncles likeyour father, with well-fed, good-natured faces, extraordinarilyhospitable and queer, at one time used to touch me and amuse me innovels and in farces and in life; now I dislike them. They areegoists to the marrow of their bones. What disgusts me most of allis their being so well-fed, and that purely bovine, purely hoggishoptimism of a full stomach. "

Tanya sat down on the bed and laid her head on the pillow. 

"This is torture, " she said, and from her voice it was evident thatshe was utterly exhausted, and that it was hard for her to speak. "Not one moment of peace since the winter. . . . Why, it's awful!My God! I am wretched. "

"Oh, of course, I am Herod, and you and your father are the innocents. Of course. "

His face seemed to Tanya ugly and unpleasant. Hatred and an ironicalexpression did not suit him. And, indeed, she had noticed beforethat there was something lacking in his face, as though ever sincehis hair had been cut his face had changed, too. She wanted to saysomething wounding to him, but immediately she caught herself inthis antagonistic feeling, she was frightened and went out of thebedroom. 

IX

Kovrin received a professorship at the University. The inauguraladdress was fixed for the second of December, and a notice to thateffect was hung up in the corridor at the University. But on theday appointed he informed the students' inspector, by telegram, that he was prevented by illness from giving the lecture. 

He had hæmorrhage from the throat. He was often spitting blood, butit happened two or three times a month that there was a considerableloss of blood, and then he grew extremely weak and sank into adrowsy condition. This illness did not particularly frighten him, as he knew that his mother had lived for ten years or longer sufferingfrom the same disease, and the doctors assured him that there wasno danger, and had only advised him to avoid excitement, to lead aregular life, and to speak as little as possible. 

In January again his lecture did not take place owing to the samereason, and in February it was too late to begin the course. It hadto be postponed to the following year. 

By now he was living not with Tanya, but with another woman, whowas two years older than he was, and who looked after him as thoughhe were a baby. He was in a calm and tranquil state of mind; hereadily gave in to her, and when Varvara Nikolaevna--that was thename of his friend--decided to take him to the Crimea, he agreed, though he had a presentiment that no good would come of the trip. 

They reached Sevastopol in the evening and stopped at an hotel torest and go on the next day to Yalta. They were both exhausted bythe journey. Varvara Nikolaevna had some tea, went to bed and wassoon asleep. But Kovrin did not go to bed. An hour before startingfor the station, he had received a letter from Tanya, and had notbrought himself to open it, and now it was lying in his coat pocket, and the thought of it excited him disagreeably. At the bottom ofhis heart he genuinely considered now that his marriage to Tanyahad been a mistake. He was glad that their separation was final, and the thought of that woman who in the end had turned into aliving relic, still walking about though everything seemed dead inher except her big, staring, intelligent eyes--the thought of herroused in him nothing but pity and disgust with himself. Thehandwriting on the envelope reminded him how cruel and unjust hehad been two years before, how he had worked off his anger at hisspiritual emptiness, his boredom, his loneliness, and his dissatisfactionwith life by revenging himself on people in no way to blame. Heremembered, also, how he had torn up his dissertation and all thearticles he had written during his illness, and how he had thrownthem out of window, and the bits of paper had fluttered in the windand caught on the trees and flowers. In every line of them he sawstrange, utterly groundless pretension, shallow defiance, arrogance, megalomania; and they made him feel as though he were reading adescription of his vices. But when the last manuscript had beentorn up and sent flying out of window, he felt, for some reason, suddenly bitter and angry; he went to his wife and said a greatmany unpleasant things to her. My God, how he had tormented her!One day, wanting to cause her pain, he told her that her father hadplayed a very unattractive part in their romance, that he had askedhim to marry her. Yegor Semyonitch accidentally overheard this, raninto the room, and, in his despair, could not utter a word, couldonly stamp and make a strange, bellowing sound as though he hadlost the power of speech, and Tanya, looking at her father, haduttered a heart-rending shriek and had fallen into a swoon. It washideous. 

All this came back into his memory as he looked at the familiarwriting. Kovrin went out on to the balcony; it was still warm weatherand there was a smell of the sea. The wonderful bay reflected themoonshine and the lights, and was of a colour for which it wasdifficult to find a name. It was a soft and tender blending of darkblue and green; in places the water was like blue vitriol, and inplaces it seemed as though the moonlight were liquefied and fillingthe bay instead of water. And what harmony of colours, what anatmosphere of peace, calm, and sublimity!

In the lower storey under the balcony the windows were probablyopen, for women's voices and laughter could be heard distinctly. Apparently there was an evening party. 

Kovrin made an effort, tore open the envelope, and, going back intohis room, read:

"My father is just dead. I owe that to you, for you have killedhim. Our garden is being ruined; strangers are managing it already--that is, the very thing is happening that poor father dreaded. That, too, I owe to you. I hate you with my whole soul, and I hopeyou may soon perish. Oh, how wretched I am! Insufferable anguishis burning my soul. . . . My curses on you. I took you for anextraordinary man, a genius; I loved you, and you have turned outa madman. . . . "

Kovrin could read no more, he tore up the letter and threw it away. He was overcome by an uneasiness that was akin to terror. VarvaraNikolaevna was asleep behind the screen, and he could hear herbreathing. From the lower storey came the sounds of laughter andwomen's voices, but he felt as though in the whole hotel there wereno living soul but him. Because Tanya, unhappy, broken by sorrow, had cursed him in her letter and hoped for his perdition, he felteerie and kept glancing hurriedly at the door, as though he wereafraid that the uncomprehended force which two years before hadwrought such havoc in his life and in the life of those near himmight come into the room and master him once more. 

He knew by experience that when his nerves were out of hand thebest thing for him to do was to work. He must sit down to the tableand force himself, at all costs, to concentrate his mind on someone thought. He took from his red portfolio a manuscript containinga sketch of a small work of the nature of a compilation, which hehad planned in case he should find it dull in the Crimea withoutwork. He sat down to the table and began working at this plan, andit seemed to him that his calm, peaceful, indifferent mood wascoming back. The manuscript with the sketch even led him to meditationon the vanity of the world. He thought how much life exacts for theworthless or very commonplace blessings it can give a man. Forinstance, to gain, before forty, a university chair, to be anordinary professor, to expound ordinary and second-hand thoughtsin dull, heavy, insipid language--in fact, to gain the positionof a mediocre learned man, he, Kovrin, had had to study for fifteenyears, to work day and night, to endure a terrible mental illness, to experience an unhappy marriage, and to do a great number ofstupid and unjust things which it would have been pleasant not toremember. Kovrin recognised clearly, now, that he was a mediocrity, and readily resigned himself to it, as he considered that every manought to be satisfied with what he is. 

The plan of the volume would have soothed him completely, but thetorn letter showed white on the floor and prevented him fromconcentrating his attention. He got up from the table, picked upthe pieces of the letter and threw them out of window, but therewas a light wind blowing from the sea, and the bits of paper werescattered on the windowsill. Again he was overcome by uneasinessakin to terror, and he felt as though in the whole hotel there wereno living soul but himself. . . . He went out on the balcony. Thebay, like a living thing, looked at him with its multitude of lightblue, dark blue, turquoise and fiery eyes, and seemed beckoning tohim. And it really was hot and oppressive, and it would not havebeen amiss to have a bathe. 

Suddenly in the lower storey under the balcony a violin beganplaying, and two soft feminine voices began singing. It was somethingfamiliar. The song was about a maiden, full of sick fancies, whoheard one night in her garden mysterious sounds, so strange andlovely that she was obliged to recognise them as a holy harmonywhich is unintelligible to us mortals, and so flies back to heaven. . . . Kovrin caught his breath and there was a pang of sadness athis heart, and a thrill of the sweet, exquisite delight he had solong forgotten began to stir in his breast. 

A tall black column, like a whirlwind or a waterspout, appeared onthe further side of the bay. It moved with fearful rapidity acrossthe bay, towards the hotel, growing smaller and darker as it came, and Kovrin only just had time to get out of the way to let it pass. . . . The monk with bare grey head, black eyebrows, barefoot, hisarms crossed over his breast, floated by him, and stood still inthe middle of the room. 

"Why did you not believe me?" he asked reproachfully, lookingaffectionately at Kovrin. "If you had believed me then, that youwere a genius, you would not have spent these two years so gloomilyand so wretchedly. "

Kovrin already believed that he was one of God's chosen and a genius;he vividly recalled his conversations with the monk in the past andtried to speak, but the blood flowed from his throat on to hisbreast, and not knowing what he was doing, he passed his hands overhis breast, and his cuffs were soaked with blood. He tried to callVarvara Nikolaevna, who was asleep behind the screen; he made aneffort and said:

"Tanya!"

He fell on the floor, and propping himself on his arms, calledagain:

"Tanya!"

He called Tanya, called to the great garden with the gorgeous flowerssprinkled with dew, called to the park, the pines with their shaggyroots, the rye-field, his marvellous learning, his youth, courage, joy--called to life, which was so lovely. He saw on the floornear his face a great pool of blood, and was too weak to utter aword, but an unspeakable, infinite happiness flooded his wholebeing. Below, under the balcony, they were playing the serenade, and the black monk whispered to him that he was a genius, and thathe was dying only because his frail human body had lost its balanceand could no longer serve as the mortal garb of genius. 

When Varvara Nikolaevna woke up and came out from behind the screen, Kovrin was dead, and a blissful smile was set upon his face. 

VOLODYA

AT five o'clock one Sunday afternoon in summer, Volodya, a plain, shy, sickly-looking lad of seventeen, was sitting in the arbour ofthe Shumihins' country villa, feeling dreary. His despondent thoughtflowed in three directions. In the first place, he had next day, Monday, an examination in mathematics; he knew that if he did notget through the written examination on the morrow, he would beexpelled, for he had already been two years in the sixth form andhad two and three-quarter marks for algebra in his annual report. In the second place, his presence at the villa of the Shumihins, awealthy family with aristocratic pretensions, was a continual sourceof mortification to his _amour-propre_. It seemed to him that MadameShumihin looked upon him and his maman as poor relations anddependents, that they laughed at his _maman_ and did not respecther. He had on one occasion accidently overheard Madame Shumihin, in the verandah, telling her cousin Anna Fyodorovna that his _maman_still tried to look young and got herself up, that she never paidher losses at cards, and had a partiality for other people's shoesand tobacco. Every day Volodya besought his _maman_ not to go tothe Shumihins', and drew a picture of the humiliating part sheplayed with these gentlefolk. He tried to persuade her, said rudethings, but she--a frivolous, pampered woman, who had run throughtwo fortunes, her own and her husband's, in her time, and alwaysgravitated towards acquaintances of high rank--did not understandhim, and twice a week Volodya had to accompany her to the villa hehated. 

In the third place, the youth could not for one instant get rid ofa strange, unpleasant feeling which was absolutely new to him. . . . It seemed to him that he was in love with Anna Fyodorovna, theShumihins' cousin, who was staying with them. She was a vivacious, loud-voiced, laughter-loving, healthy, and vigorous lady of thirty, with rosy cheeks, plump shoulders, a plump round chin and a continualsmile on her thin lips. She was neither young nor beautiful--Volodya knew that perfectly well; but for some reason he could nothelp thinking of her, looking at her while she shrugged her plumpshoulders and moved her flat back as she played croquet, or afterprolonged laughter and running up and down stairs, sank into a lowchair, and, half closing her eyes and gasping for breath, pretendedthat she was stifling and could not breathe. She was married. Herhusband, a staid and dignified architect, came once a week to thevilla, slept soundly, and returned to town. Volodya's strange feelinghad begun with his conceiving an unaccountable hatred for thearchitect, and feeling relieved every time he went back to town. 

Now, sitting in the arbour, thinking of his examination next day, and of his _maman_, at whom they laughed, he felt an intense desireto see Nyuta (that was what the Shumihins called Anna Fyodorovna), to hear her laughter and the rustle of her dress. . . . This desirewas not like the pure, poetic love of which he read in novels andabout which he dreamed every night when he went to bed; it wasstrange, incomprehensible; he was ashamed of it, and afraid of itas of something very wrong and impure, something which it wasdisagreeable to confess even to himself. 

"It's not love, " he said to himself. "One can't fall in love withwomen of thirty who are married. It is only a little intrigue. . . . Yes, an intrigue. . . . "

Pondering on the "intrigue, " he thought of his uncontrollableshyness, his lack of moustache, his freckles, his narrow eyes, andput himself in his imagination side by side with Nyuta, and thejuxtaposition seemed to him impossible; then he made haste to imaginehimself bold, handsome, witty, dressed in the latest fashion. 

When his dreams were at their height, as he sat huddled togetherand looking at the ground in a dark corner of the arbour, he heardthe sound of light footsteps. Some one was coming slowly along theavenue. Soon the steps stopped and something white gleamed in theentrance. 

"Is there any one here?" asked a woman's voice. 

Volodya recognised the voice, and raised his head in a fright. 

"Who is here?" asked Nyuta, going into the arbour. "Ah, it is you, Volodya? What are you doing here? Thinking? And how can you go onthinking, thinking, thinking? . . . That's the way to go out ofyour mind!"

Volodya got up and looked in a dazed way at Nyuta. She had onlyjust come back from bathing. Over her shoulder there was hanging asheet and a rough towel, and from under the white silk kerchief onher head he could see the wet hair sticking to her forehead. Therewas the cool damp smell of the bath-house and of almond soap stillhanging about her. She was out of breath from running quickly. Thetop button of her blouse was undone, so that the boy saw her throatand bosom. 

"Why don't you say something?" said Nyuta, looking Volodya up anddown. "It's not polite to be silent when a lady talks to you. Whata clumsy seal you are though, Volodya! You always sit, sayingnothing, thinking like some philosopher. There's not a spark oflife or fire in you! You are really horrid! . . . At your age youought to be living, skipping, and jumping, chattering, flirting, falling in love. "

Volodya looked at the sheet that was held by a plump white hand, and thought. . . . 

"He's mute, " said Nyuta, with wonder; "it is strange, really. . . . Listen! Be a man! Come, you might smile at least! Phew, the horridphilosopher!" she laughed. "But do you know, Volodya, why you aresuch a clumsy seal? Because you don't devote yourself to the ladies. Why don't you? It's true there are no girls here, but there isnothing to prevent your flirting with the married ladies! Why don'tyou flirt with me, for instance?"

Volodya listened and scratched his forehead in acute and painfulirresolution. 

"It's only very proud people who are silent and love solitude, "Nyuta went on, pulling his hand away from his forehead. "You areproud, Volodya. Why do you look at me like that from under yourbrows? Look me straight in the face, if you please! Yes, now then, clumsy seal!"

Volodya made up his mind to speak. Wanting to smile, he twitchedhis lower lip, blinked, and again put his hand to his forehead. 

"I . . . I love you, " he said. 

Nyuta raised her eyebrows in surprise, and laughed. 

"What do I hear?" she sang, as prima-donnas sing at the opera whenthey hear something awful. "What? What did you say? Say it again, say it again. . . . "

"I . . . I love you!" repeated Volodya. 

And without his will's having any part in his action, withoutreflection or understanding, he took half a step towards Nyuta andclutched her by the arm. Everything was dark before his eyes, andtears came into them. The whole world was turned into one big, roughtowel which smelt of the bathhouse. 

"Bravo, bravo!" he heard a merry laugh. "Why don't you speak? Iwant you to speak! Well?"

Seeing that he was not prevented from holding her arm, Volodyaglanced at Nyuta's laughing face, and clumsily, awkwardly, put botharms round her waist, his hands meeting behind her back. He heldher round the waist with both arms, while, putting her hands up toher head, showing the dimples in her elbows, she set her hairstraight under the kerchief and said in a calm voice:

"You must be tactful, polite, charming, and you can only becomethat under feminine influence. But what a wicked, angry face youhave! You must talk, laugh. . . . Yes, Volodya, don't be surly; youare young and will have plenty of time for philosophising. Come, let go of me; I am going. Let go. "

Without effort she released her waist, and, humming something, walked out of the arbour. Volodya was left alone. He smoothed hishair, smiled, and walked three times to and fro across the arbour, then he sat down on the bench and smiled again. He felt insufferablyashamed, so much so that he wondered that human shame could reachsuch a pitch of acuteness and intensity. Shame made him smile, gesticulate, and whisper some disconnected words. 

He was ashamed that he had been treated like a small boy, ashamedof his shyness, and, most of all, that he had had the audacity toput his arms round the waist of a respectable married woman, though, as it seemed to him, he had neither through age nor by externalquality, nor by social position any right to do so. 

He jumped up, went out of the arbour, and, without looking round, walked into the recesses of the garden furthest from the house. 

"Ah! only to get away from here as soon as possible, " he thought, clutching his head. "My God! as soon as possible. "

The train by which Volodya was to go back with his _maman_ was ateight-forty. There were three hours before the train started, buthe would with pleasure have gone to the station at once withoutwaiting for his _maman_. 

At eight o'clock he went to the house. His whole figure was expressiveof determination: what would be, would be! He made up his mind togo in boldly, to look them straight in the face, to speak in a loudvoice, regardless of everything. 

He crossed the terrace, the big hall and the drawing-room, and therestopped to take breath. He could hear them in the dining-room, drinking tea. Madame Shumihin, _maman_, and Nyuta were talking andlaughing about something. 

Volodya listened. 

"I assure you!" said Nyuta. "I could not believe my eyes! When hebegan declaring his passion and--just imagine!--put his armsround my waist, I should not have recognised him. And you know hehas a way with him! When he told me he was in love with me, therewas something brutal in his face, like a Circassian. "

"Really!" gasped _maman_, going off into a peal of laughter. "Really!How he does remind me of his father!"

Volodya ran back and dashed out into the open air. 

"How could they talk of it aloud!" he wondered in agony, claspinghis hands and looking up to the sky in horror. "They talk aloud incold blood . . . And _maman_ laughed! . . . _Maman!_ My God, whydidst Thou give me such a mother? Why?"

But he had to go to the house, come what might. He walked threetimes up and down the avenue, grew a little calmer, and went intothe house. 

"Why didn't you come in in time for tea?" Madame Shumihin askedsternly. 

"I am sorry, it's . . . It's time for me to go, " he muttered, notraising his eyes. "_Maman_, it's eight o'clock!"

"You go alone, my dear, " said his _maman_ languidly. "I am stayingthe night with Lili. Goodbye, my dear. . . . Let me make the signof the cross over you. "

She made the sign of the cross over her son, and said in French, turning to Nyuta:

"He's rather like Lermontov . . . Isn't he?"

Saying good-bye after a fashion, without looking any one in theface, Volodya went out of the dining-room. Ten minutes later he waswalking along the road to the station, and was glad of it. Now hefelt neither frightened nor ashamed; he breathed freely and easily. 

About half a mile from the station, he sat down on a stone by theside of the road, and gazed at the sun, which was half hidden behinda barrow. There were lights already here and there at the station, and one green light glimmered dimly, but the train was not yet insight. It was pleasant to Volodya to sit still without moving, andto watch the evening coming little by little. The darkness of thearbour, the footsteps, the smell of the bath-house, the laughter, and the waist--all these rose with amazing vividness before hisimagination, and all this was no longer so terrible and importantas before. 

"It's of no consequence. . . . She did not pull her hand away, andlaughed when I held her by the waist, " he thought. "So she musthave liked it. If she had disliked it she would have been angry. . . . "

And now Volodya felt sorry that he had not had more boldness therein the arbour. He felt sorry that he was so stupidly going away, and he was by now persuaded that if the same thing happened againhe would be bolder and look at it more simply. 

And it would not be difficult for the opportunity to occur again. They used to stroll about for a long time after supper at theShumihins'. If Volodya went for a walk with Nyuta in the dark garden, there would be an opportunity!

"I will go back, " he thought, "and will go by the morning trainto-morrow. . . . I will say I have missed the train. "

And he turned back. . . . Madame Shumihin, _Maman_, Nyuta, and oneof the nieces were sitting on the verandah, playing _vint_. WhenVolodya told them the lie that he had missed the train, they wereuneasy that he might be late for the examination day, and advisedhim to get up early. All the while they were playing he sat on oneside, greedily watching Nyuta and waiting. . . . He already had aplan prepared in his mind: he would go up to Nyuta in the dark, would take her by the hand, then would embrace her; there would beno need to say anything, as both of them would understand withoutwords. 

But after supper the ladies did not go for a walk in the garden, but went on playing cards. They played till one o'clock at night, and then broke up to go to bed. 

"How stupid it all is!" Volodya thought with vexation as he gotinto bed. "But never mind; I'll wait till to-morrow . . . To-morrowin the arbour. It doesn't matter. . . . "

He did not attempt to go to sleep, but sat in bed, hugging his kneesand thinking. All thought of the examination was hateful to him. He had already made up his mind that they would expel him, and thatthere was nothing terrible about his being expelled. On the contrary, it was a good thing--a very good thing, in fact. Next day he wouldbe as free as a bird; he would put on ordinary clothes instead ofhis school uniform, would smoke openly, come out here, and makelove to Nyuta when he liked; and he would not be a schoolboy but"a young man. " And as for the rest of it, what is called a career, a future, that was clear; Volodya would go into the army or thetelegraph service, or he would go into a chemist's shop and workhis way up till he was a dispenser. . . . There were lots of callings. An hour or two passed, and he was still sitting and thinking. . . . 

Towards three o'clock, when it was beginning to get light, the doorcreaked cautiously and his _maman_ came into the room. 

"Aren't you asleep?" she asked, yawning. "Go to sleep; I have onlycome in for a minute. . . . I am only fetching the drops. . . . "

"What for?"

"Poor Lili has got spasms again. Go to sleep, my child, yourexamination's to-morrow. . . . "

She took a bottle of something out of the cupboard, went to thewindow, read the label, and went away. 

"Marya Leontyevna, those are not the drops!" Volodya heard a woman'svoice, a minute later. "That's convallaria, and Lili wants morphine. Is your son asleep? Ask him to look for it. . . . "

It was Nyuta's voice. Volodya turned cold. He hurriedly put on histrousers, flung his coat over his shoulders, and went to the door. 

"Do you understand? Morphine, " Nyuta explained in a whisper. "Theremust be a label in Latin. Wake Volodya; he will find it. "

_Maman_ opened the door and Volodya caught sight of Nyuta. She waswearing the same loose wrapper in which she had gone to bathe. Herhair hung loose and disordered on her shoulders, her face lookedsleepy and dark in the half-light. . . . 

"Why, Volodya is not asleep, " she said. "Volodya, look in thecupboard for the morphine, there's a dear! What a nuisance Lili is!She has always something the matter. "

_Maman_ muttered something, yawned, and went away. 

"Look for it, " said Nyuta. "Why are you standing still?"

Volodya went to the cupboard, knelt down, and began looking throughthe bottles and boxes of medicine. His hands were trembling, andhe had a feeling in his chest and stomach as though cold waves wererunning all over his inside. He felt suffocated and giddy from thesmell of ether, carbolic acid, and various drugs, which he quiteunnecessarily snatched up with his trembling fingers and spilledin so doing. 

"I believe _maman_ has gone, " he thought. "That's a good thing . . . A good thing. . . . "

"Will you be quick?" said Nyuta, drawling. 

"In a minute. . . . Here, I believe this is morphine, " said Volodya, reading on one of the labels the word "morph . . . " "Here it is!"

Nyuta was standing in the doorway in such a way that one foot wasin his room and one was in the passage. She was tidying her hair, which was difficult to put in order because it was so thick andlong, and looked absent-mindedly at Volodya. In her loose wrap, with her sleepy face and her hair down, in the dim light that cameinto the white sky not yet lit by the sun, she seemed to Volodyacaptivating, magnificent. . . . Fascinated, trembling all over, andremembering with relish how he had held that exquisite body in hisarms in the arbour, he handed her the bottle and said:

"How wonderful you are!"

"What?"

She came into the room. 

"What?" she asked, smiling. 

He was silent and looked at her, then, just as in the arbour, hetook her hand, and she looked at him with a smile and waited forwhat would happen next. 

"I love you, " he whispered. 

She left off smiling, thought a minute, and said:

"Wait a little; I think somebody is coming. Oh, these schoolboys!"she said in an undertone, going to the door and peeping out intothe passage. "No, there is no one to be seen. . . . "

She came back. 

Then it seemed to Volodya that the room, Nyuta, the sunrise andhimself--all melted together in one sensation of acute, extraordinary, incredible bliss, for which one might give up one's whole life andface eternal torments. . . . But half a minute passed and all thatvanished. Volodya saw only a fat, plain face, distorted by anexpression of repulsion, and he himself suddenly felt a loathingfor what had happened. 

"I must go away, though, " said Nyuta, looking at Volodya withdisgust. "What a wretched, ugly . . . Fie, ugly duckling!"

How unseemly her long hair, her loose wrap, her steps, her voiceseemed to Volodya now! . . . 

"'Ugly duckling' . . . " he thought after she had gone away. "Ireally am ugly . . . Everything is ugly. "

The sun was rising, the birds were singing loudly; he could hearthe gardener walking in the garden and the creaking of his wheelbarrow. . . And soon afterwards he heard the lowing of the cows and thesounds of the shepherd's pipe. The sunlight and the sounds told himthat somewhere in this world there is a pure, refined, poeticallife. But where was it? Volodya had never heard a word of it fromhis _maman_ or any of the people round about him. 

When the footman came to wake him for the morning train, he pretendedto be asleep. . . . 

"Bother it! Damn it all!" he thought. 

He got up between ten and eleven. 

Combing his hair before the looking-glass, and looking at his uglyface, pale from his sleepless night, he thought:

"It's perfectly true . . . An ugly duckling!"

When _maman_ saw him and was horrified that he was not at hisexamination, Volodya said:

"I overslept myself, _maman_. . . . But don't worry, I will get amedical certificate. "

Madame Shumihin and Nyuta waked up at one o'clock. Volodya heardMadame Shumihin open her window with a bang, heard Nyuta go offinto a peal of laughter in reply to her coarse voice. He saw thedoor open and a string of nieces and other toadies (among the latterwas his _maman_) file into lunch, caught a glimpse of Nyuta's freshlywashed laughing face, and, beside her, the black brows and beardof her husband the architect, who had just arrived. 

Nyuta was wearing a Little Russian dress which did not suit her atall, and made her look clumsy; the architect was making dull andvulgar jokes. The rissoles served at lunch had too much onion inthem--so it seemed to Volodya. It also seemed to him that Nyutalaughed loudly on purpose, and kept glancing in his direction togive him to understand that the memory of the night did not troubleher in the least, and that she was not aware of the presence attable of the "ugly duckling. "

At four o'clock Volodya drove to the station with his _maman_. Foulmemories, the sleepless night, the prospect of expulsion from school, the stings of conscience--all roused in him now an oppressive, gloomy anger. He looked at _maman_'s sharp profile, at her littlenose, and at the raincoat which was a present from Nyuta, andmuttered:

"Why do you powder? It's not becoming at your age! You make yourselfup, don't pay your debts at cards, smoke other people's tobacco. . . . It's hateful! I don't love you . . . I don't love you!"

He was insulting her, and she moved her little eyes about in alarm, flung up her hands, and whispered in horror:

"What are you saying, my dear! Good gracious! the coachman willhear! Be quiet or the coachman will hear! He can overhear everything. "

"I don't love you . . . I don't love you!" he went on breathlessly. "You've no soul and no morals. . . . Don't dare to wear that raincoat!Do you hear? Or else I will tear it into rags. . . . "

"Control yourself, my child, " _maman_ wept; "the coachman can hear!"

"And where is my father's fortune? Where is your money? You havewasted it all. I am not ashamed of being poor, but I am ashamed ofhaving such a mother. . . . When my schoolfellows ask questionsabout you, I always blush. "

In the train they had to pass two stations before they reached thetown. Volodya spent all the time on the little platform between twocarriages and shivered all over. He did not want to go into thecompartment because there the mother he hated was sitting. He hatedhimself, hated the ticket collectors, the smoke from the engine, the cold to which he attributed his shivering. And the heavier theweight on his heart, the more strongly he felt that somewhere inthe world, among some people, there was a pure, honourable, warm, refined life, full of love, affection, gaiety, and serenity. . . . He felt this and was so intensely miserable that one of the passengers, after looking in his face attentively, actually asked:

"You have the toothache, I suppose?"

In the town _maman_ and Volodya lived with Marya Petrovna, a ladyof noble rank, who had a large flat and let rooms to boarders. _Maman_ had two rooms, one with windows and two pictures in goldframes hanging on the walls, in which her bed stood and in whichshe lived, and a little dark room opening out of it in which Volodyalived. Here there was a sofa on which he slept, and, except thatsofa, there was no other furniture; the rest of the room was entirelyfilled up with wicker baskets full of clothes, cardboard hat-boxes, and all sorts of rubbish, which _maman_ preserved for some reasonor other. Volodya prepared his lessons either in his mother's roomor in the "general room, " as the large room in which the boardersassembled at dinner-time and in the evening was called. 

On reaching home he lay down on his sofa and put the quilt over himto stop his shivering. The cardboard hat-boxes, the wicker baskets, and the other rubbish, reminded him that he had not a room of hisown, that he had no refuge in which he could get away from hismother, from her visitors, and from the voices that were floatingup from the "general room. " The satchel and the books lying aboutin the corners reminded him of the examination he had missed. . . . For some reason there came into his mind, quite inappropriately, Mentone, where he had lived with his father when he was seven yearsold; he thought of Biarritz and two little English girls with whomhe ran about on the sand. . . . He tried to recall to his memorythe colour of the sky, the sea, the height of the waves, and hismood at the time, but he could not succeed. The English girls flittedbefore his imagination as though they were living; all the rest wasa medley of images that floated away in confusion. . . . 

"No; it's cold here, " thought Volodya. He got up, put on his overcoat, and went into the "general room. "

There they were drinking tea. There were three people at the samovar:_maman_; an old lady with tortoiseshell pince-nez, who gave musiclessons; and Avgustin Mihalitch, an elderly and very stout Frenchman, who was employed at a perfumery factory. 

"I have had no dinner to-day, " said _maman_. "I ought to send themaid to buy some bread. "

"Dunyasha!" shouted the Frenchman. 

It appeared that the maid had been sent out somewhere by the ladyof the house. 

"Oh, that's of no consequence, " said the Frenchman, with a broadsmile. "I will go for some bread myself at once. Oh, it's nothing. "

He laid his strong, pungent cigar in a conspicuous place, put onhis hat and went out. After he had gone away _maman_ began tellingthe music teacher how she had been staying at the Shumihins', andhow warmly they welcomed her. 

"Lili Shumihin is a relation of mine, you know, " she said. "Herlate husband, General Shumihin, was a cousin of my husband. And shewas a Baroness Kolb by birth. . . . "

"_Maman_, that's false!" said Volodya irritably. "Why tell lies?"

He knew perfectly well that what his mother said was true; in whatshe was saying about General Shumihin and about Baroness Kolb therewas not a word of lying, but nevertheless he felt that she waslying. There was a suggestion of falsehood in her manner of speaking, in the expression of her face, in her eyes, in everything. 

"You are lying, " repeated Volodya; and he brought his fist down onthe table with such force that all the crockery shook and _maman_'stea was spilt over. "Why do you talk about generals and baronesses?It's all lies!"

The music teacher was disconcerted, and coughed into her handkerchief, affecting to sneeze, and _maman_ began to cry. 

"Where can I go?" thought Volodya. 

He had been in the street already; he was ashamed to go to hisschoolfellows. Again, quite incongruously, he remembered the twolittle English girls. . . . He paced up and down the "general room, "and went into Avgustin Mihalitch's room. Here there was a strongsmell of ethereal oils and glycerine soap. On the table, in thewindow, and even on the chairs, there were a number of bottles, glasses, and wineglasses containing fluids of various colours. Volodya took up from the table a newspaper, opened it and read thetitle _Figaro_. . . There was a strong and pleasant scent about thepaper. Then he took a revolver from the table. . . . 

"There, there! Don't take any notice of it. " The music teacher wascomforting _maman_ in the next room. "He is young! Young people ofhis age never restrain themselves. One must resign oneself to that. "

"No, Yevgenya Andreyevna; he's too spoilt, " said _maman_ in asingsong voice. "He has no one in authority over him, and I am weakand can do nothing. Oh, I am unhappy!"

Volodya put the muzzle of the revolver to his mouth, felt somethinglike a trigger or spring, and pressed it with his finger. . . . Then felt something else projecting, and once more pressed it. Taking the muzzle out of his mouth, he wiped it with the lapel ofhis coat, looked at the lock. He had never in his life taken aweapon in his hand before. . . . 

"I believe one ought to raise this . . . " he reflected. "Yes, itseems so. "

Avgustin Mihalitch went into the "general room, " and with a laughbegan telling them about something. Volodya put the muzzle in hismouth again, pressed it with his teeth, and pressed something withhis fingers. There was a sound of a shot. . . . Something hit Volodyain the back of his head with terrible violence, and he fell on thetable with his face downwards among the bottles and glasses. Thenhe saw his father, as in Mentone, in a top-hat with a wide blackband on it, wearing mourning for some lady, suddenly seize him byboth hands, and they fell headlong into a very deep, dark pit. 

Then everything was blurred and vanished. 

AN ANONYMOUS STORY

I

THROUGH causes which it is not the time to go into in detail, I hadto enter the service of a Petersburg official called Orlov, in thecapacity of a footman. He was about five and thirty, and was calledGeorgy* Ivanitch. 

*Both _g's_ hard, as in "Gorgon"; _e_ like _ai_ in _rain_. 

I entered this Orlov's service on account of his father, a prominentpolitical man, whom I looked upon as a serious enemy of my cause. I reckoned that, living with the son, I should--from the conversationsI should hear, and from the letters and papers I should find on thetable--learn every detail of the father's plans and intentions. 

As a rule at eleven o'clock in the morning the electric bell rangin my footman's quarters to let me know that my master was awake. When I went into the bedroom with his polished shoes and brushedclothes, Georgy Ivanitch would be sitting in his bed with a facethat looked, not drowsy, but rather exhausted by sleep, and he wouldgaze off in one direction without any sign of satisfaction at havingwaked. I helped him to dress, and he let me do it with an air ofreluctance without speaking or noticing my presence; then with hishead wet with washing, smelling of fresh scent, he used to go intothe dining-room to drink his coffee. He used to sit at the table, sipping his coffee and glancing through the newspapers, while themaid Polya and I stood respectfully at the door gazing at him. Twogrown-up persons had to stand watching with the gravest attentiona third drinking coffee and munching rusks. It was probably ludicrousand grotesque, but I saw nothing humiliating in having to standnear the door, though I was quite as well born and well educatedas Orlov himself. 

I was in the first stage of consumption, and was suffering fromsomething else, possibly even more serious than consumption. I don'tknow whether it was the effect of my illness or of an incipientchange in my philosophy of life of which I was not conscious at thetime, but I was, day by day, more possessed by a passionate, irritating longing for ordinary everyday life. I yearned for mentaltranquillity, health, fresh air, good food. I was becoming a dreamer, and, like a dreamer, I did not know exactly what I wanted. SometimesI felt inclined to go into a monastery, to sit there for daystogether by the window and gaze at the trees and the fields; sometimesI fancied I would buy fifteen acres of land and settle down as acountry gentleman; sometimes I inwardly vowed to take up scienceand become a professor at some provincial university. I was a retirednavy lieutenant; I dreamed of the sea, of our squadron, and of thecorvette in which I had made the cruise round the world. I longedto experience again the indescribable feeling when, walking in thetropical forest or looking at the sunset in the Bay of Bengal, oneis thrilled with ecstasy and at the same time homesick. I dreamedof mountains, women, music, and, with the curiosity of a child, Ilooked into people's faces, listened to their voices. And when Istood at the door and watched Orlov sipping his coffee, I felt nota footman, but a man interested in everything in the world, evenin Orlov. 

In appearance Orlov was a typical Petersburger, with narrow shoulders, a long waist, sunken temples, eyes of an indefinite colour, andscanty, dingy-coloured hair, beard and moustaches. His face had astale, unpleasant look, though it was studiously cared for. It wasparticularly unpleasant when he was asleep or lost in thought. Itis not worth while describing a quite ordinary appearance; besides, Petersburg is not Spain, and a man's appearance is not of muchconsequence even in love affairs, and is only of value to a handsomefootman or coachman. I have spoken of Orlov's face and hair onlybecause there was something in his appearance worth mentioning. When Orlov took a newspaper or book, whatever it might be, or metpeople, whoever they be, an ironical smile began to come into hiseyes, and his whole countenance assumed an expression of lightmockery in which there was no malice. Before reading or hearinganything he always had his irony in readiness, as a savage has hisshield. It was an habitual irony, like some old liquor brewed yearsago, and now it came into his face probably without any participationof his will, as it were by reflex action. But of that later. 

Soon after midday he took his portfolio, full of papers, and droveto his office. He dined away from home and returned after eighto'clock. I used to light the lamp and candles in his study, and hewould sit down in a low chair with his legs stretched out on anotherchair, and, reclining in that position, would begin reading. Almostevery day he brought in new books with him or received parcels ofthem from the shops, and there were heaps of books in three languages, to say nothing of Russian, which he had read and thrown away, inthe corners of my room and under my bed. He read with extraordinaryrapidity. They say: "Tell me what you read, and I'll tell you whoyou are. " That may be true, but it was absolutely impossible tojudge of Orlov by what he read. It was a regular hotchpotch. Philosophy, French novels, political economy, finance, new poets, and publications of the firm _Posrednik_*--and he read it allwith the same rapidity and with the same ironical expression in hiseyes. 

* I. E. , Tchertkov and others, publishers of Tolstoy, who issuedgood literature for peasants' reading. 

After ten o'clock he carefully dressed, often in evening dress, very rarely in his _kammer-junker_'s uniform, and went out, returningin the morning. 

Our relations were quiet and peaceful, and we never had anymisunderstanding. As a rule he did not notice my presence, and whenhe talked to me there was no expression of irony on his face--heevidently did not look upon me as a human being. 

I only once saw him angry. One day--it was a week after I hadentered his service--he came back from some dinner at nine o'clock;his face looked ill-humoured and exhausted. When I followed himinto his study to light the candles, he said to me:

"There's a nasty smell in the flat. "

"No, the air is fresh, " I answered. 

"I tell you, there's a bad smell, " he answered irritably. 

"I open the movable panes every day. "

"Don't argue, blockhead!" he shouted. 

I was offended, and was on the point of answering, and goodnessknows how it would have ended if Polya, who knew her master betterthan I did, had not intervened. 

"There really is a disagreeable smell, " she said, raising hereyebrows. "What can it be from? Stepan, open the pane in thedrawing-room, and light the fire. "

With much bustle and many exclamations, she went through all therooms, rustling her skirts and squeezing the sprayer with a hissingsound. And Orlov was still out of humour; he was obviously restraininghimself not to vent his ill-temper aloud. He was sitting at thetable and rapidly writing a letter. After writing a few lines hesnorted angrily and tore it up, then he began writing again. 

"Damn them all!" he muttered. "They expect me to have an abnormalmemory!"

At last the letter was written; he got up from the table and said, turning to me:

"Go to Znamensky Street and deliver this letter to Zinaida FyodorovnaKrasnovsky in person. But first ask the porter whether her husband--that is, Mr. Krasnovsky--has returned yet. If he has returned, don't deliver the letter, but come back. Wait a minute! . . . Ifshe asks whether I have any one here, tell her that there have beentwo gentlemen here since eight o'clock, writing something. "

I drove to Znamensky Street. The porter told me that Mr. Krasnovskyhad not yet come in, and I made my way up to the third storey. Thedoor was opened by a tall, stout, drab-coloured flunkey with blackwhiskers, who in a sleepy, churlish, and apathetic voice, such asonly flunkeys use in addressing other flunkeys, asked me what Iwanted. Before I had time to answer, a lady dressed in black camehurriedly into the hall. She screwed up her eyes and looked at me. 

"Is Zinaida Fyodorovna at home?" I asked. 

"That is me, " said the lady. 

"A letter from Georgy Ivanitch. "

She tore the letter open impatiently, and holding it in both hands, so that I saw her sparkling diamond rings, she began reading. Imade out a pale face with soft lines, a prominent chin, and longdark lashes. From her appearance I should not have judged the ladyto be more than five and twenty. 

"Give him my thanks and my greetings, " she said when she had finishedthe letter. "Is there any one with Georgy Ivanitch?" she askedsoftly, joyfully, and as though ashamed of her mistrust. 

"Two gentlemen, " I answered. "They're writing something. "

"Give him my greetings and thanks, " she repeated, bending her headsideways, and, reading the letter as she walked, she went noiselesslyout. I saw few women at that time, and this lady of whom I had apassing glimpse made an impression on me. As I walked home I recalledher face and the delicate fragrance about her, and fell to dreaming. By the time I got home Orlov had gone out. 

II

And so my relations with my employer were quiet and peaceful, butstill the unclean and degrading element which I so dreaded onbecoming a footman was conspicuous and made itself felt every day. I did not get on with Polya. She was a well-fed and pampered hussywho adored Orlov because he was a gentleman and despised me becauseI was a footman. Probably, from the point of view of a real flunkeyor cook, she was fascinating, with her red cheeks, her turned-upnose, her coquettish glances, and the plumpness, one might almostsay fatness, of her person. She powdered her face, coloured herlips and eyebrows, laced herself in, and wore a bustle, and a banglemade of coins. She walked with little ripping steps; as she walkedshe swayed, or, as they say, wriggled her shoulders and back. Therustle of her skirts, the creaking of her stays, the jingle herbangle and the vulgar smell of lip salve, toilet vinegar, and scentstolen from her master, aroused me whilst I was doing the roomswith her in the morning a sensation as though I were taking partwith her in some abomination. 

Either because I did not steal as she did, or because I displayedno desire to become her lover, which she probably looked upon asan insult, or perhaps because she felt that I was a man of a differentorder, she hated me from the first day. My inexperience, my appearance--so unlike a flunkey--and my illness, seemed to her pitiful andexcited her disgust. I had a bad cough at that time, and sometimesat night I prevented her from sleeping, as our rooms were onlydivided by a wooden partition, and every morning she said to me:

"Again you didn't let me sleep. You ought to be in hospital insteadof in service. "

She so genuinely believed that I was hardly a human being, butsomething infinitely below her, that, like the Roman matrons whowere not ashamed to bathe before their slaves, she sometimes wentabout in my presence in nothing but her chemise. 

Once when I was in a happy, dreamy mood, I asked her at dinner (wehad soup and roast meat sent in from a restaurant every day)

"Polya, do you believe in God?"

"Why, of course!"

"Then, " I went on, "you believe there will be a day of judgment, and that we shall have to answer to God for every evil action?"

She gave me no reply, but simply made a contemptuous grimace, and, looking that time at her cold eyes and over-fed expression, Irealised that for her complete and finished personality no God, noconscience, no laws existed, and that if I had had to set fire tothe house, to murder or to rob, I could not have hired a betteraccomplice. 

In my novel surroundings I felt very uncomfortable for the firstweek at Orlov's before I got used to being addressed as "thou, " andbeing constantly obliged to tell lies (saying "My master is not athome" when he was). In my flunkey's swallow-tail I felt as thoughI were in armour. But I grew accustomed to it in time. Like a genuinefootman, I waited at table, tidied the rooms, ran and drove abouton errands of all sorts. When Orlov did not want to keep an appointmentwith Zinaida Fyodorovna, or when he forgot that he had promised togo and see her, I drove to Znamensky Street, put a letter into herhands and told a lie. And the result of it all was quite differentfrom what I had expected when I became a footman. Every day of thisnew life of mine was wasted for me and my cause, as Orlov neverspoke of his father, nor did his visitors, and all I could learnof the stateman's doings was, as before, what I could glean fromthe newspapers or from correspondence with my comrades. The hundredsof notes and papers I used to find in the study and read had notthe remotest connection with what I was looking for. Orlov wasabsolutely uninterested in his father's political work, and lookedas though he had never heard of it, or as though his father hadlong been dead. 

III

Every Thursday we had visitors. 

I ordered a piece of roast beef from the restaurant and telephonedto Eliseyev's to send us caviare, cheese, oysters, and so on. Ibought playing-cards. Polya was busy all day getting ready thetea-things and the dinner service. To tell the truth, this spurtof activity came as a pleasant change in our idle life, and Thursdayswere for us the most interesting days. 

Only three visitors used to come. The most important and perhapsthe most interesting was the one called Pekarsky--a tall, leanman of five and forty, with a long hooked nose, with a big blackbeard, and a bald patch on his head. His eyes were large andprominent, and his expression was grave and thoughtful like thatof a Greek philosopher. He was on the board of management of somerailway, and also had some post in a bank; he was a consultinglawyer in some important Government institution, and had businessrelations with a large number of private persons as a trustee, chairman of committees, and so on. He was of quite a low grade inthe service, and modestly spoke of himself as a lawyer, but he hada vast influence. A note or card from him was enough to make acelebrated doctor, a director of a railway, or a great dignitarysee any one without waiting; and it was said that through hisprotection one might obtain even a post of the Fourth Class, andget any sort of unpleasant business hushed up. He was looked uponas a very intelligent man, but his was a strange, peculiar intelligence. He was able to multiply 213 by 373 in his head instantaneously, orturn English pounds into German marks without help of pencil orpaper; he understood finance and railway business thoroughly, andthe machinery of Russian administration had no secrets for him; hewas a most skilful pleader in civil suits, and it was not easy toget the better of him at law. But that exceptional intelligencecould not grasp many things which are understood even by some stupidpeople. For instance, he was absolutely unable to understand whypeople are depressed, why they weep, shoot themselves, and evenkill others; why they fret about things that do not affect thempersonally, and why they laugh when they read Gogol or Shtchedrin. . . . Everything abstract, everything belonging to the domain ofthought and feeling, was to him boring and incomprehensible, likemusic to one who has no ear. He looked at people simply from thebusiness point of view, and divided them into competent andincompetent. No other classification existed for him. Honesty andrectitude were only signs of competence. Drinking, gambling, anddebauchery were permissible, but must not be allowed to interferewith business. Believing in God was rather stupid, but religionought be safeguarded, as the common people must have some principleto restrain them, otherwise they would not work. Punishment is onlynecessary as deterrent. There was no need to go away for holidays, as it was just as nice in town. And so on. He was a widower and hadno children, but lived on a large scale, as though he had a family, and paid thousand roubles a year for his flat. 

The second visitor, Kukushkin, an actual civil councillor though ayoung man, was short, and was conspicuous for his extremely unpleasantappearance, which was due to the disproportion between his fat, puffy body and his lean little face. His lips were puckered upsuavely, and his little trimmed moustaches looked as though theyhad been fixed on with glue. He was a man with the manners of alizard. He did not walk, but, as it were, crept along with tinysteps, squirming and sniggering, and when he laughed he showed histeeth. He was a clerk on special commissions, and did nothing, though he received a good salary, especially in the summer, whenspecial and lucrative jobs were found for him. He was a man ofpersonal ambition, not only to the marrow of his bones, but morefundamentally--to the last drop of his blood; but even in hisambitions he was petty and did not rely on himself, but was buildinghis career on the chance favour flung him by his superiors. For thesake of obtaining some foreign decoration, or for the sake of havinghis name mentioned in the newspapers as having been present at somespecial service in the company of other great personages, he wasready to submit to any kind of humiliation, to beg, to flatter, topromise. He flattered Orlov and Pekarsky from cowardice, becausehe thought they were powerful; he flattered Polya and me becausewe were in the service of a powerful man. Whenever I took off hisfur coat he tittered and asked me: "Stepan, are you married?" andthen unseemly vulgarities followed--by way of showing me specialattention. Kukushkin flattered Orlov's weaknesses, humoured hiscorrupted and blasé ways; to please him he affected maliciousraillery and atheism, in his company criticised persons before whomin other places he would slavishly grovel. When at supper theytalked of love and women, he pretended to be a subtle and perversevoluptuary. As a rule, one may say, Petersburg rakes are fond oftalking of their abnormal tastes. Some young actual civil councilloris perfectly satisfied with the embraces of his cook or of someunhappy street-walker on the Nevsky Prospect, but to listen to himyou would think he was contaminated by all the vices of East andWest combined, that he was an honourary member of a dozen iniquitoussecret societies and was already marked by the police. Kukushkinlied about himself in an unconscionable way, and they did not exactlydisbelieve him, but paid little heed to his incredible stories. 

The third guest was Gruzin, the son of a worthy and learned general;a man of Orlov's age, with long hair, short-sighted eyes, and goldspectacles. I remember his long white fingers, that looked like apianist's; and, indeed, there was something of a musician, of avirtuoso, about his whole figure. The first violins in orchestraslook just like that. He used to cough, suffered from migraine, andseemed invalidish and delicate. Probably at home he was dressed andundressed like a baby. He had finished at the College of Jurisprudence, and had at first served in the Department of Justice, then he wastransferred to the Senate; he left that, and through patronage hadreceived a post in the Department of Crown Estates, and had soonafterwards given that up. In my time he was serving in Orlov'sdepartment; he was his head-clerk, but he said that he should soonexchange into the Department of Justice again. He took his dutiesand his shifting about from one post to another with exceptionallevity, and when people talked before him seriously of grades inthe service, decorations, salaries, he smiled good-naturedly andrepeated Prutkov's aphorism: "It's only in the Government serviceyou learn the truth. " He had a little wife with a wrinkled face, who was very jealous of him, and five weedy-looking children. Hewas unfaithful to his wife, he was only fond of his children whenhe saw them, and on the whole was rather indifferent to his family, and made fun of them. He and his family existed on credit, borrowingwherever they could at every opportunity, even from his superiorsin the office and porters in people's houses. His was a flabbynature; he was so lazy that he did not care what became of himself, and drifted along heedless where or why he was going. He went wherehe was taken. If he was taken to some low haunt, he went; if winewas set before him, he drank--if it were not put before him, heabstained; if wives were abused in his presence, he abused his wife, declaring she had ruined his life--when wives were praised, hepraised his and said quite sincerely: "I am very fond of her, poorthing!" He had no fur coat and always wore a rug which smelt of thenursery. When at supper he rolled balls of bread and drank a greatdeal of red wine, absorbed in thought, strange to say, I used tofeel almost certain that there was something in him of which perhapshe had a vague sense, though in the bustle and vulgarity of hisdaily life he had not time to understand and appreciate it. Heplayed a little on the piano. Sometimes he would sit down at thepiano, play a chord or two, and begin singing softly:

 "What does the coming day bring to me?"

But at once, as though afraid, he would get up and walk from thepiano. 

The visitors usually arrived about ten o'clock. They played cardsin Orlov's study, and Polya and I handed them tea. It was only onthese occasions that I could gauge the full sweetness of a flunkey'slife. Standing for four or five hours at the door, watching thatno one's glass should be empty, changing the ash-trays, running tothe table to pick up the chalk or a card when it was dropped, and, above all, standing, waiting, being attentive without venturing tospeak, to cough, to smile--is harder, I assure you, is harderthan the hardest of field labour. I have stood on watch at sea forfour hours at a stretch on stormy winter nights, and to my thinkingit is an infinitely easier duty. 

They used to play cards till two, sometimes till three o'clock atnight, and then, stretching, they would go into the dining-room tosupper, or, as Orlov said, for a snack of something. At supper therewas conversation. It usually began by Orlov's speaking with laughingeyes of some acquaintance, of some book he had lately been reading, of a new appointment or Government scheme. Kukushkin, alwaysingratiating, would fall into his tone, and what followed was tome, in my mood at that time, a revolting exhibition. The irony ofOrlov and his friends knew no bounds, and spared no one and nothing. If they spoke of religion, it was with irony; they spoke of philosophy, of the significance and object of life--irony again, if any onebegan about the peasantry, it was with irony. 

There is in Petersburg a species of men whose specialty it is tojeer at every aspect of life; they cannot even pass by a starvingman or a suicide without saying something vulgar. But Orlov and hisfriends did not jeer or make jokes, they talked ironically. Theyused to say that there was no God, and personality was completelylost at death; the immortals only existed in the French Academy. Real good did not and could not possibly exist, as its existencewas conditional upon human perfection, which was a logical absurdity. Russia was a country as poor and dull as Persia. The intellectualclass was hopeless; in Pekarsky's opinion the overwhelming majorityin it were incompetent persons, good for nothing. The people weredrunken, lazy, thievish, and degenerate. We had no science, ourliterature was uncouth, our commerce rested on swindling--"Noselling without cheating. " And everything was in that style, andeverything was a subject for laughter. 

Towards the end of supper the wine made them more good-humoured, and they passed to more lively conversation. They laughed overGruzin's family life, over Kukushkin's conquests, or at Pekarsky, who had, they said, in his account book one page headed _Charity_and another _Physiological Necessities_. They said that no wife wasfaithful; that there was no wife from whom one could not, withpractice, obtain caresses without leaving her drawing-room whileher husband was sitting in his study close by; that girls in theirteens were perverted and knew everything. Orlov had preserved aletter of a schoolgirl of fourteen: on her way home from school shehad "hooked an officer on the Nevsky, " who had, it appears, takenher home with him, and had only let her go late in the evening; andshe hastened to write about this to her school friend to share herjoy with her. They maintained that there was not and never had beensuch a thing as moral purity, and that evidently it was unnecessary;mankind had so far done very well without it. The harm done byso-called vice was undoubtedly exaggerated. Vices which are punishedby our legal code had not prevented Diogenes from being a philosopherand a teacher. Cæsar and Cicero were profligates and at the sametime great men. Cato in his old age married a young girl, and yethe was regarded as a great ascetic and a pillar of morality. 

At three or four o'clock the party broke up or they went off togetherout of town, or to Officers' Street, to the house of a certainVarvara Ossipovna, while I retired to my quarters, and was keptawake a long while by coughing and headache. 

IV

Three weeks after I entered Orlov's service--it was Sunday morning, I remember--somebody rang the bell. It was not yet eleven, andOrlov was still asleep. I went to open the door. You can imaginemy astonishment when I found a lady in a veil standing at the dooron the landing. 

"Is Georgy Ivanitch up?" she asked. 

From her voice I recognised Zinaida Fyodorovna, to whom I had takenletters in Znamensky Street. I don't remember whether I had timeor self-possession to answer her--I was taken aback at seeingher. And, indeed, she did not need my answer. In a flash she haddarted by me, and, filling the hall with the fragrance of herperfume, which I remember to this day, she went on, and her footstepsdied away. For at least half an hour afterwards I heard nothing. But again some one rang. This time it was a smartly dressed girl, who looked like a maid in a wealthy family, accompanied by our houseporter. Both were out of breath, carrying two trunks and a dress-basket. 

"These are for Zinaida Fyodorovna, " said the girl. 

And she went down without saying another word. All this was mysterious, and made Polya, who had a deep admiration for the pranks of herbetters, smile slyly to herself; she looked as though she wouldlike to say, "So that's what we're up to, " and she walked about thewhole time on tiptoe. At last we heard footsteps; Zinaida Fyodorovnacame quickly into the hall, and seeing me at the door of my room, said:

"Stepan, take Georgy Ivanitch his things. "

When I went in to Orlov with his clothes and his boots, he wassitting on the bed with his feet on the bearskin rug. There was anair of embarrassment about his whole figure. He did not notice me, and my menial opinion did not interest him; he was evidently perturbedand embarrassed before himself, before his inner eye. He dressed, washed, and used his combs and brushes silently and deliberately, as though allowing himself time to think over his position and toreflect, and even from his back one could see he was troubled anddissatisfied with himself. 

They drank coffee together. Zinaida Fyodorovna poured out coffeefor herself and for Orlov, then she put her elbows on the table andlaughed. 

"I still can't believe it, " she said. "When one has been a longwhile on one's travels and reaches a hotel at last, it's difficultto believe that one hasn't to go on. It is pleasant to breathefreely. "

With the expression of a child who very much wants to be mischievous, she sighed with relief and laughed again. 

"You will excuse me, " said Orlov, nodding towards the coffee. "Reading at breakfast is a habit I can't get over. But I can do twothings at once--read and listen. "

"Read away. . . . You shall keep your habits and your freedom. Butwhy do you look so solemn? Are you always like that in the morning, or is it only to-day? Aren't you glad?"

"Yes, I am. But I must own I am a little overwhelmed. "

"Why? You had plenty of time to prepare yourself for my descentupon you. I've been threatening to come every day. "

"Yes, but I didn't expect you to carry out your threat to-day. "

"I didn't expect it myself, but that's all the better. It's all thebetter, my dear. It's best to have an aching tooth out and havedone with it. "

"Yes, of course. "

"Oh, my dear, " she said, closing her eyes, "all is well that endswell; but before this happy ending, what suffering there has been!My laughing means nothing; I am glad, I am happy, but I feel morelike crying than laughing. Yesterday I had to fight a regularbattle, " she went on in French. "God alone knows how wretched Iwas. But I laugh because I can't believe in it. I keep fancyingthat my sitting here drinking coffee with you is not real, but adream. "

Then, still speaking French, she described how she had broken withher husband the day before and her eyes were alternately full oftears and of laughter while she gazed with rapture at Orlov. Shetold him her husband had long suspected her, but had avoidedexplanations; they had frequent quarrels, and usually at the mostheated moment he would suddenly subside into silence and depart tohis study for fear that in his exasperation he might give utteranceto his suspicions or she might herself begin to speak openly. Andshe had felt guilty, worthless, incapable of taking a bold andserious step, and that had made her hate herself and her husbandmore every day, and she had suffered the torments of hell. But theday before, when during a quarrel he had cried out in a tearfulvoice, "My God, when will it end?" and had walked off to his study, she had run after him like a cat after a mouse, and, preventing himfrom shutting the door, she had cried that she hated him with herwhole soul. Then he let her come into the study and she had toldhim everything, had confessed that she loved some one else, thatthat some one else was her real, most lawful husband, and that shethought it her true duty to go away to him that very day, whatevermight happen, if she were to be shot for it. 

"There's a very romantic streak in you, " Orlov interrupted, keepinghis eyes fixed on the newspaper. 

She laughed and went on talking without touching her coffee. Hercheeks glowed and she was a little embarrassed by it, and she lookedin confusion at Polya and me. From what she went on to say I learntthat her husband had answered her with threats, reproaches, andfinally tears, and that it would have been more accurate to saythat she, and not he, had been the attacking party. 

"Yes, my dear, so long as I was worked up, everything went allright, " she told Orlov; "but as night came on, my spirits sank. Youdon't believe in God, _George_, but I do believe a little, and Ifear retribution. God requires of us patience, magnanimity, self-sacrifice, and here I am refusing to be patient and want toremodel my life to suit myself. Is that right? What if from thepoint of view of God it's wrong? At two o'clock in the night myhusband came to me and said: 'You dare not go away. I'll fetch youback through the police and make a scandal. ' And soon afterwards Isaw him like a shadow at my door. 'Have mercy on me! Your elopementmay injure me in the service. ' Those words had a coarse effect uponme and made me feel stiff all over. I felt as though the retributionwere beginning already; I began crying and trembling with terror. I felt as though the ceiling would fall upon me, that I should bedragged off to the police-station at once, that you would grow coldto me--all sorts of things, in fact! I thought I would go into anunnery or become a nurse, and give up all thought of happiness, but then I remembered that you loved me, and that I had no rightto dispose of myself without your knowledge; and everything in mymind was in a tangle--I was in despair and did not know what todo or think. But the sun rose and I grew happier. As soon as it wasmorning I dashed off to you. Ah, what I've been through, dear one!I haven't slept for two nights!"

She was tired out and excited. She was sleepy, and at the same timeshe wanted to talk endlessly, to laugh and to cry, and to go to arestaurant to lunch that she might feel her freedom. 

"You have a cosy flat, but I am afraid it may be small for the twoof us, " she said, walking rapidly through all the rooms when theyhad finished breakfast. "What room will you give me? I like thisone because it is next to your study. "

At one o'clock she changed her dress in the room next to the study, which from that time she called hers, and she went off with Orlovto lunch. They dined, too, at a restaurant, and spent the longinterval between lunch and dinner in shopping. Till late at nightI was opening the door to messengers and errand-boys from the shops. They bought, among other things, a splendid pier-glass, a dressing-table, a bedstead, and a gorgeous tea service which we did not need. Theybought a regular collection of copper saucepans, which we set in arow on the shelf in our cold, empty kitchen. As we were unpackingthe tea service Polya's eyes gleamed, and she looked at me two orthree times with hatred and fear that I, not she, would be the firstto steal one of these charming cups. A lady's writing-table, veryexpensive and inconvenient, came too. It was evident that ZinaidaFyodorovna contemplated settling with us for good, and meant tomake the flat her home. 

She came back with Orlov between nine and ten. Full of proudconsciousness that she had done something bold and out of the common, passionately in love, and, as she imagined, passionately loved, exhausted, looking forward to a sweet sound sleep, Zinaida Fyodorovnawas revelling in her new life. She squeezed her hands together inthe excess of her joy, declared that everything was delightful, andswore that she would love Orlov for ever; and these vows, and thenaïve, almost childish confidence that she too was deeply loved andwould be loved forever, made her at least five years younger. Shetalked charming nonsense and laughed at herself. 

"There's no other blessing greater than freedom!" she said, forcingherself to say something serious and edifying. "How absurd it iswhen you think of it! We attach no value to our own opinion evenwhen it is wise, but tremble before the opinion of all sorts ofstupid people. Up to the last minute I was afraid of what otherpeople would say, but as soon as I followed my own instinct andmade up my mind to go my own way, my eyes were opened, I overcamemy silly fears, and now I am happy and wish every one could be ashappy!"

But her thoughts immediately took another turn, and she began talkingof another flat, of wallpapers, horses, a trip to Switzerland andItaly. Orlov was tired by the restaurants and the shops, and wasstill suffering from the same uneasiness that I had noticed in themorning. He smiled, but more from politeness than pleasure, andwhen she spoke of anything seriously, he agreed ironically: "Oh, yes. "

"Stepan, make haste and find us a good cook, " she said to me. 

"There's no need to be in a hurry over the kitchen arrangements, "said Orlov, looking at me coldly. "We must first move into anotherflat. "

We had never had cooking done at home nor kept horses, because, ashe said, "he did not like disorder about him, " and only put up withhaving Polya and me in his flat from necessity. The so-calleddomestic hearth with its everyday joys and its petty cares offendedhis taste as vulgarity; to be with child, or to have children andtalk about them, was bad form, like a petty bourgeois. And I beganto feel very curious to see how these two creatures would get ontogether in one flat--she, domestic and home-loving with hercopper saucepans and her dreams of a good cook and horses; and he, fond of saying to his friends that a decent and orderly man's flatought, like a warship, to have nothing in it superfluous--nowomen, no children, no rags, no kitchen utensils. 

V

Then I will tell you what happened the following Thursday. That dayZinaida Fyodorovna dined at Content's or Donon's. Orlov returnedhome alone, and Zinaida Fyodorovna, as I learnt afterwards, wentto the Petersburg Side to spend with her old governess the timevisitors were with us. Orlov did not care to show her to his friends. I realised that at breakfast, when he began assuring her that forthe sake of her peace of mind it was essential to give up hisThursday evenings. 

As usual the visitors arrived at almost the same time. 

"Is your mistress at home, too?" Kukushkin asked me in a whisper. 

"No, sir, " I answered. 

He went in with a sly, oily look in his eyes, smiling mysteriously, rubbing his hands, which were cold from the frost. 

"I have the honour to congratulate you, " he said to Orlov, shakingall over with ingratiating, obsequious laughter. "May you increaseand multiply like the cedars of Lebanon. "

The visitors went into the bedroom, and were extremely jocose onthe subject of a pair of feminine slippers, the rug that had beenput down between the two beds, and a grey dressing-jacket that hungat the foot of the bedstead. They were amused that the obstinateman who despised all the common place details of love had beencaught in feminine snares in such a simple and ordinary way. 

"He who pointed the finger of scorn is bowing the knee in homage, "Kukushkin repeated several times. He had, I may say in parenthesis, an unpleasant habit of adorning his conversation with texts inChurch Slavonic. "Sh-sh!" he said as they went from the bedroominto the room next to the study. "Sh-sh! Here Gretchen is dreamingof her Faust. "

He went off into a peal of laughter as though he had said somethingvery amusing. I watched Gruzin, expecting that his musical soulwould not endure this laughter, but I was mistaken. His thin, good-natured face beamed with pleasure. When they sat down to playcards, he, lisping and choking with laughter, said that all that"dear _George_" wanted to complete his domestic felicity was acherry-wood pipe and a guitar. Pekarsky laughed sedately, but fromhis serious expression one could see that Orlov's new love affairwas distasteful to him. He did not understand what had happenedexactly. 

"But how about the husband?" he asked in perplexity, after they hadplayed three rubbers. 

"I don't know, " answered Orlov. 

Pekarsky combed his big beard with his fingers and sank into thought, and he did not speak again till supper-time. When they were seatedat supper, he began deliberately, drawling every word:

"Altogether, excuse my saying so, I don't understand either of you. You might love each other and break the seventh commandment to yourheart's content--that I understand. Yes, that's comprehensible. But why make the husband a party to your secrets? Was there anyneed for that?"

"But does it make any difference?"

"Hm! . . . . " Pekarsky mused. "Well, then, let me tell you this, my friend, " he went on, evidently thinking hard: "if I ever marryagain and you take it into your head to seduce my wife, please doit so that I don't notice it. It's much more honest to deceive aman than to break up his family life and injure his reputation. Iunderstand. You both imagine that in living together openly you aredoing something exceptionally honourable and advanced, but I can'tagree with that . . . What shall I call it? . . . Romantic attitude?"

Orlov made no reply. He was out of humour and disinclined to talk. Pekarsky, still perplexed, drummed on the table with his fingers, thought a little, and said:

"I don't understand you, all the same. You are not a student andshe is not a dressmaker. You are both of you people with means. Ishould have thought you might have arranged a separate flat forher. "

"No, I couldn't. Read Turgenev. "

"Why should I read him? I have read him already. "

"Turgenev teaches us in his novels that every exalted, noble-mindedgirl should follow the man she loves to the ends of the earth, andshould serve his idea, " said Orlov, screwing up his eyes ironically. "The ends of the earth are poetic license; the earth and all itsends can be reduced to the flat of the man she loves. . . . And sonot to live in the same flat with the woman who loves you is todeny her her exalted vocation and to refuse to share her ideals. Yes, my dear fellow, Turgenev wrote, and I have to suffer for it. "

"What Turgenev has got to do with it I don't understand, " saidGruzin softly, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Do you remember, _George_, how in 'Three Meetings' he is walking late in the eveningsomewhere in Italy, and suddenly hears, _'Vieni pensando a mesegretamente, '_" Gruzin hummed. "It's fine. "

"But she hasn't come to settle with you by force, " said Pekarsky. "It was your own wish. "

"What next! Far from wishing it, I never imagined that this wouldever happen. When she said she was coming to live with me, I thoughtit was a charming joke on her part. "

Everybody laughed. 

"I couldn't have wished for such a thing, " said Orlov in the toneof a man compelled to justify himself. "I am not a Turgenev hero, and if I ever wanted to free Bulgaria I shouldn't need a lady'scompany. I look upon love primarily as a necessity of my physicalnature, degrading and antagonistic to my spirit; it must either besatisfied with discretion or renounced altogether, otherwise itwill bring into one's life elements as unclean as itself. For itto be an enjoyment and not a torment, I will try to make it beautifuland to surround it with a mass of illusions. I should never go andsee a woman unless I were sure beforehand that she would be beautifuland fascinating; and I should never go unless I were in the mood. And it is only in that way that we succeed in deceiving one another, and fancying that we are in love and happy. But can I wish forcopper saucepans and untidy hair, or like to be seen myself when Iam unwashed or out of humour? Zinaida Fyodorovna in the simplicityof her heart wants me to love what I have been shunning all my life. She wants my flat to smell of cooking and washing up; she wants allthe fuss of moving into another flat, of driving about with her ownhorses; she wants to count over my linen and to look after my health;she wants to meddle in my personal life at every instant, and towatch over every step; and at the same time she assures me genuinelythat my habits and my freedom will be untouched. She is persuadedthat, like a young couple, we shall very soon go for a honeymoon--that is, she wants to be with me all the time in trains andhotels, while I like to read on the journey and cannot endure talkingin trains. "

"You should give her a talking to, " said Pekarsky. 

"What! Do you suppose she would understand me? Why, we think sodifferently. In her opinion, to leave one's papa and mamma or one'shusband for the sake of the man one loves is the height of civicvirtue, while I look upon it as childish. To fall in love and runaway with a man to her means beginning a new life, while to my mindit means nothing at all. Love and man constitute the chief interestof her life, and possibly it is the philosophy of the unconsciousat work in her. Try and make her believe that love is only a simplephysical need, like the need of food or clothes; that it doesn'tmean the end of the world if wives and husbands are unsatisfactory;that a man may be a profligate and a libertine, and yet a man ofhonour and a genius; and that, on the other hand, one may abstainfrom the pleasures of love and at the same time be a stupid, viciousanimal! The civilised man of to-day, even among the lower classes--for instance, the French workman--spends ten _sous_ on dinner, five _sous_ on his wine, and five or ten _sous_ on woman, and devoteshis brain and nerves entirely to his work. But Zinaida Fyodorovnaassigns to love not so many _sous_, but her whole soul. I mightgive her a talking to, but she would raise a wail in answer, anddeclare in all sincerity that I had ruined her, that she had nothingleft to live for. "

"Don't say anything to her, " said Pekarsky, "but simply take aseparate flat for her, that's all. "

"That's easy to say. "

There was a brief silence. 

"But she is charming, " said Kukushkin. "She is exquisite. Such womenimagine that they will be in love for ever, and abandon themselveswith tragic intensity. "

"But one must keep a head on one's shoulders, " said Orlov; "onemust be reasonable. All experience gained from everyday life andhanded down in innumerable novels and plays, uniformly confirms thefact that adultery and cohabitation of any sort between decentpeople never lasts longer than two or at most three years, howevergreat the love may have been at the beginning. That she ought toknow. And so all this business of moving, of saucepans, hopes ofeternal love and harmony, are nothing but a desire to delude herselfand me. She is charming and exquisite--who denies it? But she hasturned my life upside down; what I have regarded as trivial andnonsensical till now she has forced me to raise to the level of aserious problem; I serve an idol whom I have never looked upon asGod. She is charming--exquisite, but for some reason now when Iam going home, I feel uneasy, as though I expected to meet withsomething inconvenient at home, such as workmen pulling the stoveto pieces and blocking up the place with heaps of bricks. In fact, I am no longer giving up to love a _sous_, but part of my peace ofmind and my nerves. And that's bad. "

"And she doesn't hear this villain!" sighed Kukushkin. "My dearsir, " he said theatrically, "I will relieve you from the burdensomeobligation to love that adorable creature! I will wrest ZinaidaFyodorovna from you!"

"You may . . . " said Orlov carelessly. 

For half a minute Kukushkin laughed a shrill little laugh, shakingall over, then he said:

"Look out; I am in earnest! Don't you play the Othello afterwards!"

They all began talking of Kukushkin's indefatigable energy in loveaffairs, how irresistible he was to women, and what a danger he wasto husbands; and how the devil would roast him in the other worldfor his immorality in this. He screwed up his eyes and remainedsilent, and when the names of ladies of their acquaintance werementioned, he held up his little finger--as though to say theymustn't give away other people's secrets. 

Orlov suddenly looked at his watch. 

His friends understood, and began to take their leave. I rememberthat Gruzin, who was a little drunk, was wearisomely long in gettingoff. He put on his coat, which was cut like children's coats inpoor families, pulled up the collar, and began telling some long-windedstory; then, seeing he was not listened to, he flung the rug thatsmelt of the nursery over one shoulder, and with a guilty andimploring face begged me to find his hat. 

"_George_, my angel, " he said tenderly. "Do as I ask you, dear boy;come out of town with us!"

"You can go, but I can't. I am in the position of a married mannow. "

"She is a dear, she won't be angry. My dear chief, come along! It'sglorious weather; there's snow and frost. . . . Upon my word, youwant shaking up a bit; you are out of humour. I don't know what thedevil is the matter with you. . . . "

Orlov stretched, yawned, and looked at Pekarsky. 

"Are you going?" he said, hesitating. 

"I don't know. Perhaps. "

"Shall I get drunk? All right, I'll come, " said Orlov after somehesitation. "Wait a minute; I'll get some money. "

He went into the study, and Gruzin slouched in, too, dragging hisrug after him. A minute later both came back into the hall. Gruzin, a little drunk and very pleased, was crumpling a ten-rouble notein his hands. 

"We'll settle up to-morrow, " he said. "And she is kind, she won'tbe cross. . . . She is my Lisotchka's godmother; I am fond of her, poor thing! Ah, my dear fellow!" he laughed joyfully, and pressinghis forehead on Pekarsky's back. "Ah, Pekarsky, my dear soul!Advocatissimus--as dry as a biscuit, but you bet he is fond ofwomen. . . . "

"Fat ones, " said Orlov, putting on his fur coat. "But let us getoff, or we shall be meeting her on the doorstep. "

"_'Vieni pensando a me segretamente, '_" hummed Gruzin. 

At last they drove off: Orlov did not sleep at home, and returnednext day at dinner-time. 

VI

Zinaida Fyodorovna had lost her gold watch, a present from herfather. This loss surprised and alarmed her. She spent half a daygoing through the rooms, looking helplessly on all the tables andon all the windows. But the watch had disappeared completely. 

Only three days afterwards Zinaida Fyodorovna, on coming in, lefther purse in the hall. Luckily for me, on that occasion it was notI but Polya who helped her off with her coat. When the purse wasmissed, it could not be found in the hall. 

"Strange, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna in bewilderment. "I distinctlyremember taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabman . . . Andthen I put it here near the looking-glass. It's very odd!"

I had not stolen it, but I felt as though I had stolen it and hadbeen caught in the theft. Tears actually came into my eyes. Whenthey were seated at dinner, Zinaida Fyodorovna said to Orlov inFrench:

"There seem to be spirits in the flat. I lost my purse in the hallto-day, and now, lo and behold, it is on my table. But it's notquite a disinterested trick of the spirits. They took out a goldcoin and twenty roubles in notes. "

"You are always losing something; first it's your watch and thenit's your money . . . " said Orlov. "Why is it nothing of the sortever happens to me?"

A minute later Zinaida Fyodorovna had forgotten the trick playedby the spirits, and was telling with a laugh how the week beforeshe had ordered some notepaper and had forgotten to give her newaddress, and the shop had sent the paper to her old home at herhusband's, who had to pay twelve roubles for it. And suddenly sheturned her eyes on Polya and looked at her intently. She blushedas she did so, and was so confused that she began talking of somethingelse. 

When I took in the coffee to the study, Orlov was standing with hisback to the fire and she was sitting in an arm-chair facing him. 

"I am not in a bad temper at all, " she was saying in French. "ButI have been putting things together, and now I see it clearly. Ican give you the day and the hour when she stole my watch. And thepurse? There can be no doubt about it. Oh!" she laughed as she tookthe coffee from me. "Now I understand why I am always losing myhandkerchiefs and gloves. Whatever you say, I shall dismiss themagpie to-morrow and send Stepan for my Sofya. She is not a thiefand has not got such a repulsive appearance. "

"You are out of humour. To-morrow you will feel differently, andwill realise that you can't discharge people simply because yoususpect them. "

"It's not suspicion; it's certainty, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna. "Solong as I suspected that unhappy-faced, poor-looking valet of yours, I said nothing. It's too bad of you not to believe me, _George_. "

"If we think differently about anything, it doesn't follow that Idon't believe you. You may be right, " said Orlov, turning round andflinging his cigarette-end into the fire, "but there is no need tobe excited about it, anyway. In fact, I must say, I never expectedmy humble establishment would cause you so much serious worry andagitation. You've lost a gold coin: never mind--you may have ahundred of mine; but to change my habits, to pick up a new housemaid, to wait till she is used to the place--all that's a tedious, tiring business and does not suit me. Our present maid certainlyis fat, and has, perhaps, a weakness for gloves and handkerchiefs, but she is perfectly well behaved, well trained, and does not shriekwhen Kukushkin pinches her. "

"You mean that you can't part with her? . . . Why don't you sayso?"

"Are you jealous?"

"Yes, I am, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna, decidedly. 

"Thank you. "

"Yes, I am jealous, " she repeated, and tears glistened in her eyes. "No, it's something worse . . . Which I find it difficult to finda name for. " She pressed her hands on her temples, and went onimpulsively. "You men are so disgusting! It's horrible!"

"I see nothing horrible about it. "

"I've not seen it; I don't know; but they say that you men beginwith housemaids as boys, and get so used to it that you feel norepugnance. I don't know, I don't know, but I have actually read. . . _George_, of course you are right, " she said, going up to Orlovand changing to a caressing and imploring tone. "I really am outof humour to-day. But, you must understand, I can't help it. Shedisgusts me and I am afraid of her. It makes me miserable to seeher. "

"Surely you can rise above such paltriness?" said Orlov, shrugginghis shoulders in perplexity, and walking away from the fire. "Nothingcould be simpler: take no notice of her, and then she won't disgustyou, and you won't need to make a regular tragedy out of a trifle. "

I went out of the study, and I don't know what answer Orlov received. Whatever it was, Polya remained. After that Zinaida Fyodorovna neverapplied to her for anything, and evidently tried to dispense withher services. When Polya handed her anything or even passed by her, jingling her bangle and rustling her skirts, she shuddered. 

I believe that if Gruzin or Pekarsky had asked Orlov to dismissPolya he would have done so without the slightest hesitation, withouttroubling about any explanations. He was easily persuaded, like allindifferent people. But in his relations with Zinaida Fyodorovnahe displayed for some reason, even in trifles, an obstinacy whichsometimes was almost irrational. I knew beforehand that if ZinaidaFyodorovna liked anything, it would be certain not to please Orlov. When on coming in from shopping she made haste to show him withpride some new purchase, he would glance at it and say coldly thatthe more unnecessary objects they had in the flat, the less airyit would be. It sometimes happened that after putting on his dressclothes to go out somewhere, and after saying good-bye to ZinaidaFyodorovna, he would suddenly change his mind and remain at homefrom sheer perversity. I used to think that he remained at homethen simply in order to feel injured. 

"Why are you staying?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, with a show ofvexation, though at the same time she was radiant with delight. "Why do you? You are not accustomed to spending your evenings athome, and I don't want you to alter your habits on my account. Dogo out as usual, if you don't want me to feel guilty. "

"No one is blaming you, " said Orlov. 

With the air of a victim he stretched himself in his easy-chair inthe study, and shading his eyes with his hand, took up a book. Butsoon the book dropped from his hand, he turned heavily in his chair, and again screened his eyes as though from the sun. Now he feltannoyed that he had not gone out. 

"May I come in?" Zinaida Fyodorovna would say, coming irresolutelyinto the study. "Are you reading? I felt dull by myself, and havecome just for a minute . . . To have a peep at you. "

I remember one evening she went in like that, irresolutely andinappropriately, and sank on the rug at Orlov's feet, and from hersoft, timid movements one could see that she did not understand hismood and was afraid. 

"You are always reading . . . " she said cajolingly, evidently wishingto flatter him. "Do you know, _George_, what is one of the secretsof your success? You are very clever and well-read. What book haveyou there?"

Orlov answered. A silence followed for some minutes which seemedto me very long. I was standing in the drawing-room, from which Icould watch them, and was afraid of coughing. 

"There is something I wanted to tell you, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna, and she laughed; "shall I? Very likely you'll laugh and say that Iflatter myself. You know I want, I want horribly to believe thatyou are staying at home to-night for my sake . . . That we mightspend the evening together. Yes? May I think so?"

"Do, " he said, screening his eyes. "The really happy man is he whothinks not only of what is, but of what is not. "

"That was a long sentence which I did not quite understand. Youmean happy people live in their imagination. Yes, that's true. Ilove to sit in your study in the evening and let my thoughts carryme far, far away. . . . It's pleasant sometimes to dream. Let usdream aloud, _George_. "

"I've never been at a girls' boarding-school; I never learnt theart. "

"You are out of humour?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, taking Orlov'shand. "Tell me why. When you are like that, I'm afraid. I don'tknow whether your head aches or whether you are angry with me. . . . "

Again there was a silence lasting several long minutes. 

"Why have you changed?" she said softly. "Why are you never sotender or so gay as you used to be at Znamensky Street? I've beenwith you almost a month, but it seems to me as though we had notyet begun to live, and have not yet talked of anything as we oughtto. You always answer me with jokes or else with a long cold lecturelike a teacher. And there is something cold in your jokes. . . . Why have you given up talking to me seriously?"

"I always talk seriously. "

"Well, then, let us talk. For God's sake, _George_. . . . Shallwe?"

"Certainly, but about what?"

"Let us talk of our life, of our future, " said Zinaida Fyodorovnadreamily. "I keep making plans for our life, plans and plans--andI enjoy doing it so! _George_, I'll begin with the question, whenare you going to give up your post?"

"What for?" asked Orlov, taking his hand from his forehead. 

"With your views you cannot remain in the service. You are out ofplace there. "

"My views?" Orlov repeated. "My views? In conviction and temperamentI am an ordinary official, one of Shtchedrin's heroes. You take mefor something different, I venture to assure you. "

"Joking again, _George_!"

"Not in the least. The service does not satisfy me, perhaps; but, anyway, it is better for me than anything else. I am used to it, and in it I meet men of my own sort; I am in my place there andfind it tolerable. "

"You hate the service and it revolts you. "

"Indeed? If I resign my post, take to dreaming aloud and lettingmyself be carried away into another world, do you suppose that thatworld would be less hateful to me than the service?"

"You are ready to libel yourself in order to contradict me. " ZinaidaFyodorovna was offended and got up. "I am sorry I began this talk. "

"Why are you angry? I am not angry with you for not being an official. Every one lives as he likes best. "

"Why, do you live as you like best? Are you free? To spend yourlife writing documents that are opposed to your own ideas, " ZinaidaFyodorovna went on, clasping her hands in despair: "to submit toauthority, congratulate your superiors at the New Year, and thencards and nothing but cards: worst of all, to be working for asystem which must be distasteful to you--no, _George_, no! Youshould not make such horrid jokes. It's dreadful. You are a man ofideas, and you ought to be working for your ideas and nothing else. "

"You really take me for quite a different person from what I am, "sighed Orlov. 

"Say simply that you don't want to talk to me. You dislike me, that's all, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna through her tears. 

"Look here, my dear, " said Orlov admonishingly, sitting up in hischair. "You were pleased to observe yourself that I am a clever, well-read man, and to teach one who knows does nothing but harm. Iknow very well all the ideas, great and small, which you mean whenyou call me a man of ideas. So if I prefer the service and cardsto those ideas, you may be sure I have good grounds for it. That'sone thing. Secondly, you have, so far as I know, never been in theservice, and can only have drawn your ideas of Government servicefrom anecdotes and indifferent novels. So it would not be amiss forus to make a compact, once for all, not to talk of things we knowalready or of things about which we are not competent to speak. "

"Why do you speak to me like that?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, steppingback as though in horror. "What for? _George_, for God's sake, thinkwhat you are saying!"

Her voice quivered and broke; she was evidently trying to restrainher tears, but she suddenly broke into sobs. 

"_George_, my darling, I am perishing!" she said in French, droppingdown before Orlov, and laying her head on his knees. "I am miserable, I am exhausted. I can't bear it, I can't bear it. . . . In mychildhood my hateful, depraved stepmother, then my husband, now you. . . You! . . . You meet my mad love with coldness and irony. . . . And that horrible, insolent servant, " she went on, sobbing. "Yes, yes, I see: I am not your wife nor your friend, but a woman youdon't respect because she has become your mistress. . . . I shallkill myself!"

I had not expected that her words and her tears would make such animpression on Orlov. He flushed, moved uneasily in his chair, andinstead of irony, his face wore a look of stupid, schoolboyishdismay. 

"My darling, you misunderstood me, " he muttered helplessly, touchingher hair and her shoulders. "Forgive me, I entreat you. I was unjustand I hate myself. "

"I insult you with my whining and complaints. You are a true, generous . . . Rare man--I am conscious of it every minute; butI've been horribly depressed for the last few days. . . "

Zinaida Fyodorovna impulsively embraced Orlov and kissed him on thecheek. 

"Only please don't cry, " he said. 

"No, no. . . . I've had my cry, and now I am better. "

"As for the servant, she shall be gone to-morrow, " he said, stillmoving uneasily in his chair. 

"No, she must stay, _George!_ Do you hear? I am not afraid of hernow. . . . One must rise above trifles and not imagine silly things. You are right! You are a wonderful, rare person!"

She soon left off crying. With tears glistening on her eyelashes, sitting on Orlov's knee, she told him in a low voice somethingtouching, something like a reminiscence of childhood and youth. Shestroked his face, kissed him, and carefully examined his hands withthe rings on them and the charms on his watch-chain. She was carriedaway by what she was saying, and by being near the man she loved, and probably because her tears had cleared and refreshed her soul, there was a note of wonderful candour and sincerity in her voice. And Orlov played with her chestnut hair and kissed her hands, noiselessly pressing them to his lips. 

Then they had tea in the study, and Zinaida Fyodorovna read aloudsome letters. Soon after midnight they went to bed. I had a fearfulpain in my side that night, and I not get warm or go to sleep tillmorning. I could hear Orlov go from the bedroom into his study. After sitting there about an hour, he rang the bell. In my pain andexhaustion I forgot all the rules and conventions, and went to hisstudy in my night attire, barefooted. Orlov, in his dressing-gownand cap, was standing in the doorway, waiting for me. 

"When you are sent for you should come dressed, " he said sternly. "Bring some fresh candles. "

I was about to apologise, but suddenly broke into a violent cough, and clutched at the side of the door to save myself from falling. 

"Are you ill?" said Orlov. 

I believe it was the first time of our acquaintance that he addressedme not in the singular--goodness knows why. Most likely, in mynight clothes and with my face distorted by coughing, I played mypart poorly, and was very little like a flunkey. 

"If you are ill, why do you take a place?" he said. 

"That I may not die of starvation, " I answered. 

"How disgusting it all is, really!" he said softly, going up to histable. 

While hurriedly getting into my coat, I put up and lighted freshcandles. He was sitting at the table, with feet stretched out on alow chair, cutting a book. 

I left him deeply engrossed, and the book did not drop out of hishands as it had done in the evening. 

VII

Now that I am writing these lines I am restrained by that dread ofappearing sentimental and ridiculous, in which I have been trainedfrom childhood; when I want to be affectionate or to say anythingtender, I don't know how to be natural. And it is that dread, together with lack of practice, that prevents me from being ableto express with perfect clearness what was passing in my soul atthat time. 

I was not in love with Zinaida Fyodorovna, but in the ordinary humanfeeling I had for her, there was far more youth, freshness, andjoyousness than in Orlov's love. 

As I worked in the morning, cleaning boots or sweeping the rooms, I waited with a thrill at my heart for the moment when I shouldhear her voice and her footsteps. To stand watching her as she drankher coffee in the morning or ate her lunch, to hold her fur coatfor her in the hall, and to put the goloshes on her little feetwhile she rested her hand on my shoulder; then to wait till thehall porter rang up for me, to meet her at the door, cold, and rosy, powdered with the snow, to listen to her brief exclamations aboutthe frost or the cabman--if only you knew how much all that meantto me! I longed to be in love, to have a wife and child of my own. I wanted my future wife to have just such a face, such a voice. Idreamed of it at dinner, and in the street when I was sent on someerrand, and when I lay awake at night. Orlov rejected with disgustchildren, cooking, copper saucepans, and feminine knicknacks and Igathered them all up, tenderly cherished them in my dreams, lovedthem, and begged them of destiny. I had visions of a wife, a nursery, a little house with garden paths. . . . 

I knew that if I did love her I could never dare hope for the miracleof her returning my love, but that reflection did not worry me. Inmy quiet, modest feeling akin to ordinary affection, there was nojealousy of Orlov or even envy of him, since I realised that for awreck like me happiness was only to be found in dreams. 

When Zinaida Fyodorovna sat up night after night for her _George_, looking immovably at a book of which she never turned a page, orwhen she shuddered and turned pale at Polya's crossing the room, Isuffered with her, and the idea occurred to me to lance this festeringwound as quickly as possible by letting her know what was said hereat supper on Thursdays; but--how was it to be done? More and moreoften I saw her tears. For the first weeks she laughed and sang toherself, even when Orlov was not at home, but by the second monththere was a mournful stillness in our flat broken only on Thursdayevenings. 

She flattered Orlov, and to wring from him a counterfeit smile orkiss, was ready to go on her knees to him, to fawn on him like adog. Even when her heart was heaviest, she could not resist glancinginto a looking-glass if she passed one and straightening her hair. It seemed strange to me that she could still take an interest inclothes and go into ecstasies over her purchases. It did not seemin keeping with her genuine grief. She paid attention to the fashionsand ordered expensive dresses. What for? On whose account? Iparticularly remember one dress which cost four hundred roubles. To give four hundred roubles for an unnecessary, useless dress whilewomen for their hard day's work get only twenty kopecks a day withoutfood, and the makers of Venice and Brussels lace are only paid halfa franc a day on the supposition that they can earn the rest byimmorality! And it seemed strange to me that Zinaida Fyodorovna wasnot conscious of it; it vexed me. But she had only to go out of thehouse for me to find excuses and explanations for everything, andto be waiting eagerly for the hall porter to ring for me. 

She treated me as a flunkey, a being of a lower order. One may pata dog, and yet not notice it; I was given orders and asked questions, but my presence was not observed. My master and mistress thoughtit unseemly to say more to me than is usually said to servants; ifwhen waiting at dinner I had laughed or put in my word in theconversation, they would certainly have thought I was mad and havedismissed me. Zinaida Fyodorovna was favourably disposed to me, allthe same. When she was sending me on some errand or explaining tome the working of a new lamp or anything of that sort, her face wasextraordinarily kind, frank, and cordial, and her eyes looked mestraight in the face. At such moments I always fancied she rememberedwith gratitude how I used to bring her letters to Znamensky Street. When she rang the bell, Polya, who considered me her favourite andhated me for it, used to say with a jeering smile:

"Go along, _your_ mistress wants you. "

Zinaida Fyodorovna considered me as a being of a lower order, anddid not suspect that if any one in the house were in a humiliatingposition it was she. She did not know that I, a footman, was unhappyon her account, and used to ask myself twenty times a day what wasin store for her and how it would all end. Things were growingvisibly worse day by day. After the evening on which they had talkedof his official work, Orlov, who could not endure tears, unmistakablybegan to avoid conversation with her; whenever Zinaida Fyodorovnabegan to argue, or to beseech him, or seemed on the point of crying, he seized some plausible excuse for retreating to his study or goingout. He more and more rarely slept at home, and still more rarelydined there: on Thursdays he was the one to suggest some expeditionto his friends. Zinaida Fyodorovna was still dreaming of having thecooking done at home, of moving to a new flat, of travelling abroad, but her dreams remained dreams. Dinner was sent in from the restaurant. Orlov asked her not to broach the question of moving until afterthey had come back from abroad, and apropos of their foreign tour, declared that they could not go till his hair had grown long, asone could not go trailing from hotel to hotel and serving the ideawithout long hair. 

To crown it all, in Orlov's absence, Kukushkin began calling at theflat in the evening. There was nothing exceptional in his behaviour, but I could never forget the conversation in which he had offeredto cut Orlov out. He was regaled with tea and red wine, and he usedto titter and, anxious to say something pleasant, would declarethat a free union was superior in every respect to legal marriage, and that all decent people ought really to come to Zinaida Fyodorovnaand fall at her feet. 

VIII

Christmas was spent drearily in vague anticipations of calamity. On New Year's Eve Orlov unexpectedly announced at breakfast thathe was being sent to assist a senator who was on a revising commissionin a certain province. 

"I don't want to go, but I can't find an excuse to get off, " hesaid with vexation. "I must go; there's nothing for it. "

Such news instantly made Zinaida Fyodorovna's eyes look red. "Isit for long?" she asked. 

"Five days or so. "

"I am glad, really, you are going, " she said after a moment'sthought. "It will be a change for you. You will fall in love withsome one on the way, and tell me about it afterwards. "

At every opportunity she tried to make Orlov feel that she did notrestrict his liberty in any way, and that he could do exactly ashe liked, and this artless, transparent strategy deceived no one, and only unnecessarily reminded Orlov that he was not free. 

"I am going this evening, " he said, and began reading the paper. 

Zinaida Fyodorovna wanted to see him off at the station, but hedissuaded her, saying that he was not going to America, and notgoing to be away five years, but only five days--possibly less. 

The parting took place between seven and eight. He put one arm roundher, and kissed her on the lips and on the forehead. 

"Be a good girl, and don't be depressed while I am away, " he saidin a warm, affectionate tone which touched even me. "God keep you!"

She looked greedily into his face, to stamp his dear features onher memory, then she put her arms gracefully round his neck andlaid her head on his breast. 

"Forgive me our misunderstandings, " she said in French. "Husbandand wife cannot help quarrelling if they love each other, and Ilove you madly. Don't forget me. . . . Wire to me often and fully. "

Orlov kissed her once more, and, without saying a word, went outin confusion. When he heard the click of the lock as the door closed, he stood still in the middle of the staircase in hesitation andglanced upwards. It seemed to me that if a sound had reached himat that moment from above, he would have turned back. But all wasquiet. He straightened his coat and went downstairs irresolutely. 

The sledges had been waiting a long while at the door. Orlov gotinto one, I got into the other with two portmanteaus. It was a hardfrost and there were fires smoking at the cross-roads. The coldwind nipped my face and hands, and took my breath away as we droverapidly along; and, closing my eyes, I thought what a splendid womanshe was. How she loved him! Even useless rubbish is collected inthe courtyards nowadays and used for some purpose, even broken glassis considered a useful commodity, but something so precious, sorare, as the love of a refined, young, intelligent, and good womanis utterly thrown away and wasted. One of the early sociologistsregarded every evil passion as a force which might by judiciousmanagement be turned to good, while among us even a fine, noblepassion springs up and dies away in impotence, turned to no account, misunderstood or vulgarised. Why is it?

The sledges stopped unexpectedly. I opened my eyes and I saw thatwe had come to a standstill in Sergievsky Street, near a big housewhere Pekarsky lived. Orlov got out of the sledge and vanished intothe entry. Five minutes later Pekarsky's footman came out, bareheaded, and, angry with the frost, shouted to me:

"Are you deaf? Pay the cabmen and go upstairs. You are wanted!"

At a complete loss, I went to the first storey. I had been toPekarsky's flat before--that is, I had stood in the hall andlooked into the drawing-room, and, after the damp, gloomy street, it always struck me by the brilliance of its picture-frames, itsbronzes and expensive furniture. To-day in the midst of this splendourI saw Gruzin, Kukushkin, and, after a minute, Orlov. 

"Look here, Stepan, " he said, coming up to me. "I shall be stayinghere till Friday or Saturday. If any letters or telegrams come, youmust bring them here every day. At home, of course you will saythat I have gone, and send my greetings. Now you can go. "

When I reached home Zinaida Fyodorovna was lying on the sofa in thedrawing-room, eating a pear. There was only one candle burning inthe candelabra. 

"Did you catch the train?" asked Zinaida Fyodorovna. 

"Yes, madam. His honour sends his greetings. "

I went into my room and I, too, lay down. I had nothing to do, andI did not want to read. I was not surprised and I was not indignant. I only racked my brains to think why this deception was necessary. It is only boys in their teens who deceive their mistresses likethat. How was it that a man who had thought and read so much couldnot imagine anything more sensible? I must confess I had by no meansa poor opinion of his intelligence. I believe if he had had todeceive his minister or any other influential person he would haveput a great deal of skill and energy into doing so; but to deceivea woman, the first idea that occurred to him was evidently goodenough. If it succeeded--well and good; if it did not, there wouldbe no harm done--he could tell some other lie just as quickly andsimply, with no mental effort. 

At midnight when the people on the floor overhead were moving theirchairs and shouting hurrah to welcome the New Year, Zinaida Fyodorovnarang for me from the room next to the study. Languid from lyingdown so long, she was sitting at the table, writing something on ascrap of paper. 

"I must send a telegram, " she said, with a smile. "Go to the stationas quick as you can and ask them to send it after him. "

Going out into the street, I read on the scrap of paper:

"May the New Year bring new happiness. Make haste and telegraph; Imiss you dreadfully. It seems an eternity. I am only sorry I can'tsend a thousand kisses and my very heart by telegraph. Enjoy yourself, my darling. --ZINA. "

I sent the telegram, and next morning I gave her the receipt. 

IX

The worst of it was that Orlov had thoughtlessly let Polya, too, into the secret of his deception, telling her to bring his shirtsto Sergievsky Street. After that, she looked at Zinaida Fyodorovnawith a malignant joy and hatred I could not understand, and wasnever tired of snorting with delight to herself in her own room andin the hall. 

"She's outstayed her welcome; it's time she took herself off!" shewould say with zest. "She ought to realise that herself. . . . "

She already divined by instinct that Zinaida Fyodorovna would notbe with us much longer, and, not to let the chance slip, carriedoff everything she set her eyes on--smelling-bottles, tortoise-shellhairpins, handkerchiefs, shoes! On the day after New Year's Day, Zinaida Fyodorovna summoned me to her room and told me in a lowvoice that she missed her black dress. And then she walked throughall the rooms, with a pale, frightened, and indignant face, talkingto herself:

"It's too much! It's beyond everything. Why, it's unheard-ofinsolence!"

At dinner she tried to help herself to soup, but could not--herhands were trembling. Her lips were trembling, too. She lookedhelplessly at the soup and at the little pies, waiting for thetrembling to pass off, and suddenly she could not resist lookingat Polya. 

"You can go, Polya, " she said. "Stepan is enough by himself. "

"I'll stay; I don't mind, " answered Polya. 

"There's no need for you to stay. You go away altogether, " ZinaidaFyodorovna went on, getting up in great agitation. "You may lookout for another place. You can go at once. "

"I can't go away without the master's orders. He engaged me. Itmust be as he orders. "

"You can take orders from me, too! I am mistress here!" said ZinaidaFyodorovna, and she flushed crimson. 

"You may be the mistress, but only the master can dismiss me. Itwas he engaged me. "

"You dare not stay here another minute!" cried Zinaida Fyodorovna, and she struck the plate with her knife. "You are a thief! Do youhear?"

Zinaida Fyodorovna flung her dinner-napkin on the table, and witha pitiful, suffering face, went quickly out of the room. Loudlysobbing and wailing something indistinct, Polya, too, went away. The soup and the grouse got cold. And for some reason all therestaurant dainties on the table struck me as poor, thievish, likePolya. Two pies on a plate had a particularly miserable and guiltyair. "We shall be taken back to the restaurant to-day, " they seemedto be saying, "and to-morrow we shall be put on the table again forsome official or celebrated singer. "

"She is a fine lady, indeed, " I heard uttered in Polya's room. "Icould have been a lady like that long ago, but I have some self-respect!We'll see which of us will be the first to go!"

Zinaida Fyodorovna rang the bell. She was sitting in her room, inthe corner, looking as though she had been put in the corner as apunishment. 

"No telegram has come?" she asked. 

"No, madam. "

"Ask the porter; perhaps there is a telegram. And don't leave thehouse, " she called after me. "I am afraid to be left alone. "

After that I had to run down almost every hour to ask the porterwhether a telegram had come. I must own it was a dreadful time! Toavoid seeing Polya, Zinaida Fyodorovna dined and had tea in her ownroom; it was here that she slept, too, on a short sofa like ahalf-moon, and she made her own bed. For the first days I took thetelegrams; but, getting no answer, she lost her faith in me andbegan telegraphing herself. Looking at her, I, too, began impatientlyhoping for a telegram. I hoped he would contrive some deception, would make arrangements, for instance, that a telegram should besent to her from some station. If he were too much engrossed withcards or had been attracted by some other woman, I thought thatboth Gruzin and Kukushkin would remind him of us. But our expectationswere vain. Five times a day I would go in to Zinaida Fyodorovna, intending to tell her the truth, But her eyes looked piteous as afawn's, her shoulders seemed to droop, her lips were moving, and Iwent away again without saying a word. Pity and sympathy seemed torob me of all manliness. Polya, as cheerful and well satisfied withherself as though nothing had happened, was tidying the master'sstudy and the bedroom, rummaging in the cupboards, and making thecrockery jingle, and when she passed Zinaida Fyodorovna's door, shehummed something and coughed. She was pleased that her mistress washiding from her. In the evening she would go out somewhere, andrang at two or three o'clock in the morning, and I had to open thedoor to her and listen to remarks about my cough. Immediatelyafterwards I would hear another ring; I would run to the room nextto the study, and Zinaida Fyodorovna, putting her head out of thedoor, would ask, "Who was it rung?" while she looked at my handsto see whether I had a telegram. 

When at last on Saturday the bell rang below and she heard thefamiliar voice on the stairs, she was so delighted that she brokeinto sobs. She rushed to meet him, embraced him, kissed him on thebreast and sleeves, said something one could not understand. Thehall porter brought up the portmanteaus; Polya's cheerful voice washeard. It was as though some one had come home for the holidays. 

"Why didn't you wire?" asked Zinaida Fyodorovna, breathless withjoy. "Why was it? I have been in misery; I don't know how I've livedthrough it. . . . Oh, my God!"

"It was very simple! I returned with the senator to Moscow the veryfirst day, and didn't get your telegrams, " said Orlov. "After dinner, my love, I'll give you a full account of my doings, but now I mustsleep and sleep. . . . I am worn out with the journey. "

It was evident that he had not slept all night; he had probablybeen playing cards and drinking freely. Zinaida Fyodorovna put himto bed, and we all walked about on tiptoe all that day. The dinnerwent off quite satisfactorily, but when they went into the studyand had coffee the explanation began. Zinaida Fyodorovna begantalking of something rapidly in a low voice; she spoke in French, and her words flowed like a stream. Then I heard a loud sigh fromOrlov, and his voice. 

"My God!" he said in French. "Have you really nothing fresher totell me than this everlasting tale of your servant's misdeeds?"

"But, my dear, she robbed me and said insulting things to me. "

"But why is it she doesn't rob me or say insulting things to me?Why is it I never notice the maids nor the porters nor the footmen?My dear, you are simply capricious and refuse to know your own mind. . . . I really begin to suspect that you must be in a certaincondition. When I offered to let her go, you insisted on herremaining, and now you want me to turn her away. I can be obstinate, too, in such cases. You want her to go, but I want her to remain. That's the only way to cure you of your nerves. "

"Oh, very well, very well, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna in alarm. "Letus say no more about that. . . . Let us put it off till to-morrow. . . . Now tell me about Moscow. . . . What is going on in Moscow?"

X

After lunch next day--it was the seventh of January, St. John theBaptist's Day--Orlov put on his black dress coat and his decorationto go to visit his father and congratulate him on his name day. Hehad to go at two o'clock, and it was only half-past one when he hadfinished dressing. What was he to do for that half-hour? He walkedabout the drawing-room, declaiming some congratulatory verses whichhe had recited as a child to his father and mother. 

Zinaida Fyodorovna, who was just going out to a dressmaker's or tothe shops, was sitting, listening to him with a smile. I don't knowhow their conversation began, but when I took Orlov his gloves, hewas standing before her with a capricious, beseeching face, saying:

"For God's sake, in the name of everything that's holy, don't talkof things that everybody knows! What an unfortunate gift ourintellectual thoughtful ladies have for talking with enthusiasm andan air of profundity of things that every schoolboy is sick to deathof! Ah, if only you would exclude from our conjugal programme allthese serious questions! How grateful I should be to you!"

"We women may not dare, it seems, to have views of our own. "

"I give you full liberty to be as liberal as you like, and quotefrom any authors you choose, but make me one concession: don't holdforth in my presence on either of two subjects: the corruption ofthe upper classes and the evils of the marriage system. Do understandme, at last. The upper class is always abused in contrast with theworld of tradesmen, priests, workmen and peasants, Sidors and Nikitasof all sorts. I detest both classes, but if I had honestly to choosebetween the two, I should without hesitation, prefer the upperclass, and there would be no falsity or affectation about it, sinceall my tastes are in that direction. Our world is trivial and empty, but at any rate we speak French decently, read something, and don'tpunch each other in the ribs even in our most violent quarrels, while the Sidors and the Nikitas and their worships in trade talkabout 'being quite agreeable, ' 'in a jiffy, ' 'blast your eyes, ' anddisplay the utmost license of pothouse manners and the most degradingsuperstition. "

"The peasant and the tradesman feed you. "

"Yes, but what of it? That's not only to my discredit, but to theirstoo. They feed me and take off their caps to me, so it seems theyhave not the intelligence and honesty to do otherwise. I don't blameor praise any one: I only mean that the upper class and the lowerare as bad as one another. My feelings and my intelligence areopposed to both, but my tastes lie more in the direction of theformer. Well, now for the evils of marriage, " Orlov went on, glancingat his watch. "It's high time for you to understand that there areno evils in the system itself; what is the matter is that you don'tknow yourselves what you want from marriage. What is it you want?In legal and illegal cohabitation, in every sort of union andcohabitation, good or bad, the underlying reality is the same. Youladies live for that underlying reality alone: for you it's everything;your existence would have no meaning for you without it. You wantnothing but that, and you get it; but since you've taken to readingnovels you are ashamed of it: you rush from pillar to post, yourecklessly change your men, and to justify this turmoil you havebegun talking of the evils of marriage. So long as you can't andwon't renounce what underlies it all, your chief foe, your devil--so long as you serve that slavishly, what use is there indiscussing the matter seriously? Everything you may say to me willbe falsity and affectation. I shall not believe you. "

I went to find out from the hall porter whether the sledge was atthe door, and when I came back I found it had become a quarrel. Assailors say, a squall had blown up. 

"I see you want to shock me by your cynicism today, " said ZinaidaFyodorovna, walking about the drawing-room in great emotion. "Itrevolts me to listen to you. I am pure before God and man, and havenothing to repent of. I left my husband and came to you, and amproud of it. I swear, on my honour, I am proud of it!"

"Well, that's all right, then!"

"If you are a decent, honest man, you, too, ought to be proud ofwhat I did. It raises you and me above thousands of people who wouldlike to do as we have done, but do not venture through cowardiceor petty prudence. But you are not a decent man. You are afraid offreedom, and you mock the promptings of genuine feeling, from fearthat some ignoramus may suspect you of being sincere. You are afraidto show me to your friends; there's no greater infliction for youthan to go about with me in the street. . . . Isn't that true? Whyhaven't you introduced me to your father or your cousin all thistime? Why is it? No, I am sick of it at last, " cried ZinaidaFyodorovna, stamping. "I demand what is mine by right. You mustpresent me to your father. "

"If you want to know him, go and present yourself. He receivesvisitors every morning from ten till half-past. "

"How base you are!" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, wringing her hands indespair. "Even if you are not sincere, and are not saying what youthink, I might hate you for your cruelty. Oh, how base you are!"

"We keep going round and round and never reach the real point. Thereal point is that you made a mistake, and you won't acknowledgeit aloud. You imagined that I was a hero, and that I had someextraordinary ideas and ideals, and it has turned out that I am amost ordinary official, a cardplayer, and have no partiality forideas of any sort. I am a worthy representative of the rotten worldfrom which you have run away because you were revolted with itstriviality and emptiness. Recognise it and be just: don't be indignantwith me, but with yourself, as it is your mistake, and not mine. "

"Yes, I admit I was mistaken. "

"Well, that's all right, then. We've reached that point at last, thank God. Now hear something more, if you please: I can't rise toyour level--I am too depraved; you can't descend to my level, either, for you are too exalted. So there is only one thing leftto do. . . . "

"What?" Zinaida Fyodorovna asked quickly, holding her breath andturning suddenly as white as a sheet of paper. 

"To call logic to our aid. . . . "

"Georgy, why are you torturing me?" Zinaida Fyodorovna said suddenlyin Russian in a breaking voice. "What is it for? Think of my misery. . . . "

Orlov, afraid of tears, went quickly into his study, and I don'tknow why--whether it was that he wished to cause her extra pain, or whether he remembered it was usually done in such cases--helocked the door after him. She cried out and ran after him with arustle of her skirt. 

"What does this mean?" she cried, knocking at his door. "What . . . What does this mean?" she repeated in a shrill voice breakingwith indignation. "Ah, so this is what you do! Then let me tell youI hate you, I despise you! Everything is over between us now. "

I heard hysterical weeping mingled with laughter. Something smallin the drawing-room fell off the table and was broken. Orlov wentout into the hall by another door, and, looking round him nervously, he hurriedly put on his great-coat and went out. 

Half an hour passed, an hour, and she was still weeping. I rememberedthat she had no father or mother, no relations, and here she wasliving between a man who hated her and Polya, who robbed her--andhow desolate her life seemed to me! I do not know why, but I wentinto the drawing-room to her. Weak and helpless, looking with herlovely hair like an embodiment of tenderness and grace, she was inanguish, as though she were ill; she was lying on a couch, hidingher face, and quivering all over. 

"Madam, shouldn't I fetch a doctor?" I asked gently. 

"No, there's no need . . . It's nothing, " she said, and she lookedat me with her tear-stained eyes. "I have a little headache. . . . Thank you. "

I went out, and in the evening she was writing letter after letter, and sent me out first to Pekarsky, then to Gruzin, then to Kukushkin, and finally anywhere I chose, if only I could find Orlov and givehim the letter. Every time I came back with the letter she scoldedme, entreated me, thrust money into my hand--as though she werein a fever. And all the night she did not sleep, but sat in thedrawing-room, talking to herself. 

Orlov returned to dinner next day, and they were reconciled. 

The first Thursday afterwards Orlov complained to his friends ofthe intolerable life he led; he smoked a great deal, and said withirritation:

"It is no life at all; it's the rack. Tears, wailing, intellectualconversations, begging for forgiveness, again tears and wailing;and the long and the short of it is that I have no flat of my ownnow. I am wretched, and I make her wretched. Surely I haven't tolive another month or two like this? How can I? But yet I may haveto. "

"Why don't you speak, then?" said Pekarsky. 

"I've tried, but I can't. One can boldly tell the truth, whateverit may be, to an independent, rational man; but in this case onehas to do with a creature who has no will, no strength of character, and no logic. I cannot endure tears; they disarm me. When she cries, I am ready to swear eternal love and cry myself. "

Pekarsky did not understand; he scratched his broad forehead inperplexity and said:

"You really had better take another flat for her. It's so simple!"

"She wants me, not the flat. But what's the good of talking?" sighedOrlov. "I only hear endless conversations, but no way out of myposition. It certainly is a case of 'being guilty without guilt. 'I don't claim to be a mushroom, but it seems I've got to go intothe basket. The last thing I've ever set out to be is a hero. Inever could endure Turgenev's novels; and now, all of a sudden, asthough to spite me, I've heroism forced upon me. I assure her onmy honour that I'm not a hero at all, I adduce irrefutable proofsof the same, but she doesn't believe me. Why doesn't she believeme? I suppose I really must have something of the appearance of ahero. "

"You go off on a tour of inspection in the provinces, " said Kukushkin, laughing. 

"Yes, that's the only thing left for me. "

A week after this conversation Orlov announced that he was againordered to attend the senator, and the same evening he went offwith his portmanteaus to Pekarsky. 

XI

An old man of sixty, in a long fur coat reaching to the ground, anda beaver cap, was standing at the door. 

"Is Georgy Ivanitch at home?" he asked. 

At first I thought it was one of the moneylenders, Gruzin's creditors, who sometimes used to come to Orlov for small payments on account;but when he came into the hall and flung open his coat, I saw thethick brows and the characteristically compressed lips which I knewso well from the photographs, and two rows of stars on the uniform. I recognised him: it was Orlov's father, the distinguished statesman. 

I answered that Georgy Ivanitch was not at home. The old man pursedup his lips tightly and looked into space, reflecting, showing mehis dried-up, toothless profile. 

"I'll leave a note, " he said; "show me in. "

He left his goloshes in the hall, and, without taking off his long, heavy fur coat, went into the study. There he sat down before thetable, and, before taking up the pen, for three minutes he pondered, shading his eyes with his hand as though from the sun--exactlyas his son did when he was out of humour. His face was sad, thoughtful, with that look of resignation which I have only seen on the facesof the old and religious. I stood behind him, gazed at his baldhead and at the hollow at the nape of his neck, and it was clearas daylight to me that this weak old man was now in my power. Therewas not a soul in the flat except my enemy and me. I had only touse a little physical violence, then snatch his watch to disguisethe object of the crime, and to get off by the back way, and Ishould have gained infinitely more than I could have imaginedpossible when I took up the part of a footman. I thought that Icould hardly get a better opportunity. But instead of acting, Ilooked quite unconcernedly, first at his bald patch and then at hisfur, and calmly meditated on this man's relation to his only son, and on the fact that people spoiled by power and wealth probablydon't want to die. . . . 

"Have you been long in my son's service?" he asked, writing a largehand on the paper. 

"Three months, your High Excellency. "

He finished the letter and stood up. I still had time. I urgedmyself on and clenched my fists, trying to wring out of my soulsome trace of my former hatred; I recalled what a passionate, implacable, obstinate hate I had felt for him only a little whilebefore. . . . But it is difficult to strike a match against acrumbling stone. The sad old face and the cold glitter of his starsroused in me nothing but petty, cheap, unnecessary thoughts of thetransitoriness of everything earthly, of the nearness of death. . . . 

"Good-day, brother, " said the old man. He put on his cap and wentout. 

There could be no doubt about it: I had undergone a change; I hadbecome different. To convince myself, I began to recall the past, but at once I felt uneasy, as though I had accidentally peeped intoa dark, damp corner. I remembered my comrades and friends, and myfirst thought was how I should blush in confusion if ever I met anyof them. What was I now? What had I to think of and to do? Wherewas I to go? What was I living for?

I could make nothing of it. I only knew one thing--that I mustmake haste to pack my things and be off. Before the old man's visitmy position as a flunkey had a meaning; now it was absurd. Tearsdropped into my open portmanteau; I felt insufferably sad; but howI longed to live! I was ready to embrace and include in my shortlife every possibility open to man. I wanted to speak, to read, andto hammer in some big factory, and to stand on watch, and to plough. I yearned for the Nevsky Prospect, for the sea and the fields--for every place to which my imagination travelled. When ZinaidaFyodorovna came in, I rushed to open the door for her, and withpeculiar tenderness took off her fur coat. The last time!

We had two other visitors that day besides the old man. In theevening when it was quite dark, Gruzin came to fetch some papersfor Orlov. He opened the table-drawer, took the necessary papers, and, rolling them up, told me to put them in the hall beside hiscap while he went in to see Zinaida Fyodorovna. She was lying onthe sofa in the drawing-room, with her arms behind her head. Fiveor six days had already passed since Orlov went on his tour ofinspection, and no one knew when he would be back, but this timeshe did not send telegrams and did not expect them. She did notseem to notice the presence of Polya, who was still living with us. "So be it, then, " was what I read on her passionless and very paleface. Like Orlov, she wanted to be unhappy out of obstinacy. Tospite herself and everything in the world, she lay for days togetheron the sofa, desiring and expecting nothing but evil for herself. Probably she was picturing to herself Orlov's return and theinevitable quarrels with him; then his growing indifference to her, his infidelities; then how they would separate; and perhaps theseagonising thoughts gave her satisfaction. But what would she havesaid if she found out the actual truth?

"I love you, Godmother, " said Gruzin, greeting her and kissing herhand. "You are so kind! And so dear _George_ has gone away, " helied. "He has gone away, the rascal!"

He sat down with a sigh and tenderly stroked her hand. 

"Let me spend an hour with you, my dear, " he said. "I don't wantto go home, and it's too early to go to the Birshovs'. The Birshovsare keeping their Katya's birthday to-day. She is a nice child!"

I brought him a glass of tea and a decanter of brandy. He slowlyand with obvious reluctance drank the tea, and returning the glassto me, asked timidly:

"Can you give me . . . Something to eat, my friend? I have had nodinner. "

We had nothing in the flat. I went to the restaurant and broughthim the ordinary rouble dinner. 

"To your health, my dear, " he said to Zinaida Fyodorovna, and hetossed off a glass of vodka. "My little girl, your godchild, sendsyou her love. Poor child! she's rickety. Ah, children, children!"he sighed. "Whatever you may say, Godmother, it is nice to be afather. Dear _George_ can't understand that feeling. "

He drank some more. Pale and lean, with his dinner-napkin over hischest like a little pinafore, he ate greedily, and raising hiseyebrows, kept looking guiltily, like a little boy, first at ZinaidaFyodorovna and then at me. It seemed as though he would have beguncrying if I had not given him the grouse or the jelly. When he hadsatisfied his hunger he grew more lively, and began laughinglytelling some story about the Birshov household, but perceiving thatit was tiresome and that Zinaida Fyodorovna was not laughing, heceased. And there was a sudden feeling of dreariness. After he hadfinished his dinner they sat in the drawing-room by the light of asingle lamp, and did not speak; it was painful to him to lie toher, and she wanted to ask him something, but could not make up hermind to. So passed half an hour. Gruzin glanced at his watch. 

"I suppose it's time for me to go. "

"No, stay a little. . . . We must have a talk. "

Again they were silent. He sat down to the piano, struck one chord, then began playing, and sang softly, "What does the coming day bringme?" but as usual he got up suddenly and tossed his head. 

"Play something, " Zinaida Fyodorovna asked him. 

"What shall I play?" he asked, shrugging his shoulders. "I haveforgotten everything. I've given it up long ago. "

Looking at the ceiling as though trying to remember, he played twopieces of Tchaikovsky with exquisite expression, with such warmth, such insight! His face was just as usual--neither stupid norintelligent--and it seemed to me a perfect marvel that a man whomI was accustomed to see in the midst of the most degrading, impuresurroundings, was capable of such purity, of rising to a feelingso lofty, so far beyond my reach. Zinaida Fyodorovna's face glowed, and she walked about the drawing-room in emotion. 

"Wait a bit, Godmother; if I can remember it, I will play yousomething, " he said; "I heard it played on the violoncello. "

Beginning timidly and picking out the notes, and then gatheringconfidence, he played Saint-Saëns's "Swan Song. " He played itthrough, and then played it a second time. 

"It's nice, isn't it?" he said. 

Moved by the music, Zinaida Fyodorovna stood beside him and asked:

"Tell me honestly, as a friend, what do you think about me?"

"What am I to say?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "I love you andthink nothing but good of you. But if you wish that I should speakgenerally about the question that interests you, " he went on, rubbinghis sleeve near the elbow and frowning, "then, my dear, you know. . . . To follow freely the promptings of the heart does not alwaysgive good people happiness. To feel free and at the same time tobe happy, it seems to me, one must not conceal from oneself thatlife is coarse, cruel, and merciless in its conservatism, and onemust retaliate with what it deserves--that is, be as coarse andas merciless in one's striving for freedom. That's what I think. "

"That's beyond me, " said Zinaida Fyodorovna, with a mournful smile. "I am exhausted already. I am so exhausted that I wouldn't stir afinger for my own salvation. "

"Go into a nunnery. "

He said this in jest, but after he had said it, tears glistened inZinaida Fyodorovna's eyes and then in his. 

"Well, " he said, "we've been sitting and sitting, and now we mustgo. Good-bye, dear Godmother. God give you health. "

He kissed both her hands, and stroking them tenderly, said that heshould certainly come to see her again in a day or two. In the hall, as he was putting on his overcoat, that was so like a child'spelisse, he fumbled long in his pockets to find a tip for me, butfound nothing there. 

"Good-bye, my dear fellow, " he said sadly, and went away. 

I shall never forget the feeling that this man left behind him. 

Zinaida Fyodorovna still walked about the room in her excitement. That she was walking about and not still lying down was so much tothe good. I wanted to take advantage of this mood to speak to heropenly and then to go away, but I had hardly seen Gruzin out whenI heard a ring. It was Kukushkin. 

"Is Georgy Ivanitch at home?" he said. "Has he come back? You sayno? What a pity! In that case, I'll go in and kiss your mistress'shand, and so away. Zinaida Fyodorovna, may I come in?" he cried. "I want to kiss your hand. Excuse my being so late. "

He was not long in the drawing-room, not more than ten minutes, butI felt as though he were staying a long while and would never goaway. I bit my lips from indignation and annoyance, and alreadyhated Zinaida Fyodorovna. "Why does she not turn him out?" I thoughtindignantly, though it was evident that she was bored by his company. 

When I held his fur coat for him he asked me, as a mark of specialgood-will, how I managed to get on without a wife. 

"But I don't suppose you waste your time, " he said, laughingly. "I've no doubt Polya and you are as thick as thieves. . . . Yourascal!"

In spite of my experience of life, I knew very little of mankindat that time, and it is very likely that I often exaggerated whatwas of little consequence and failed to observe what was important. It seemed to me it was not without motive that Kukushkin titteredand flattered me. Could it be that he was hoping that I, like aflunkey, would gossip in other kitchens and servants' quarters ofhis coming to see us in the evenings when Orlov was away, and stayingwith Zinaida Fyodorovna till late at night? And when my tittle-tattlecame to the ears of his acquaintance, he would drop his eyes inconfusion and shake his little finger. And would not he, I thought, looking at his little honeyed face, this very evening at cardspretend and perhaps declare that he had already won Zinaida Fyodorovnafrom Orlov?

That hatred which failed me at midday when the old father had come, took possession of me now. Kukushkin went away at last, and as Ilistened to the shuffle of his leather goloshes, I felt greatlytempted to fling after him, as a parting shot, some coarse word ofabuse, but I restrained myself. And when the steps had died awayon the stairs, I went back to the hall, and, hardly conscious ofwhat I was doing, took up the roll of papers that Gruzin had leftbehind, and ran headlong downstairs. Without cap or overcoat, I randown into the street. It was not cold, but big flakes of snow werefalling and it was windy. 

"Your Excellency!" I cried, catching up Kukushkin. "Your Excellency!"

He stopped under a lamp-post and looked round with surprise. "YourExcellency!" I said breathless, "your Excellency!"

And not able to think of anything to say, I hit him two or threetimes on the face with the roll of paper. Completely at a loss, andhardly wondering--I had so completely taken him by surprise--heleaned his back against the lamp-post and put up his hands to protecthis face. At that moment an army doctor passed, and saw how I wasbeating the man, but he merely looked at us in astonishment andwent on. I felt ashamed and I ran back to the house. 

XII

With my head wet from the snow, and gasping for breath, I ran tomy room, and immediately flung off my swallow-tails, put on a reeferjacket and an overcoat, and carried my portmanteau out into thepassage; I must get away! But before going I hurriedly sat down andbegan writing to Orlov:

"I leave you my false passport, " I began. "I beg you to keep it asa memento, you false man, you Petersburg official!

"To steal into another man's house under a false name, to watchunder the mask of a flunkey this person's intimate life, to heareverything, to see everything in order later on, unasked, to accusea man of lying--all this, you will say, is on a level with theft. Yes, but I care nothing for fine feelings now. I have endured dozensof your dinners and suppers when you said and did what you liked, and I had to hear, to look on, and be silent. I don't want to makeyou a present of my silence. Besides, if there is not a living soulat hand who dares to tell you the truth without flattery, let yourflunkey Stepan wash your magnificent countenance for you. "

I did not like this beginning, but I did not care to alter it. Besides, what did it matter?

The big windows with their dark curtains, the bed, the crumpleddress coat on the floor, and my wet footprints, looked gloomy andforbidding. And there was a peculiar stillness. 

Possibly because I had run out into the street without my cap andgoloshes I was in a high fever. My face burned, my legs ached. . . . My heavy head drooped over the table, and there was that kind ofdivision in my thought when every idea in the brain seemed doggedby its shadow. 

"I am ill, weak, morally cast down, " I went on; "I cannot write toyou as I should like to. From the first moment I desired to insultand humiliate you, but now I do not feel that I have the right todo so. You and I have both fallen, and neither of us will ever riseup again; and even if my letter were eloquent, terrible, andpassionate, it would still seem like beating on the lid of a coffin:however one knocks upon it, one will not wake up the dead! No effortscould warm your accursed cold blood, and you know that better thanI do. Why write? But my mind and heart are burning, and I go onwriting; for some reason I am moved as though this letter stillmight save you and me. I am so feverish that my thoughts aredisconnected, and my pen scratches the paper without meaning; butthe question I want to put to you stands before me as clear asthough in letters of flame. 

"Why I am prematurely weak and fallen is not hard to explain. LikeSamson of old, I have taken the gates of Gaza on my shoulders tocarry them to the top of the mountain, and only when I was exhausted, when youth and health were quenched in me forever, I noticed thatthat burden was not for my shoulders, and that I had deceived myself. I have been, moreover, in cruel and continual pain. I have enduredcold, hunger, illness, and loss of liberty. Of personal happinessI know and have known nothing. I have no home; my memories arebitter, and my conscience is often in dread of them. But why haveyou fallen--you? What fatal, diabolical causes hindered your lifefrom blossoming into full flower? Why, almost before beginning life, were you in such haste to cast off the image and likeness of God, and to become a cowardly beast who backs and scares others becausehe is afraid himself? You are afraid of life--as afraid of it asan Oriental who sits all day on a cushion smoking his hookah. Yes, you read a great deal, and a European coat fits you well, but yetwith what tender, purely Oriental, pasha-like care you protectyourself from hunger, cold, physical effort, from pain and uneasiness!How early your soul has taken to its dressing-gown! What a cowardlypart you have played towards real life and nature, with which everyhealthy and normal man struggles! How soft, how snug, how warm, howcomfortable--and how bored you are! Yes, it is deathly boredom, unrelieved by one ray of light, as in solitary confinement; but youtry to hide from that enemy, too, you play cards eight hours outof twenty-four. 

"And your irony? Oh, but how well I understand it! Free, bold, living thought is searching and dominating; for an indolent, sluggishmind it is intolerable. That it may not disturb your peace, likethousands of your contemporaries, you made haste in youth to putit under bar and bolt. Your ironical attitude to life, or whateveryou like to call it, is your armour; and your thought, fettered andfrightened, dare not leap over the fence you have put round it; andwhen you jeer at ideas which you pretend to know all about, you arelike the deserter fleeing from the field of battle, and, to stiflehis shame, sneering at war and at valour. Cynicism stifles pain. In some novel of Dostoevsky's an old man tramples underfoot theportrait of his dearly loved daughter because he had been unjustto her, and you vent your foul and vulgar jeers upon the ideas ofgoodness and truth because you have not the strength to follow them. You are frightened of every honest and truthful hint at yourdegradation, and you purposely surround yourself with people whodo nothing but flatter your weaknesses. And you may well, you maywell dread the sight of tears!

"By the way, your attitude to women. Shamelessness has been handeddown to us in our flesh and blood, and we are trained to shamelessness;but that is what we are men for--to subdue the beast in us. Whenyou reached manhood and _all_ ideas became known to you, you couldnot have failed to see the truth; you knew it, but you did notfollow it; you were afraid of it, and to deceive your conscienceyou began loudly assuring yourself that it was not you but womanthat was to blame, that she was as degraded as your attitude toher. Your cold, scabrous anecdotes, your coarse laughter, all yourinnumerable theories concerning the underlying reality of marriageand the definite demands made upon it, concerning the ten _sous_the French workman pays his woman; your everlasting attacks onfemale logic, lying, weakness and so on--doesn't it all look likea desire at all costs to force woman down into the mud that she maybe on the same level as your attitude to her? You are a weak, unhappy, unpleasant person!"

Zinaida Fyodorovna began playing the piano in the drawing-room, trying to recall the song of Saint Saëns that Gruzin had played. Iwent and lay on my bed, but remembering that it was time for me togo, I got up with an effort and with a heavy, burning head went tothe table again. 

"But this is the question, " I went on. "Why are we worn out? Whyare we, at first so passionate so bold, so noble, and so full offaith, complete bankrupts at thirty or thirty-five? Why does onewaste in consumption, another put a bullet through his brains, athird seeks forgetfulness in vodka and cards, while the fourth triesto stifle his fear and misery by cynically trampling underfoot thepure image of his fair youth? Why is it that, having once fallen, we do not try to rise up again, and, losing one thing, do not seeksomething else? Why is it?

"The thief hanging on the Cross could bring back the joy of lifeand the courage of confident hope, though perhaps he had not morethan an hour to live. You have long years before you, and I shallprobably not die so soon as one might suppose. What if by a miraclethe present turned out to be a dream, a horrible nightmare, and weshould wake up renewed, pure, strong, proud of our righteousness?Sweet visions fire me, and I am almost breathless with emotion. Ihave a terrible longing to live. I long for our life to be holy, lofty, and majestic as the heavens above. Let us live! The sundoesn't rise twice a day, and life is not given us again--clutchat what is left of your life and save it. . . . "

I did not write another word. I had a multitude of thoughts in mymind, but I could not connect them and get them on to paper. Withoutfinishing the letter, I signed it with my name and rank, and wentinto the study. It was dark. I felt for the table and put the letteron it. I must have stumbled against the furniture in the dark andmade a noise. 

"Who is there?" I heard an alarmed voice in the drawing-room. 

And the clock on the table softly struck one at the moment. 

XIII

For at least half a minute I fumbled at the door in the dark, feelingfor the handle; then I slowly opened it and walked into thedrawing-room. Zinaida Fyodorovna was lying on the couch, and raisingherself on her elbow, she looked towards me. Unable to bring myselfto speak, I walked slowly by, and she followed me with her eyes. Istood for a little time in the dining-room and then walked by heragain, and she looked at me intently and with perplexity, even withalarm. At last I stood still and said with an effort:

"He is not coming back. "

She quickly got on to her feet, and looked at me without understanding. 

"He is not coming back, " I repeated, and my heart beat violently. "He will not come back, for he has not left Petersburg. He is stayingat Pekarsky's. "

She understood and believed me--I saw that from her sudden pallor, and from the way she laid her arms upon her bosom in terror andentreaty. In one instant all that had happened of late flashedthrough her mind; she reflected, and with pitiless clarity she sawthe whole truth. But at the same time she remembered that I was aflunkey, a being of a lower order. . . . A casual stranger, withhair ruffled, with face flushed with fever, perhaps drunk, in acommon overcoat, was coarsely intruding into her intimate life, andthat offended her. She said to me sternly:

"It's not your business: go away. "

"Oh, believe me!" I cried impetuously, holding out my hands to her. "I am not a footman; I am as free as you. "

I mentioned my name, and, speaking very rapidly that she might notinterrupt me or go away, explained to her who I was and why I wasliving there. This new discovery struck her more than the first. Till then she had hoped that her footman had lied or made a mistakeor been silly, but now after my confession she had no doubts left. From the expression of her unhappy eyes and face, which suddenlylost its softness and beauty and looked old, I saw that she wasinsufferably miserable, and that the conversation would lead to nogood; but I went on impetuously:

"The senator and the tour of inspection were invented to deceiveyou. In January, just as now, he did not go away, but stayed atPekarsky's, and I saw him every day and took part in the deception. He was weary of you, he hated your presence here, he mocked at you. . . . If you could have heard how he and his friends here jeeredat you and your love, you would not have remained here one minute!Go away from here! Go away. "

"Well, " she said in a shaking voice, and moved her hand over herhair. "Well, so be it. "

Her eyes were full of tears, her lips were quivering, and her wholeface was strikingly pale and distorted with anger. Orlov's coarse, petty lying revolted her and seemed to her contemptible, ridiculous:she smiled and I did not like that smile. 

"Well, " she repeated, passing her hand over her hair again, "so beit. He imagines that I shall die of humiliation, and instead ofthat I am . . . Amused by it. There's no need for him to hide. " Shewalked away from the piano and said, shrugging her shoulders:"There's no need. . . . It would have been simpler to have it outwith me instead of keeping in hiding in other people's flats. Ihave eyes; I saw it myself long ago. . . . I was only waiting forhim to come back to have things out once for all. "

Then she sat down on a low chair by the table, and, leaning herhead on the arm of the sofa, wept bitterly. In the drawing-roomthere was only one candle burning in the candelabra, and the chairwhere she was sitting was in darkness; but I saw how her head andshoulders were quivering, and how her hair, escaping from her combs, covered her neck, her face, her arms. . . . Her quiet, steadyweeping, which was not hysterical but a woman's ordinary weeping, expressed a sense of insult, of wounded pride, of injury, and ofsomething helpless, hopeless, which one could not set right and towhich one could not get used. Her tears stirred an echo in mytroubled and suffering heart; I forgot my illness and everythingelse in the world; I walked about the drawing-room and muttereddistractedly:

"Is this life? . . . Oh, one can't go on living like this, onecan't. . . . Oh, it's madness, wickedness, not life. "

"What humiliation!" she said through her tears. "To live together, to smile at me at the very time when I was burdensome to him, ridiculous in his eyes! Oh, how humiliating!"

She lifted up her head, and looking at me with tear-stained eyesthrough her hair, wet with her tears, and pushing it back as itprevented her seeing me, she asked:

"They laughed at me?"

"To these men you were laughable--you and your love and Turgenev;they said your head was full of him. And if we both die at once indespair, that will amuse them, too; they will make a funny anecdoteof it and tell it at your requiem service. But why talk of them?"I said impatiently. "We must get away from here--I cannot stayhere one minute longer. "

She began crying again, while I walked to the piano and sat down. 

"What are we waiting for?" I asked dejectedly. "It's two o'clock. "

"I am not waiting for anything, " she said. "I am utterly lost. "

"Why do you talk like that? We had better consider together whatwe are to do. Neither you nor I can stay here. Where do you intendto go?"

Suddenly there was a ring at the bell. My heart stood still. Couldit be Orlov, to whom perhaps Kukushkin had complained of me? Howshould we meet? I went to open the door. It was Polya. She came inshaking the snow off her pelisse, and went into her room withoutsaying a word to me. When I went back to the drawing-room, ZinaidaFyodorovna, pale as death, was standing in the middle of the room, looking towards me with big eyes. 

"Who was it?" she asked softly. 

"Polya, " I answered. 

She passed her hand over her hair and closed her eyes wearily. 

"I will go away at once, " she said. "Will you be kind and take meto the Petersburg Side? What time is it now?"

"A quarter to three. "

XIV

When, a little afterwards, we went out of the house, it was darkand deserted in the street. Wet snow was falling and a damp windlashed in one's face. I remember it was the beginning of March; athaw had set in, and for some days past the cabmen had been drivingon wheels. Under the impression of the back stairs, of the cold, of the midnight darkness, and the porter in his sheepskin who hadquestioned us before letting us out of the gate, Zinaida Fyodorovnawas utterly cast down and dispirited. When we got into the cab andthe hood was put up, trembling all over, she began hurriedly sayinghow grateful she was to me. 

"I do not doubt your good-will, but I am ashamed that you shouldbe troubled, " she muttered. "Oh, I understand, I understand. . . . When Gruzin was here to-day, I felt that he was lying and concealingsomething. Well, so be it. But I am ashamed, anyway, that you shouldbe troubled. "

She still had her doubts. To dispel them finally, I asked the cabmanto drive through Sergievsky Street; stopping him at Pekarsky's door, I got out of the cab and rang. When the porter came to the door, Iasked aloud, that Zinaida Fyodorovna might hear, whether GeorgyIvanitch was at home. 

"Yes, " was the answer, "he came in half an hour ago. He must be inbed by now. What do you want?"

Zinaida Fyodorovna could not refrain from putting her head out. 

"Has Georgy Ivanitch been staying here long?" she asked. 

"Going on for three weeks. "

"And he's not been away?"

"No, " answered the porter, looking at me with surprise. 

"Tell him, early to-morrow, " I said, "that his sister has arrivedfrom Warsaw. Good-bye. "

Then we drove on. The cab had no apron, the snow fell on us in bigflakes, and the wind, especially on the Neva, pierced us throughand through. I began to feel as though we had been driving for along time, that for ages we had been suffering, and that for agesI had been listening to Zinaida Fyodorovna's shuddering breath. Insemi-delirium, as though half asleep, I looked back upon my strange, incoherent life, and for some reason recalled a melodrama, "TheParisian Beggars, " which I had seen once or twice in my childhood. And when to shake off that semi-delirium I peeped out from the hoodand saw the dawn, all the images of the past, all my misty thoughts, for some reason, blended in me into one distinct, overpoweringthought: everything was irrevocably over for Zinaida Fyodorovna andfor me. This was as certain a conviction as though the cold bluesky contained a prophecy, but a minute later I was already thinkingof something else and believed differently. 

"What am I now?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, in a voice husky with thecold and the damp. "Where am I to go? What am I to do? Gruzin toldme to go into a nunnery. Oh, I would! I would change my dress, myface, my name, my thoughts . . . Everything--everything, and wouldhide myself for ever. But they will not take me into a nunnery. Iam with child. "

"We will go abroad together to-morrow, " I said. 

"That's impossible. My husband won't give me a passport. "

"I will take you without a passport. "

The cabman stopped at a wooden house of two storeys, painted a darkcolour. I rang. Taking from me her small light basket--the onlyluggage we had brought with us--Zinaida Fyodorovna gave a wrysmile and said:

"These are my _bijoux_. "

But she was so weak that she could not carry these _bijoux_. 

It was a long while before the door was opened. After the third orfourth ring a light gleamed in the windows, and there was a soundof steps, coughing and whispering; at last the key grated in thelock, and a stout peasant woman with a frightened red face appearedat the door. Some distance behind her stood a thin little old womanwith short grey hair, carrying a candle in her hand. ZinaidaFyodorovna ran into the passage and flung her arms round the oldwoman's neck. 

"Nina, I've been deceived, " she sobbed loudly. "I've been coarsely, foully deceived! Nina, Nina!"

I handed the basket to the peasant woman. The door was closed, butstill I heard her sobs and the cry "Nina!"

I got into the cab and told the man to drive slowly to the NevskyProspect. I had to think of a night's lodging for myself. 

Next day towards evening I went to see Zinaida Fyodorovna. She wasterribly changed. There were no traces of tears on her pale, terriblysunken face, and her expression was different. I don't know whetherit was that I saw her now in different surroundings, far fromluxurious, and that our relations were by now different, or perhapsthat intense grief had already set its mark upon her; she did notstrike me as so elegant and well dressed as before. Her figureseemed smaller; there was an abruptness and excessive nervousnessabout her as though she were in a hurry, and there was not the samesoftness even in her smile. I was dressed in an expensive suit whichI had bought during the day. She looked first of all at that suitand at the hat in my hand, then turned an impatient, searchingglance upon my face as though studying it. 

"Your transformation still seems to me a sort of miracle, " she said. "Forgive me for looking at you with such curiosity. You are anextraordinary man, you know. "

I told her again who I was, and why I was living at Orlov's, and Itold her at greater length and in more detail than the day before. She listened with great attention, and said without letting mefinish:

"Everything there is over for me. You know, I could not refrainfrom writing a letter. Here is the answer. "

On the sheet which she gave there was written in Orlov's hand:

"I am not going to justify myself. But you must own that it wasyour mistake, not mine. I wish you happiness, and beg you to makehaste and forget. 

"Yours sincerely, "G. O. 

"P. S. --I am sending on your things. "

The trunks and baskets despatched by Orlov were standing in thepassage, and my poor little portmanteau was there beside them. 

"So . . . " Zinaida Fyodorovna began, but she did not finish. 

We were silent. She took the note and held it for a couple of minutesbefore her eyes, and during that time her face wore the same haughty, contemptuous, proud, and harsh expression as the day before at thebeginning of our explanation; tears came into her eyes--not timid, bitter tears, but proud, angry tears. 

"Listen, " she said, getting up abruptly and moving away to thewindow that I might not see her face. "I have made up my mind togo abroad with you tomorrow. "

"I am very glad. I am ready to go to-day. "

"Accept me as a recruit. Have you read Balzac?" she asked suddenly, turning round. "Have you? At the end of his novel 'Père Goriot' thehero looks down upon Paris from the top of a hill and threatens thetown: 'Now we shall settle our account, ' and after this he beginsa new life. So when I look out of the train window at Petersburgfor the last time, I shall say, 'Now we shall settle our account!'"

Saying this, she smiled at her jest, and for some reason shudderedall over. 

XV

At Venice I had an attack of pleurisy. Probably I had caught coldin the evening when we were rowing from the station to the HotelBauer. I had to take to my bed and stay there for a fortnight. Everymorning while I was ill Zinaida Fyodorovna came from her room todrink coffee with me, and afterwards read aloud to me French andRussian books, of which we had bought a number at Vienna. Thesebooks were either long, long familiar to me or else had no interestfor me, but I had the sound of a sweet, kind voice beside me, sothat the meaning of all of them was summed up for me in the onething--I was not alone. She would go out for a walk, come backin her light grey dress, her light straw hat, gay, warmed by thespring sun; and sitting by my bed, bending low down over me, wouldtell me something about Venice or read me those books--and I washappy. 

At night I was cold, ill, and dreary, but by day I revelled in life--I can find no better expression for it. The brilliant warmsunshine beating in at the open windows and at the door upon thebalcony, the shouts below, the splash of oars, the tinkle of bells, the prolonged boom of the cannon at midday, and the feeling ofperfect, perfect freedom, did wonders with me; I felt as though Iwere growing strong, broad wings which were bearing me God knowswhither. And what charm, what joy at times at the thought thatanother life was so close to mine! that I was the servant, theguardian, the friend, the indispensable fellow-traveller of acreature, young, beautiful, wealthy, but weak, lonely, and insulted!It is pleasant even to be ill when you know that there are peoplewho are looking forward to your convalescence as to a holiday. Oneday I heard her whispering behind the door with my doctor, and thenshe came in to me with tear-stained eyes. It was a bad sign, but Iwas touched, and there was a wonderful lightness in my heart. 

But at last they allowed me to go out on the balcony. The sunshineand the breeze from the sea caressed and fondled my sick body. Ilooked down at the familiar gondolas, which glide with femininegrace smoothly and majestically as though they were alive, and feltall the luxury of this original, fascinating civilisation. Therewas a smell of the sea. Some one was playing a stringed instrumentand two voices were singing. How delightful it was! How unlike itwas to that Petersburg night when the wet snow was falling andbeating so rudely on our faces. If one looks straight across thecanal, one sees the sea, and on the wide expanse towards the horizonthe sun glittered on the water so dazzlingly that it hurt one'seyes to look at it. My soul yearned towards that lovely sea, whichwas so akin to me and to which I had given up my youth. I longedto live--to live--and nothing more. 

A fortnight later I began walking freely. I loved to sit in thesun, and to listen to the gondoliers without understanding them, and for hours together to gaze at the little house where, they said, Desdemona lived--a naïve, mournful little house with a demureexpression, as light as lace, so light that it looked as though onecould lift it from its place with one hand. I stood for a long timeby the tomb of Canova, and could not take my eyes off the melancholylion. And in the Palace of the Doges I was always drawn to thecorner where the portrait of the unhappy Marino Faliero was paintedover with black. "It is fine to be an artist, a poet, a dramatist, "I thought, "but since that is not vouchsafed to me, if only I couldgo in for mysticism! If only I had a grain of some faith to add tothe unruffled peace and serenity that fills the soul!"

In the evening we ate oysters, drank wine, and went out in a gondola. I remember our black gondola swayed softly in the same place whilethe water faintly gurgled under it. Here and there the reflectionof the stars and the lights on the bank quivered and trembled. Notfar from us in a gondola, hung with coloured lanterns which werereflected in the water, there were people singing. The sounds ofguitars, of violins, of mandolins, of men's and women's voices, were audible in the dark. Zinaida Fyodorovna, pale, with a grave, almost stern face, was sitting beside me, compressing her lips andclenching her hands. She was thinking about something; she did notstir an eyelash, nor hear me. Her face, her attitude, and her fixed, expressionless gaze, and her incredibly miserable, dreadful, andicy-cold memories, and around her the gondolas, the lights, themusic, the song with its vigorous passionate cry of "_Jam-mo!Jam-mo!_"--what contrasts in life! When she sat like that, withtightly clasped hands, stony, mournful, I used to feel as thoughwe were both characters in some novel in the old-fashioned stylecalled "The Ill-fated, " "The Abandoned, " or something of the sort. Both of us: she--the ill-fated, the abandoned; and I--thefaithful, devoted friend, the dreamer, and, if you like it, asuperfluous man, a failure capable of nothing but coughing anddreaming, and perhaps sacrificing myself. 

But who and what needed my sacrifices now? And what had I tosacrifice, indeed?

When we came in in the evening we always drank tea in her room andtalked. We did not shrink from touching on old, unhealed wounds--on the contrary, for some reason I felt a positive pleasure intelling her about my life at Orlov's, or referring openly to relationswhich I knew and which could not have been concealed from me. 

"At moments I hated you, " I said to her. "When he was capricious, condescending, told you lies, I marvelled how it was you did notsee, did not understand, when it was all so clear! You kissed hishands, you knelt to him, you flattered him. . . "

"When I . . . Kissed his hands and knelt to him, I loved him . . . "she said, blushing crimson. 

"Can it have been so difficult to see through him? A fine sphinx!A sphinx indeed--a _kammer-junker!_ I reproach you for nothing, God forbid, " I went on, feeling I was coarse, that I had not thetact, the delicacy which are so essential when you have to do witha fellow-creature's soul; in early days before I knew her I had notnoticed this defect in myself. "But how could you fail to see whathe was, " I went on, speaking more softly and more diffidently, however. 

"You mean to say you despise my past, and you are right, " she said, deeply stirred. "You belong to a special class of men who cannotbe judged by ordinary standards; your moral requirements areexceptionally rigorous, and I understand you can't forgive things. I understand you, and if sometimes I say the opposite, it doesn'tmean that I look at things differently from you; I speak the sameold nonsense simply because I haven't had time yet to wear out myold clothes and prejudices. I, too, hate and despise my past, andOrlov and my love. . . . What was that love? It's positively absurdnow, " she said, going to the window and looking down at the canal. "All this love only clouds the conscience and confuses the mind. The meaning of life is to be found only in one thing--fighting. To get one's heel on the vile head of the serpent and to crush it!That's the meaning of life. In that alone or in nothing. "

I told her long stories of my past, and described my really astoundingadventures. But of the change that had taken place in me I did notsay one word. She always listened to me with great attention, andat interesting places she rubbed her hands as though vexed that ithad not yet been her lot to experience such adventures, such joysand terrors. Then she would suddenly fall to musing and retreatinto herself, and I could see from her face that she was not attendingto me. 

I closed the windows that looked out on the canal and asked whetherwe should not have the fire lighted. 

"No, never mind. I am not cold, " she said, smiling listlessly. "Ionly feel weak. Do you know, I fancy I have grown much wiser lately. I have extraordinary, original ideas now. When I think of my past, of my life then . . . People in general, in fact, it is all summedup for me in the image of my stepmother. Coarse, insolent, soulless, false, depraved, and a morphia maniac too. My father, who was feebleand weak-willed, married my mother for her money and drove her intoconsumption; but his second wife, my stepmother, he loved passionately, insanely. . . . What I had to put up with! But what is the use oftalking! And so, as I say, it is all summed up in her image. . . . And it vexes me that my stepmother is dead. I should like to meether now!"

"Why?"

"I don't know, " she answered with a laugh and a graceful movementof her head. "Good-night. You must get well. As soon as you arewell, we'll take up our work. . . It's time to begin. "

After I had said good-night and had my hand on the door-handle, shesaid:

"What do you think? Is Polya still living there?"

"Probably. "

And I went off to my room. So we spent a whole month. One greymorning when we both stood at my window, looking at the clouds whichwere moving up from the sea, and at the darkening canal, expectingevery minute that it would pour with rain, and when a thick, narrowstreak of rain covered the sea as though with a muslin veil, weboth felt suddenly dreary. The same day we both set off for Florence. 

XVI

It was autumn, at Nice. One morning when I went into her room shewas sitting on a low chair, bent together and huddled up, with herlegs crossed and her face hidden in her hands. She was weepingbitterly, with sobs, and her long, unbrushed hair fell on her knees. The impression of the exquisite marvellous sea which I had onlyjust seen and of which I wanted to tell her, left me all at once, and my heart ached. 

"What is it?" I asked; she took one hand from her face and motionedme to go away. "What is it?" I repeated, and for the first timeduring our acquaintance I kissed her hand. 

"No, it's nothing, nothing, " she said quickly. "Oh, it's nothing, nothing. . . . Go away. . . . You see, I am not dressed. "

I went out overwhelmed. The calm and serene mood in which I hadbeen for so long was poisoned by compassion. I had a passionatelonging to fall at her feet, to entreat her not to weep in solitude, but to share her grief with me, and the monotonous murmur of thesea already sounded a gloomy prophecy in my ears, and I foresawfresh tears, fresh troubles, and fresh losses in the future. "Whatis she crying about? What is it?" I wondered, recalling her faceand her agonised look. I remembered she was with child. She triedto conceal her condition from other people, and also from herself. At home she went about in a loose wrapper or in a blouse withextremely full folds over the bosom, and when she went out anywhereshe laced herself in so tightly that on two occasions she faintedwhen we were out. She never spoke to me of her condition, and whenI hinted that it might be as well to see a doctor, she flushedcrimson and said not a word. 

When I went to see her next time she was already dressed and hadher hair done. 

"There, there, " I said, seeing that she was ready to cry again. "Wehad better go to the sea and have a talk. "

"I can't talk. Forgive me, I am in the mood now when one wants tobe alone. And, if you please, Vladimir Ivanitch, another time youwant to come into my room, be so good as to give a knock at thedoor. "

That "be so good" had a peculiar, unfeminine sound. I went away. My accursed Petersburg mood came back, and all my dreams were crushedand crumpled up like leaves by the heat. I felt I was alone againand there was no nearness between us. I was no more to her thanthat cobweb to that palm-tree, which hangs on it by chance and whichwill be torn off and carried away by the wind. I walked about thesquare where the band was playing, went into the Casino; there Ilooked at overdressed and heavily perfumed women, and every one ofthem glanced at me as though she would say: "You are alone; that'sall right. " Then I went out on the terrace and looked for a longtime at the sea. There was not one sail on the horizon. On the leftbank, in the lilac-coloured mist, there were mountains, gardens, towers, and houses, the sun was sparkling over it all, but it wasall alien, indifferent, an incomprehensible tangle. 

XVII

She used as before to come into my room in the morning to coffee, but we no longer dined together, as she said she was not hungry;and she lived only on coffee, tea, and various trifles such asoranges and caramels. 

And we no longer had conversations in the evening. I don't know whyit was like this. Ever since the day when I had found her in tearsshe had treated me somehow lightly, at times casually, even ironically, and for some reason called me "My good sir. " What had before seemedto her terrible, heroic, marvellous, and had stirred her envy andenthusiasm, did not touch her now at all, and usually after listeningto me, she stretched and said:

"Yes, 'great things were done in days of yore, ' my good sir. "

It sometimes happened even that I did not see her for days together. I would knock timidly and guiltily at her door and get no answer;I would knock again--still silence. . . . I would stand near thedoor and listen; then the chambermaid would pass and say coldly, "_Madame est partie. _" Then I would walk about the passages of thehotel, walk and walk. . . . English people, full-bosomed ladies, waiters in swallow-tails. . . . And as I keep gazing at the longstriped rug that stretches the whole length of the corridor, theidea occurs to me that I am playing in the life of this woman astrange, probably false part, and that it is beyond my power toalter that part. I run to my room and fall on my bed, and think andthink, and can come to no conclusion; and all that is clear to meis that I want to live, and that the plainer and the colder and theharder her face grows, the nearer she is to me, and the more intenselyand painfully I feel our kinship. Never mind "My good sir, " nevermind her light careless tone, never mind anything you like, onlydon't leave me, my treasure. I am afraid to be alone. 

Then I go out into the corridor again, listen in a tremor. . . . Ihave no dinner; I don't notice the approach of evening. At lastabout eleven I hear the familiar footstep, and at the turn near thestairs Zinaida Fyodorovna comes into sight. 

"Are you taking a walk?" she would ask as she passes me. "You hadbetter go out into the air. . . . Good-night!"

"But shall we not meet again to-day?"

"I think it's late. But as you like. "

"Tell me, where have you been?" I would ask, following her into theroom. 

"Where? To Monte Carlo. " She took ten gold coins out of her pocketand said: "Look, my good sir; I have won. That's at roulette. "

"Nonsense! As though you would gamble. "

"Why not? I am going again to-morrow. "

I imagined her with a sick and morbid face, in her condition, tightlylaced, standing near the gaming-table in a crowd of cocottes, ofold women in their dotage who swarm round the gold like flies roundthe honey. I remembered she had gone off to Monte Carlo for somereason in secret from me. 

"I don't believe you, " I said one day. "You wouldn't go there. "

"Don't agitate yourself. I can't lose much. "

"It's not the question of what you lose, " I said with annoyance. "Has it never occurred to you while you were playing there that theglitter of gold, all these women, young and old, the croupiers, allthe surroundings--that it is all a vile, loathsome mockery at thetoiler's labour, at his bloody sweat?

"If one doesn't play, what is one to do here?" she asked. "Thetoiler's labour and his bloody sweat--all that eloquence you canput off till another time; but now, since you have begun, let mego on. Let me ask you bluntly, what is there for me to do here, andwhat am I to do?"

"What are you to do?" I said, shrugging my shoulders. "That's aquestion that can't be answered straight off. "

"I beg you to answer me honestly, Vladimir Ivanitch, " she said, andher face looked angry. "Once I have brought myself to ask you thisquestion, I am not going to listen to stock phrases. I am askingyou, " she went on, beating her hand on the table, as though markingtime, "what ought I to do here? And not only here at Nice, but ingeneral?"

I did not speak, but looked out of window to the sea. My heart wasbeating terribly. 

"Vladimir Ivanitch, " she said softly and breathlessly; it was hardfor her to speak--"Vladimir Ivanitch, if you do not believe inthe cause yourself, if you no longer think of going back to it, why. . . Why did you drag me out of Petersburg? Why did you make mepromises, why did you rouse mad hopes? Your convictions have changed;you have become a different man, and nobody blames you for it--our convictions are not always in our power. But . . . But, VladimirIvanitch, for God's sake, why are you not sincere?" she went onsoftly, coming up to me. "All these months when I have been dreamingaloud, raving, going into raptures over my plans, remodelling mylife on a new pattern, why didn't you tell me the truth? Why wereyou silent or encouraged me by your stories, and behaved as thoughyou were in complete sympathy with me? Why was it? Why was itnecessary?"

"It's difficult to acknowledge one's bankruptcy, " I said, turninground, but not looking at her. "Yes, I have no faith; I am wornout. I have lost heart. . . . It is difficult to be truthful--very difficult, and I held my tongue. God forbid that any one shouldhave to go through what I have been through. "

I felt that I was on the point of tears, and ceased speaking. 

"Vladimir Ivanitch, " she said, and took me by both hands, "you havebeen through so much and seen so much of life, you know more thanI do; think seriously, and tell me, what am I to do? Teach me! Ifyou haven't the strength to go forward yourself and take otherswith you, at least show me where to go. After all, I am a living, feeling, thinking being. To sink into a false position . . . Toplay an absurd part . . . Is painful to me. I don't reproach you, I don't blame you; I only ask you. "

Tea was brought in. 

"Well?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, giving me a glass. "What do yousay to me?"

"There is more light in the world than you see through your window, "I answered. "And there are other people besides me, ZinaidaFyodorovna. "

"Then tell me who they are, " she said eagerly. "That's all I askof you. "

"And I want to say, too, " I went on, "one can serve an idea in morethan one calling. If one has made a mistake and lost faith in one, one may find another. The world of ideas is large and cannot beexhausted. "

"The world of ideas!" she said, and she looked into my facesarcastically. "Then we had better leave off talking. What's theuse? . . . "

She flushed. 

"The world of ideas!" she repeated. She threw her dinner-napkinaside, and an expression of indignation and contempt came into herface. "All your fine ideas, I see, lead up to one inevitable, essential step: I ought to become your mistress. That's what'swanted. To be taken up with ideas without being the mistress of anhonourable, progressive man, is as good as not understanding theideas. One has to begin with that . . . That is, with being yourmistress, and the rest will come of itself. "

"You are irritated, Zinaida Fyodorovna, " I said. 

"No, I am sincere!" she cried, breathing hard. "I am sincere!"

"You are sincere, perhaps, but you are in error, and it hurts meto hear you. "

"I am in error?" she laughed. "Any one else might say that, but notyou, my dear sir! I may seem to you indelicate, cruel, but I don'tcare: you love me? You love me, don't you?"

I shrugged my shoulders. 

"Yes, shrug your shoulders!" she went on sarcastically. "When youwere ill I heard you in your delirium, and ever since these adoringeyes, these sighs, and edifying conversations about friendship, about spiritual kinship. . . . But the point is, why haven't youbeen sincere? Why have you concealed what is and talked about whatisn't? Had you said from the beginning what ideas exactly led youto drag me from Petersburg, I should have known. I should havepoisoned myself then as I meant to, and there would have been noneof this tedious farce. . . . But what's the use of talking!"

With a wave of the hand she sat down. 

"You speak to me as though you suspected me of dishonourableintentions, " I said, offended. 

"Oh, very well. What's the use of talking! I don't suspect you ofintentions, but of having no intentions. If you had any, I shouldhave known them by now. You had nothing but ideas and love. For thepresent--ideas and love, and in prospect--me as your mistress. That's in the order of things both in life and in novels. . . . Here you abused him, " she said, and she slapped the table with herhand, "but one can't help agreeing with him. He has good reasonsfor despising these ideas. "

"He does not despise ideas; he is afraid of them, " I cried. "He isa coward and a liar. "

"Oh, very well. He is a coward and a liar, and deceived me. Andyou? Excuse my frankness; what are you? He deceived me and left meto take my chance in Petersburg, and you have deceived me andabandoned me here. But he did not mix up ideas with his deceit, andyou . . . "

"For goodness' sake, why are you saying this?" I cried in horror, wringing my hands and going up to her quickly. "No, Zinaida Fyodorovna, this is cynicism. You must not be so despairing; listen to me, " Iwent on, catching at a thought which flashed dimly upon me, andwhich seemed to me might still save us both. "Listen. I have passedthrough so many experiences in my time that my head goes round atthe thought of them, and I have realised with my mind, with myracked soul, that man finds his true destiny in nothing if not inself-sacrificing love for his neighbour. It is towards that we muststrive, and that is our destination! That is my faith!"

I wanted to go on to speak of mercy, of forgiveness, but there wasan insincere note in my voice, and I was embarrassed. 

"I want to live!" I said genuinely. "To live, to live! I want peace, tranquillity; I want warmth--this sea here--to have you near. Oh, how I wish I could rouse in you the same thirst for life! Youspoke just now of love, but it would be enough for me to have younear, to hear your voice, to watch the look in your face . . . !"

She flushed crimson, and to hinder my speaking, said quickly:

"You love life, and I hate it. So our ways lie apart. "

She poured herself out some tea, but did not touch it, went intothe bedroom, and lay down. 

"I imagine it is better to cut short this conversation, " she saidto me from within. "Everything is over for me, and I want nothing. . . . What more is there to say?"

"No, it's not all over!"

"Oh, very well! . . . I know! I am sick of it. . . . That's enough. "

I got up, took a turn from one end of the room to the other, andwent out into the corridor. When late at night I went to her doorand listened, I distinctly heard her crying. 

Next morning the waiter, handing me my clothes, informed me, witha smile, that the lady in number thirteen was confined. I dressedsomehow, and almost fainting with terror ran to Zinaida Fyodorovna. In her room I found a doctor, a midwife, and an elderly Russianlady from Harkov, called Darya Milhailovna. There was a smell ofether. I had scarcely crossed the threshold when from the room whereshe was lying I heard a low, plaintive moan, and, as though it hadbeen wafted me by the wind from Russia, I thought of Orlov, hisirony, Polya, the Neva, the drifting snow, then the cab without anapron, the prediction I had read in the cold morning sky, and thedespairing cry "Nina! Nina!"

"Go in to her, " said the lady. 

I went in to see Zinaida Fyodorovna, feeling as though I were thefather of the child. She was lying with her eyes closed, lookingthin and pale, wearing a white cap edged with lace. I remember therewere two expressions on her face: one--cold, indifferent, apathetic;the other--a look of childish helplessness given her by the whitecap. She did not hear me come in, or heard, perhaps, but did notpay attention. I stood, looked at her, and waited. 

But her face was contorted with pain; she opened her eyes and gazedat the ceiling, as though wondering what was happening to her. . . . There was a look of loathing on her face. 

"It's horrible . . . " she whispered. 

"Zinaida Fyodorovna. " I spoke her name softly. She looked at meindifferently, listlessly, and closed her eyes. I stood there alittle while, then went away. 

At night, Darya Mihailovna informed me that the child, a girl, wasborn, but that the mother was in a dangerous condition. Then I heardnoise and bustle in the passage. Darya Mihailovna came to me againand with a face of despair, wringing her hands, said:

"Oh, this is awful! The doctor suspects that she has taken poison!Oh, how badly Russians do behave here!"

And at twelve o'clock the next day Zinaida Fyodorovna died. 

XVIII

Two years had passed. Circumstances had changed; I had come toPetersburg again and could live here openly. I was no longer afraidof being and seeming sentimental, and gave myself up entirely tothe fatherly, or rather idolatrous feeling roused in me by Sonya, Zinaida Fyodorovna's child. I fed her with my own hands, gave herher bath, put her to bed, never took my eyes off her for nightstogether, and screamed when it seemed to me that the nurse was justgoing to drop her. My thirst for normal ordinary life became strongerand more acute as time went on, but wider visions stopped short atSonya, as though I had found in her at last just what I needed. Iloved the child madly. In her I saw the continuation of my life, and it was not exactly that I fancied, but I felt, I almost believed, that when I had cast off at last my long, bony, bearded frame, Ishould go on living in those little blue eyes, that silky flaxenhair, those dimpled pink hands which stroked my face so lovinglyand were clasped round my neck. 

Sonya's future made me anxious. Orlov was her father; in her birthcertificate she was called Krasnovsky, and the only person who knewof her existence, and took interest in her--that is, I--was atdeath's door. I had to think about her seriously. 

The day after I arrived in Petersburg I went to see Orlov. The doorwas opened to me by a stout old fellow with red whiskers and nomoustache, who looked like a German. Polya, who was tidying thedrawing-room, did not recognise me, but Orlov knew me at once. 

"Ah, Mr. Revolutionist!" he said, looking at me with curiosity, andlaughing. "What fate has brought you?"

He was not changed in the least: the same well-groomed, unpleasantface, the same irony. And a new book was lying on the table justas of old, with an ivory paper-knife thrust in it. He had evidentlybeen reading before I came in. He made me sit down, offered me acigar, and with a delicacy only found in well-bred people, concealingthe unpleasant feeling aroused by my face and my wasted figure, observed casually that I was not in the least changed, and that hewould have known me anywhere in spite of my having grown a beard. We talked of the weather, of Paris. To dispose as quickly as possibleof the oppressive, inevitable question, which weighed upon him andme, he asked:

"Zinaida Fyodorovna is dead?"

"Yes, " I answered. 

"In childbirth?"

"Yes, in childbirth. The doctor suspected another cause of death, but . . . It is more comforting for you and for me to think thatshe died in childbirth. "

He sighed decorously and was silent. The angel of silence passedover us, as they say. 

"Yes. And here everything is as it used to be--no changes, " hesaid briskly, seeing that I was looking about the room. "My father, as you know, has left the service and is living in retirement; Iam still in the same department. Do you remember Pekarsky? He isjust the same as ever. Gruzin died of diphtheria a year ago. . . . Kukushkin is alive, and often speaks of you. By the way, " saidOrlov, dropping his eyes with an air of reserve, "when Kukushkinheard who you were, he began telling every one you had attacked himand tried to murder him . . . And that he only just escaped withhis life. "

I did not speak. 

"Old servants do not forget their masters. . . . It's very nice ofyou, " said Orlov jocosely. "Will you have some wine and some coffee, though? I will tell them to make some. "

"No, thank you. I have come to see you about a very important matter, Georgy Ivanitch. "

"I am not very fond of important matters, but I shall be glad tobe of service to you. What do you want?"

"You see, " I began, growing agitated, "I have here with me ZinaidaFyodorovna's daughter. . . . Hitherto I have brought her up, but, as you see, before many days I shall be an empty sound. I shouldlike to die with the thought that she is provided for. "

Orlov coloured a little, frowned a little, and took a cursory andsullen glance at me. He was unpleasantly affected, not so much bythe "important matter" as by my words about death, about becomingan empty sound. 

"Yes, it must be thought about, " he said, screening his eyes asthough from the sun. "Thank you. You say it's a girl?"

"Yes, a girl. A wonderful child!"

"Yes. Of course, it's not a lap-dog, but a human being. I understandwe must consider it seriously. I am prepared to do my part, and amvery grateful to you. "

He got up, walked about, biting his nails, and stopped before apicture. 

"We must think about it, " he said in a hollow voice, standing withhis back to me. "I shall go to Pekarsky's to-day and will ask himto go to Krasnovsky's. I don't think he will make much ado aboutconsenting to take the child. "

"But, excuse me, I don't see what Krasnovsky has got to do withit, " I said, also getting up and walking to a picture at the otherend of the room. 

"But she bears his name, of course!" said Orlov. 

"Yes, he may be legally obliged to accept the child--I don't know;but I came to you, Georgy Ivanitch, not to discuss the legal aspect. "

"Yes, yes, you are right, " he agreed briskly. "I believe I am talkingnonsense. But don't excite yourself. We will decide the matter toour mutual satisfaction. If one thing won't do, we'll try another;and if that won't do, we'll try a third--one way or another thisdelicate question shall be settled. Pekarsky will arrange it all. Be so good as to leave me your address and I will let you know atonce what we decide. Where are you living?"

Orlov wrote down my address, sighed, and said with a smile:

"Oh, Lord, what a job it is to be the father of a little daughter!But Pekarsky will arrange it all. He is a sensible man. Did youstay long in Paris?"

"Two months. "

We were silent. Orlov was evidently afraid I should begin talkingof the child again, and to turn my attention in another direction, said:

"You have probably forgotten your letter by now. But I have keptit. I understand your mood at the time, and, I must own, I respectthat letter. 'Damnable cold blood, ' 'Asiatic, ' 'coarse laugh'--that was charming and characteristic, " he went on with an ironicalsmile. "And the fundamental thought is perhaps near the truth, though one might dispute the question endlessly. That is, " hehesitated, "not dispute the thought itself, but your attitude tothe question--your temperament, so to say. Yes, my life is abnormal, corrupted, of no use to any one, and what prevents me from beginninga new life is cowardice--there you are quite right. But that youtake it so much to heart, are troubled, and reduced to despair byit--that's irrational; there you are quite wrong. "

"A living man cannot help being troubled and reduced to despairwhen he sees that he himself is going to ruin and others are goingto ruin round him. "

"Who doubts it! I am not advocating indifference; all I ask for isan objective attitude to life. The more objective, the less dangerof falling into error. One must look into the root of things, andtry to see in every phenomenon a cause of all the other causes. Wehave grown feeble, slack--degraded, in fact. Our generation isentirely composed of neurasthenics and whimperers; we do nothingbut talk of fatigue and exhaustion. But the fault is neither yoursnor mine; we are of too little consequence to affect the destinyof a whole generation. We must suppose for that larger, more generalcauses with a solid _raison d'être_ from the biological point ofview. We are neurasthenics, flabby, renegades, but perhaps it'snecessary and of service for generations that will come after us. Not one hair falls from the head without the will of the HeavenlyFather--in other words, nothing happens by chance in Nature andin human environment. Everything has its cause and is inevitable. And if so, why should we worry and write despairing letters?"

"That's all very well, " I said, thinking a little. "I believe itwill be easier and clearer for the generations to come; our experiencewill be at their service. But one wants to live apart from futuregenerations and not only for their sake. Life is only given us once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full consciousness and beauty. One wants to play a striking, independent, noble part; one wantsto make history so that those generations may not have the rightto say of each of us that we were nonentities or worse. . . . Ibelieve what is going on about us is inevitable and not without apurpose, but what have I to do with that inevitability? Why shouldmy ego be lost?"

"Well, there's no help for it, " sighed Orlov, getting up and, asit were, giving me to understand that our conversation was over. 

I took my hat. 

"We've only been sitting here half an hour, and how many questionswe have settled, when you come to think of it!" said Orlov, seeingme into the hall. "So I will see to that matter. . . . I will seePekarsky to-day. . . . Don't be uneasy. "

He stood waiting while I put on my coat, and was obviously relievedat the feeling that I was going away. 

"Georgy Ivanitch, give me back my letter, " I said. 

"Certainly. "

He went to his study, and a minute later returned with the letter. I thanked him and went away. 

The next day I got a letter from him. He congratulated me on thesatisfactory settlement of the question. Pekarsky knew a lady, hewrote, who kept a school, something like a kindergarten, where shetook quite little children. The lady could be entirely dependedupon, but before concluding anything with her it would be as wellto discuss the matter with Krasnovsky--it was a matter of form. He advised me to see Pekarsky at once and to take the birth certificatewith me, if I had it. "Rest assured of the sincere respect anddevotion of your humble servant. . . . "

I read this letter, and Sonya sat on the table and gazed at meattentively without blinking, as though she knew her fate was beingdecided. 

THE HUSBAND

IN the course of the maneuvres the N---- cavalry regiment haltedfor a night at the district town of K----. Such an event as thevisit of officers always has the most exciting and inspiring effecton the inhabitants of provincial towns. The shopkeepers dream ofgetting rid of the rusty sausages and "best brand" sardines thathave been lying for ten years on their shelves; the inns andrestaurants keep open all night; the Military Commandant, hissecretary, and the local garrison put on their best uniforms; thepolice flit to and fro like mad, while the effect on the ladies isbeyond all description. 

The ladies of K----, hearing the regiment approaching, forsook theirpans of boiling jam and ran into the street. Forgetting their morning_deshabille_ and general untidiness, they rushed breathless withexcitement to meet the regiment, and listened greedily to the bandplaying the march. Looking at their pale, ecstatic faces, one mighthave thought those strains came from some heavenly choir ratherthan from a military brass band. 

"The regiment!" they cried joyfully. "The regiment is coming!"

What could this unknown regiment that came by chance to-day andwould depart at dawn to-morrow mean to them?

Afterwards, when the officers were standing in the middle of thesquare, and, with their hands behind them, discussing the questionof billets, all the ladies were gathered together at the examiningmagistrate's and vying with one another in their criticisms of theregiment. They already knew, goodness knows how, that the colonelwas married, but not living with his wife; that the senior officer'swife had a baby born dead every year; that the adjutant was hopelesslyin love with some countess, and had even once attempted suicide. They knew everything. When a pock-marked soldier in a red shirtdarted past the windows, they knew for certain that it was LieutenantRymzov's orderly running about the town, trying to get some Englishbitter ale on tick for his master. They had only caught a passingglimpse of the officers' backs, but had already decided that therewas not one handsome or interesting man among them. . . . Havingtalked to their hearts' content, they sent for the Military Commandantand the committee of the club, and instructed them at all costs tomake arrangements for a dance. 

Their wishes were carried out. At nine o'clock in the evening themilitary band was playing in the street before the club, while inthe club itself the officers were dancing with the ladies of K----. The ladies felt as though they were on wings. Intoxicated by thedancing, the music, and the clank of spurs, they threw themselvesheart and soul into making the acquaintance of their new partners, and quite forgot their old civilian friends. Their fathers andhusbands, forced temporarily into the background, crowded round themeagre refreshment table in the entrance hall. All these governmentcashiers, secretaries, clerks, and superintendents--stale, sickly-looking, clumsy figures--were perfectly well aware of theirinferiority. They did not even enter the ball-room, but contentedthemselves with watching their wives and daughters in the distancedancing with the accomplished and graceful officers. 

Among the husbands was Shalikov, the tax-collector--a narrow, spiteful soul, given to drink, with a big, closely cropped head, and thick, protruding lips. He had had a university education; therehad been a time when he used to read progressive literature andsing students' songs, but now, as he said of himself, he was atax-collector and nothing more. 

He stood leaning against the doorpost, his eyes fixed on his wife, Anna Pavlovna, a little brunette of thirty, with a long nose and apointed chin. Tightly laced, with her face carefully powdered, shedanced without pausing for breath--danced till she was ready todrop exhausted. But though she was exhausted in body, her spiritwas inexhaustible. . . . One could see as she danced that herthoughts were with the past, that faraway past when she used todance at the "College for Young Ladies, " dreaming of a life ofluxury and gaiety, and never doubting that her husband was to be aprince or, at the worst, a baron. 

The tax-collector watched, scowling with spite. . . . 

It was not jealousy he was feeling. He was ill-humoured--first, because the room was taken up with dancing and there was nowherehe could play a game of cards; secondly, because he could not endurethe sound of wind instruments; and, thirdly, because he fancied theofficers treated the civilians somewhat too casually and disdainfully. But what above everything revolted him and moved him to indignationwas the expression of happiness on his wife's face. 

"It makes me sick to look at her!" he muttered. "Going on for forty, and nothing to boast of at any time, and she must powder her faceand lace herself up! And frizzing her hair! Flirting and makingfaces, and fancying she's doing the thing in style! Ugh! you're apretty figure, upon my soul!"

Anna Pavlovna was so lost in the dance that she did not once glanceat her husband. 

"Of course not! Where do we poor country bumpkins come in!" sneeredthe tax-collector. 

"We are at a discount now. . . . We're clumsy seals, unpolishedprovincial bears, and she's the queen of the ball! She has keptenough of her looks to please even officers. . . They'd not objectto making love to her, I dare say!"

During the mazurka the tax-collector's face twitched with spite. Ablack-haired officer with prominent eyes and Tartar cheekbonesdanced the mazurka with Anna Pavlovna. Assuming a stern expression, he worked his legs with gravity and feeling, and so crooked hisknees that he looked like a jack-a-dandy pulled by strings, whileAnna Pavlovna, pale and thrilled, bending her figure languidly andturning her eyes up, tried to look as though she scarcely touchedthe floor, and evidently felt herself that she was not on earth, not at the local club, but somewhere far, far away--in the clouds. Not only her face but her whole figure was expressive of beatitude. . . . The tax-collector could endure it no longer; he felt a desireto jeer at that beatitude, to make Anna Pavlovna feel that she hadforgotten herself, that life was by no means so delightful as shefancied now in her excitement. . . . 

"You wait; I'll teach you to smile so blissfully, " he muttered. "You are not a boarding-school miss, you are not a girl. An oldfright ought to realise she is a fright!"

Petty feelings of envy, vexation, wounded vanity, of that small, provincial misanthropy engendered in petty officials by vodka anda sedentary life, swarmed in his heart like mice. Waiting for theend of the mazurka, he went into the hall and walked up to his wife. Anna Pavlovna was sitting with her partner, and, flirting her fanand coquettishly dropping her eyelids, was describing how she usedto dance in Petersburg (her lips were pursed up like a rosebud, andshe pronounced "at home in Pütürsburg"). 

"Anyuta, let us go home, " croaked the tax-collector. 

Seeing her husband standing before her, Anna Pavlovna started asthough recalling the fact that she had a husband; then she flushedall over: she felt ashamed that she had such a sickly-looking, ill-humoured, ordinary husband. 

"Let us go home, " repeated the tax-collector. 

"Why? It's quite early!"

"I beg you to come home!" said the tax-collector deliberately, witha spiteful expression. 

"Why? Has anything happened?" Anna Pavlovna asked in a flutter. 

"Nothing has happened, but I wish you to go home at once. . . . Iwish it; that's enough, and without further talk, please. "

Anna Pavlovna was not afraid of her husband, but she felt ashamedon account of her partner, who was looking at her husband withsurprise and amusement. She got up and moved a little apart withher husband. 

"What notion is this?" she began. "Why go home? Why, it's not eleveno'clock. "

"I wish it, and that's enough. Come along, and that's all aboutit. "

"Don't be silly! Go home alone if you want to. "

"All right; then I shall make a scene. "

The tax-collector saw the look of beatitude gradually vanish fromhis wife's face, saw how ashamed and miserable she was--and hefelt a little happier. 

"Why do you want me at once?" asked his wife. 

"I don't want you, but I wish you to be at home. I wish it, that'sall. "

At first Anna Pavlovna refused to hear of it, then she beganentreating her husband to let her stay just another half-hour; then, without knowing why, she began to apologise, to protest--and allin a whisper, with a smile, that the spectators might not suspectthat she was having a tiff with her husband. She began assuring himshe would not stay long, only another ten minutes, only five minutes;but the tax-collector stuck obstinately to his point. 

"Stay if you like, " he said, "but I'll make a scene if you do. "

And as she talked to her husband Anna Pavlovna looked thinner, older, plainer. Pale, biting her lips, and almost crying, she wentout to the entry and began putting on her things. 

"You are not going?" asked the ladies in surprise. "Anna Pavlovna, you are not going, dear?"

"Her head aches, " said the tax-collector for his wife. 

Coming out of the club, the husband and wife walked all the wayhome in silence. The tax-collector walked behind his wife, andwatching her downcast, sorrowful, humiliated little figure, herecalled the look of beatitude which had so irritated him at theclub, and the consciousness that the beatitude was gone filled hissoul with triumph. He was pleased and satisfied, and at the sametime he felt the lack of something; he would have liked to go backto the club and make every one feel dreary and miserable, so thatall might know how stale and worthless life is when you walk alongthe streets in the dark and hear the slush of the mud under yourfeet, and when you know that you will wake up next morning withnothing to look forward to but vodka and cards. Oh, how awful itis!

And Anna Pavlovna could scarcely walk. . . . She was still underthe influence of the dancing, the music, the talk, the lights, andthe noise; she asked herself as she walked along why God had thusafflicted her. She felt miserable, insulted, and choking with hateas she listened to her husband's heavy footsteps. She was silent, trying to think of the most offensive, biting, and venomous wordshe could hurl at her husband, and at the same time she was fullyaware that no word could penetrate her tax-collector's hide. Whatdid he care for words? Her bitterest enemy could not have contrivedfor her a more helpless position. 

And meanwhile the band was playing and the darkness was full of themost rousing, intoxicating dance-tunes.