الفصل الفصل 9 · THE HUSBAND

?" he asked in perplexity, after they had

played 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 seated at

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 your heart's

content--that I understand. Yes, that's comprehensible. But why make the

husband a party to your secrets? Was there any need 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 marry again and you take

it into your head to seduce my wife, please do it so that I don't notice

it. It's much more honest to deceive a man than to break up his family

life and injure his reputation. I understand. You both imagine that in

living together openly you are doing something exceptionally honourable

and advanced, but I can't agree 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 and she is

not a dressmaker. You are both of you people with means. I should have

thought you might have arranged a separate flat for her."

"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-minded girl

should follow the man she loves to the ends of the earth, and should

serve his idea," said Orlov, screwing up his eyes ironically. "The ends

of the earth are poetic license; the earth and all its ends can be

reduced to the flat of the man she loves.... And so not to live in the

same flat with the woman who loves you is to deny 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," said Gruzin

softly, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Do you remember, _George_, how

in 'Three Meetings' he is walking late in the evening somewhere in

Italy, and suddenly hears, _'Vieni pensando a me segretamente,'_" 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 would ever

happen. When she said she was coming to live with me, I thought it was a

charming joke on her part."

Everybody laughed.

"I couldn't have wished for such a thing," said Orlov in the tone of 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's company. I look

upon love primarily as a necessity of my physical nature, degrading and

antagonistic to my spirit; it must either be satisfied with discretion

or renounced altogether, otherwise it will bring into one's life

elements as unclean as itself. For it to be an enjoyment and not a

torment, I will try to make it beautiful and to surround it with a mass

of illusions. I should never go and see a woman unless I were sure

beforehand that she would be beautiful and 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 for copper saucepans and untidy hair, or like to

be seen myself when I am unwashed or out of humour? Zinaida Fyodorovna

in the simplicity of 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 all the fuss of moving into another flat, of driving about

with her own horses; 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

to watch over every step; and at the same time she assures me genuinely

that my habits and my freedom will be untouched. She is persuaded that,

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 and hotels, while I like

to read on the journey and cannot endure talking in trains."

"You should give her a talking to," said Pekarsky.

"What! Do you suppose she would understand me? Why, we think so

differently. In her opinion, to leave one's papa and mamma or one's

husband for the sake of the man one loves is the height of civic virtue,

while I look upon it as childish. To fall in love and run away with a

man to her means beginning a new life, while to my mind it means nothing

at all. Love and man constitute the chief interest of her life, and

possibly it is the philosophy of the unconscious at work in her. Try and

make her believe that love is only a simple physical need, like the need

of food or clothes; that it doesn't mean 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 of honour and a genius; and that, on the other

hand, one may abstain from the pleasures of love and at the same time be

a stupid, vicious animal! 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

devotes his brain and nerves entirely to his work. But Zinaida

Fyodorovna assigns to love not so many _sous_, but her whole soul. I

might give her a talking to, but she would raise a wail in answer, and

declare in all sincerity that I had ruined her, that she had nothing

left to live for."

"Don't say anything to her," said Pekarsky, "but simply take a separate

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 women

imagine that they will be in love for ever, and abandon themselves with

tragic intensity."

"But one must keep a head on one's shoulders," said Orlov; "one must be

reasonable. All experience gained from everyday life and handed down in

innumerable novels and plays, uniformly confirms the fact that adultery

and cohabitation of any sort between decent people never lasts longer

than two or at most three years, however great the love may have been at

the beginning. That she ought to know. And so all this business of

moving, of saucepans, hopes of eternal love and harmony, are nothing but

a desire to delude herself and me. She is charming and exquisite--who

denies it? But she has turned my life upside down; what I have regarded

as trivial and nonsensical till now she has forced me to raise to the

level of a serious problem; I serve an idol whom I have never looked

upon as God. She is charming--exquisite, but for some reason now when I

am going home, I feel uneasy, as though I expected to meet with

something inconvenient at home, such as workmen pulling the stove to

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 of mind and my

nerves. And that's bad."

"And she doesn't hear this villain!" sighed Kukushkin. "My dear sir," he

said theatrically, "I will relieve you from the burdensome obligation to

love that adorable creature! I will wrest Zinaida Fyodorovna from you!"

"You may ..." said Orlov carelessly.

For half a minute Kukushkin laughed a shrill little laugh, shaking all

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 love

affairs, how irresistible he was to women, and what a danger he was to

husbands; and how the devil would roast him in the other world for his

immorality in this. He screwed up his eyes and remained silent, and when

the names of ladies of their acquaintance were mentioned, he held up his

little finger--as though to say they mustn't give away other people's

secrets.

Orlov suddenly looked at his watch.

His friends understood, and began to take their leave. I remember that

Gruzin, who was a little drunk, was wearisomely long in getting off. He

put on his coat, which was cut like children's coats in poor families,

pulled up the collar, and began telling some long-winded story; then,

seeing he was not listened to, he flung the rug that smelt of the

nursery over one shoulder, and with a guilty and imploring 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 man now."

"She is a dear, she won't be angry. My dear chief, come along! It's

glorious weather; there's snow and frost.... Upon my word, you want

shaking up a bit; you are out of humour. I don't know what the devil 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 some

hesitation. "Wait a minute; I'll get some money."

He went into the study, and Gruzin slouched in, too, dragging his rug

after him. A minute later both came back into the hall. Gruzin, a little

drunk and very pleased, was crumpling a ten-rouble note in his hands.

"We'll settle up to-morrow," he said. "And she is kind, she won't be

cross.... She is my Lisotchka's godmother; I am fond of her, poor thing!

Ah, my dear fellow!" he laughed joyfully, and pressing his forehead on

Pekarsky's back. "Ah, Pekarsky, my dear soul! Advocatissimus--as dry as

a biscuit, but you bet he is fond of women...."

"Fat ones," said Orlov, putting on his fur coat. "But let us get off, 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 returned next

day at dinner-time.

VI

Zinaida Fyodorovna had lost her gold watch, a present from her father.

This loss surprised and alarmed her. She spent half a day going through

the rooms, looking helplessly on all the tables and on all the windows.

But the watch had disappeared completely.

Only three days afterwards Zinaida Fyodorovna, on coming in, left her

purse in the hall. Luckily for me, on that occasion it was not I but

Polya who helped her off with her coat. When the purse was missed, it

could not be found in the hall.

"Strange," said Zinaida Fyodorovna in bewilderment. "I distinctly

remember taking it out of my pocket to pay the cabman ... and then 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 had been

caught in the theft. Tears actually came into my eyes. When they were

seated at dinner, Zinaida Fyodorovna said to Orlov in French:

"There seem to be spirits in the flat. I lost my purse in the hall

to-day, and now, lo and behold, it is on my table. But it's not quite a

disinterested trick of the spirits. They took out a gold coin and twenty

roubles in notes."

"You are always losing something; first it's your watch and then it's

your money ..." said Orlov. "Why is it nothing of the sort ever happens

to me?"

A minute later Zinaida Fyodorovna had forgotten the trick played by the

spirits, and was telling with a laugh how the week before she had

ordered some notepaper and had forgotten to give her new address, and

the shop had sent the paper to her old home at her husband's, who had to

pay twelve roubles for it. And suddenly she turned her eyes on Polya and

looked at her intently. She blushed as she did so, and was so confused

that she began talking of something else.

When I took in the coffee to the study, Orlov was standing with his back

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. "But I have

been putting things together, and now I see it clearly. I can give you

the day and the hour when she stole my watch. And the purse? There can

be no doubt about it. Oh!" she laughed as she took the coffee from me.

"Now I understand why I am always losing my handkerchiefs and gloves.

Whatever you say, I shall dismiss the magpie to-morrow and send Stepan

for my Sofya. She is not a thief and has not got such a repulsive

appearance."

"You are out of humour. To-morrow you will feel differently, and will

realise that you can't discharge people simply because you suspect

them."

"It's not suspicion; it's certainty," said Zinaida Fyodorovna. "So long

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 I don't

believe you. You may be right," said Orlov, turning round and flinging

his cigarette-end into the fire, "but there is no need to be excited

about it, anyway. In fact, I must say, I never expected my humble

establishment would cause you so much serious worry and agitation.

You've lost a gold coin: never mind--you may have a hundred 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 certainly is fat, and has, perhaps, a weakness

for gloves and handkerchiefs, but she is perfectly well behaved, well

trained, and does not shriek when Kukushkin pinches her."

"You mean that you can't part with her?... Why don't you say so?"

"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 find a name for."

She pressed her hands on her temples, and went on impulsively. "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 begin with

housemaids as boys, and get so used to it that you feel no repugnance. I

don't know, I don't know, but I have actually read.... _George_, of

course you are right," she said, going up to Orlov and changing to a

caressing and imploring tone. "I really am out of humour to-day. But,

you must understand, I can't help it. She disgusts me and I am afraid of

her. It makes me miserable to see her."

"Surely you can rise above such paltriness?" said Orlov, shrugging his

shoulders in perplexity, and walking away from the fire. "Nothing could

be simpler: take no notice of her, and then she won't disgust you, 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 never

applied to her for anything, and evidently tried to dispense with her

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 dismiss Polya he

would have done so without the slightest hesitation, without troubling

about any explanations. He was easily persuaded, like all indifferent

people. But in his relations with Zinaida Fyodorovna he displayed for

some reason, even in trifles, an obstinacy which sometimes was almost

irrational. I knew beforehand that if Zinaida Fyodorovna liked anything,

it would be certain not to please Orlov. When on coming in from shopping

she made haste to show him with pride some new purchase, he would glance

at it and say coldly that the more unnecessary objects they had in the

flat, the less airy it would be. It sometimes happened that after

putting on his dress clothes to go out somewhere, and after saying

good-bye to Zinaida Fyodorovna, he would suddenly change his mind and

remain at home from sheer perversity. I used to think that he remained

at home then simply in order to feel injured.

"Why are you staying?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, with a show of vexation,

though at the same time she was radiant with delight. "Why do you? You

are not accustomed to spending your evenings at home, and I don't want

you to alter your habits on my account. Do go 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 in the

study, and shading his eyes with his hand, took up a book. But soon the

book dropped from his hand, he turned heavily in his chair, and again

screened his eyes as though from the sun. Now he felt annoyed that he

had not gone out.

"May I come in?" Zinaida Fyodorovna would say, coming irresolutely into

the study. "Are you reading? I felt dull by myself, and have come just

for a minute ... to have a peep at you."

I remember one evening she went in like that, irresolutely and

inappropriately, and sank on the rug at Orlov's feet, and from her soft,

timid movements one could see that she did not understand his mood and

was afraid.

"You are always reading ..." she said cajolingly, evidently wishing to

flatter him. "Do you know, _George_, what is one of the secrets of your

success? You are very clever and well-read. What book have you there?"

Orlov answered. A silence followed for some minutes which seemed to me

very long. I was standing in the drawing-room, from which I could 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 I flatter

myself. You know I want, I want horribly to believe that you are staying

at home to-night for my sake ... that we might spend the evening

together. Yes? May I think so?"

"Do," he said, screening his eyes. "The really happy man is he who

thinks not only of what is, but of what is not."

"That was a long sentence which I did not quite understand. You mean

happy people live in their imagination. Yes, that's true. I love to sit

in your study in the evening and let my thoughts carry me far, far

away.... It's pleasant sometimes to dream. Let us dream aloud,

_George_."

"I've never been at a girls' boarding-school; I never learnt the art."

"You are out of humour?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, taking Orlov's hand.

"Tell me why. When you are like that, I'm afraid. I don't know 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 so tender or

so gay as you used to be at Znamensky Street? I've been with you almost

a month, but it seems to me as though we had not yet begun to live, and

have not yet talked of anything as we ought to. You always answer me

with jokes or else with a long cold lecture like 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_.... Shall we?"

"Certainly, but about what?"

"Let us talk of our life, of our future," said Zinaida Fyodorovna

dreamily. "I keep making plans for our life, plans and plans--and I

enjoy doing it so! _George_, I'll begin with the question, when are 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 of place

there."

"My views?" Orlov repeated. "My views? In conviction and temperament I

am an ordinary official, one of Shtchedrin's heroes. You take me for

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 and find it

tolerable."

"You hate the service and it revolts you."

"Indeed? If I resign my post, take to dreaming aloud and letting myself

be carried away into another world, do you suppose that that world would

be less hateful to me than the service?"

"You are ready to libel yourself in order to contradict me." Zinaida

Fyodorovna 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 your life

writing documents that are opposed to your own ideas," Zinaida

Fyodorovna went on, clasping her hands in despair: "to submit to

authority, congratulate your superiors at the New Year, and then cards

and nothing but cards: worst of all, to be working for a system which

must be distasteful to you--no, _George_, no! You should not make such

horrid jokes. It's dreadful. You are a man of ideas, 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 his chair.

"You were pleased to observe yourself that I am a clever, well-read man,

and to teach one who knows does nothing but harm. I know very well all

the ideas, great and small, which you mean when you call me a man of

ideas. So if I prefer the service and cards to those ideas, you may be

sure I have good grounds for it. That's one thing. Secondly, you have,

so far as I know, never been in the service, and can only have drawn

your ideas of Government service from anecdotes and indifferent novels.

So it would not be amiss for us to make a compact, once for all, not to

talk of things we know already or of things about which we are not

competent to speak."

"Why do you speak to me like that?" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, stepping

back as though in horror. "What for? _George_, for God's sake, think

what you are saying!"

Her voice quivered and broke; she was evidently trying to restrain her

tears, but she suddenly broke into sobs.

"_George_, my darling, I am perishing!" she said in French, dropping

down 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 my childhood 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 you don't respect because she has become your

mistress.... I shall kill myself!"

I had not expected that her words and her tears would make such an

impression on Orlov. He flushed, moved uneasily in his chair, and

instead of irony, his face wore a look of stupid, schoolboyish dismay.

"My darling, you misunderstood me," he muttered helplessly, touching her

hair and her shoulders. "Forgive me, I entreat you. I was unjust and 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; but I've been horribly

depressed for the last few days ..."

Zinaida Fyodorovna impulsively embraced Orlov and kissed him on the

cheek.

"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, still moving

uneasily in his chair.

"No, she must stay, _George!_ Do you hear? I am not afraid of her

now.... 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 something touching,

something like a reminiscence of childhood and youth. She stroked his

face, kissed him, and carefully examined his hands with the rings on

them and the charms on his watch-chain. She was carried away 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 aloud some

letters. Soon after midnight they went to bed. I had a fearful pain in

my side that night, and I could not get warm or go to sleep till

morning. I could hear Orlov go from the bedroom into his study. After

sitting there about an hour, he rang the bell. In my pain and exhaustion

I forgot all the rules and conventions, and went to his study in my

night attire, barefooted. Orlov, in his dressing-gown and 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 addressed me

not in the singular--goodness knows why. Most likely, in my night

clothes and with my face distorted by coughing, I played my part 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 his

table.

While hurriedly getting into my coat, I put up and lighted fresh

candles. He was sitting at the table, with feet stretched out on a low

chair, cutting a book.

I left him deeply engrossed, and the book did not drop out of his hands

as it had done in the evening.

VII

Now that I am writing these lines I am restrained by that dread of

appearing sentimental and ridiculous, in which I have been trained from

childhood; when I want to be affectionate or to say anything tender, I

don't know how to be natural. And it is that dread, together with lack

of practice, that prevents me from being able to express with perfect

clearness what was passing in my soul at that time.

I was not in love with Zinaida Fyodorovna, but in the ordinary human

feeling I had for her, there was far more youth, freshness, and

joyousness 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 should hear her

voice and her footsteps. To stand watching her as she drank her coffee

in the morning or ate her lunch, to hold her fur coat for her in the

hall, and to put the goloshes on her little feet while she rested her

hand on my shoulder; then to wait till the hall porter rang up for me,

to meet her at the door, cold, and rosy, powdered with the snow, to

listen to her brief exclamations about the frost or the cabman--if only

you knew how much all that meant to 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. I dreamed of it at dinner, and in the street when I

was sent on some errand, and when I lay awake at night. Orlov rejected

with disgust children, cooking, copper saucepans, and feminine

knicknacks and I gathered them all up, tenderly cherished them in my

dreams, loved them, 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 miracle of

her returning my love, but that reflection did not worry me. In my

quiet, modest feeling akin to ordinary affection, there was no jealousy

of Orlov or even envy of him, since I realised that for a wreck 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, or when

she shuddered and turned pale at Polya's crossing the room, I suffered

with her, and the idea occurred to me to lance this festering wound as

quickly as possible by letting her know what was said here at supper on

Thursdays; but--how was it to be done? More and more often I saw her

tears. For the first weeks she laughed and sang to herself, even when

Orlov was not at home, but by the second month there was a mournful

stillness in our flat broken only on Thursday evenings.

She flattered Orlov, and to wring from him a counterfeit smile or kiss,

was ready to go on her knees to him, to fawn on him like a dog. Even

when her heart was heaviest, she could not resist glancing into a

looking-glass if she passed one and straightening her hair. It seemed

strange to me that she could still take an interest in clothes and go

into ecstasies over her purchases. It did not seem in keeping with her

genuine grief. She paid attention to the fashions and ordered expensive

dresses. What for? On whose account? I particularly remember one dress

which cost four hundred roubles. To give four hundred roubles for an

unnecessary, useless dress while women for their hard day's work get

only twenty kopecks a day without food, and the makers of Venice and

Brussels lace are only paid half a franc a day on the supposition that

they can earn the rest by immorality! And it seemed strange to me that

Zinaida Fyodorovna was not conscious of it; it vexed me. But she had

only to go out of the house for me to find excuses and explanations for

everything, and to 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 pat a

dog, and yet not notice it; I was given orders and asked questions, but

my presence was not observed. My master and mistress thought it unseemly

to say more to me than is usually said to servants; if when waiting at

dinner I had laughed or put in my word in the conversation, they would

certainly have thought I was mad and have dismissed me. Zinaida

Fyodorovna was favourably disposed to me, all the same. When she was

sending me on some errand or explaining to me the working of a new lamp

or anything of that sort, her face was extraordinarily kind, frank, and

cordial, and her eyes looked me straight in the face. At such moments I

always fancied she remembered with gratitude how I used to bring her

letters to Znamensky Street. When she rang the bell, Polya, who

considered me her favourite and hated 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, and did

not suspect that if any one in the house were in a humiliating position

it was she. She did not know that I, a footman, was unhappy on her

account, and used to ask myself twenty times a day what was in store for

her and how it would all end. Things were growing visibly worse day by

day. After the evening on which they had talked of his official work,

Orlov, who could not endure tears, unmistakably began to avoid

conversation with her; whenever Zinaida Fyodorovna began to argue, or to

beseech him, or seemed on the point of crying, he seized some plausible

excuse for retreating to his study or going out. He more and more rarely

slept at home, and still more rarely dined there: on Thursdays he was

the one to suggest some expedition to his friends. Zinaida Fyodorovna

was still dreaming of having the cooking 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 after they had come back from abroad, and

apropos of their foreign tour, declared that they could not go till his

hair had grown long, as one could not go trailing from hotel to hotel

and serving the idea without long hair.

To crown it all, in Orlov's absence, Kukushkin began calling at the flat

in the evening. There was nothing exceptional in his behaviour, but I

could never forget the conversation in which he had offered to cut Orlov

out. He was regaled with tea and red wine, and he used to titter and,

anxious to say something pleasant, would declare that a free union was

superior in every respect to legal marriage, and that all decent people

ought really to come to Zinaida Fyodorovna and fall at her feet.

VIII

Christmas was spent drearily in vague anticipations of calamity. On New

Year's Eve Orlov unexpectedly announced at breakfast that he was being

sent to assist a senator who was on a revising commission in a certain

province.

"I don't want to go, but I can't find an excuse to get off," he said

with vexation. "I must go; there's nothing for it."

Such news instantly made Zinaida Fyodorovna's eyes look red. "Is it for

long?" she asked.

"Five days or so."

"I am glad, really, you are going," she said after a moment's thought.

"It will be a change for you. You will fall in love with some one on the

way, and tell me about it afterwards."

At every opportunity she tried to make Orlov feel that she did not

restrict his liberty in any way, and that he could do exactly as he

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 he

dissuaded her, saying that he was not going to America, and not going to

be away five years, but only five days--possibly less.

The parting took place between seven and eight. He put one arm round

her, and kissed her on the lips and on the forehead.

"Be a good girl, and don't be depressed while I am away," he said in a

warm, affectionate tone which touched even me. "God keep you!"

She looked greedily into his face, to stamp his dear features on her

memory, then she put her arms gracefully round his neck and laid her

head on his breast.

"Forgive me our misunderstandings," she said in French. "Husband and

wife cannot help quarrelling if they love each other, and I love you

madly. Don't forget me.... Wire to me often and fully."

Orlov kissed her once more, and, without saying a word, went out in

confusion. When he heard the click of the lock as the door closed, he

stood still in the middle of the staircase in hesitation and glanced

upwards. It seemed to me that if a sound had reached him at that moment

from above, he would have turned back. But all was quiet. He

straightened his coat and went downstairs irresolutely.

The sledges had been waiting a long while at the door. Orlov got into

one, I got into the other with two portmanteaus. It was a hard frost and

there were fires smoking at the cross-roads. The cold wind nipped my

face and hands, and took my breath away as we drove rapidly along; and,

closing my eyes, I thought what a splendid woman she was. How she loved

him! Even useless rubbish is collected in the courtyards nowadays and

used for some purpose, even broken glass is considered a useful

commodity, but something so precious, so rare, as the love of a refined,

young, intelligent, and good woman is utterly thrown away and wasted.

One of the early sociologists regarded every evil passion as a force

which might by judicious management be turned to good, while among us

even a fine, noble passion 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 that we had

come to a standstill in Sergievsky Street, near a big house where

Pekarsky lived. Orlov got out of the sledge and vanished into the 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 to Pekarsky's

flat before--that is, I had stood in the hall and looked into the

drawing-room, and, after the damp, gloomy street, it always struck me by

the brilliance of its picture-frames, its bronzes and expensive

furniture. To-day in the midst of this splendour I saw Gruzin,

Kukushkin, and, after a minute, Orlov.

"Look here, Stepan," he said, coming up to me. "I shall be staying here

till Friday or Saturday. If any letters or telegrams come, you must

bring them here every day. At home, of course you will say that I have

gone, and send my greetings. Now you can go."

When I reached home Zinaida Fyodorovna was lying on the sofa in the

drawing-room, eating a pear. There was only one candle burning in the

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, and I 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 like that. How was it

that a man who had thought and read so much could not imagine anything

more sensible? I must confess I had by no means a poor opinion of his

intelligence. I believe if he had had to deceive his minister or any

other influential person he would have put a great deal of skill and

energy into doing so; but to deceive a woman, the first idea that

occurred to him was evidently good enough. If it succeeded--well and

good; if it did not, there would be no harm done--he could tell some

other lie just as quickly and simply, with no mental effort.

At midnight when the people on the floor overhead were moving their

chairs and shouting hurrah to welcome the New Year, Zinaida Fyodorovna

rang for me from the room next to the study. Languid from lying down so

long, she was sitting at the table, writing something on a scrap of

paper.

"I must send a telegram," she said, with a smile. "Go to the station as

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; I miss

you dreadfully. It seems an eternity. I am only sorry I can't send 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 shirts to

Sergievsky Street. After that, she looked at Zinaida Fyodorovna with a

malignant joy and hatred I could not understand, and was never tired of

snorting with delight to herself in her own room and in the hall.

"She's outstayed her welcome; it's time she took herself off!" she would

say with zest. "She ought to realise that herself...."

She already divined by instinct that Zinaida Fyodorovna would not be

with us much longer, and, not to let the chance slip, carried off

everything she set her eyes on--smelling-bottles, tortoise-shell

hairpins, handkerchiefs, shoes! On the day after New Year's Day, Zinaida

Fyodorovna summoned me to her room and told me in a low voice that she

missed her black dress. And then she walked through all the rooms, with

a pale, frightened, and indignant face, talking to herself:

"It's too much! It's beyond everything. Why, it's unheard-of insolence!"

At dinner she tried to help herself to soup, but could not--her hands

were trembling. Her lips were trembling, too. She looked helplessly at

the soup and at the little pies, waiting for the trembling to pass off,

and suddenly she could not resist looking at 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," Zinaida

Fyodorovna went on, getting up in great agitation. "You may look out for

another place. You can go at once."

"I can't go away without the master's orders. He engaged me. It must be

as he orders."

"You can take orders from me, too! I am mistress here!" said Zinaida

Fyodorovna, and she flushed crimson.

"You may be the mistress, but only the master can dismiss me. It was 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 you hear?"

Zinaida Fyodorovna flung her dinner-napkin on the table, and with a

pitiful, suffering face, went quickly out of the room. Loudly sobbing

and wailing something indistinct, Polya, too, went away. The soup and

the grouse got cold. And for some reason all the restaurant dainties on

the table struck me as poor, thievish, like Polya. Two pies on a plate

had a particularly miserable and guilty air. "We shall be taken back to

the restaurant to-day," they seemed to be saying, "and to-morrow we

shall be put on the table again for some official or celebrated singer."

"She is a fine lady, indeed," I heard uttered in Polya's room. "I could

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, in the

corner, looking as though she had been put in the corner as a

punishment.

"No telegram has come?" she asked.

"No, madam."

"Ask the porter; perhaps there is a telegram. And don't leave the

house," she called after me. "I am afraid to be left alone."

After that I had to run down almost every hour to ask the porter whether

a telegram had come. I must own it was a dreadful time! To avoid seeing

Polya, Zinaida Fyodorovna dined and had tea in her own room; it was here

that she slept, too, on a short sofa like a half-moon, and she made her

own bed. For the first days I took the telegrams; but, getting no

answer, she lost her faith in me and began telegraphing herself. Looking

at her, I, too, began impatiently hoping for a telegram. I hoped he

would contrive some deception, would make arrangements, for instance,

that a telegram should be sent to her from some station. If he were too

much engrossed with cards or had been attracted by some other woman, I

thought that both Gruzin and Kukushkin would remind him of us. But our

expectations were vain. Five times a day I would go in to Zinaida

Fyodorovna, intending to tell her the truth. But her eyes looked piteous

as a fawn's, her shoulders seemed to droop, her lips were moving, and I

went away again without saying a word. Pity and sympathy seemed to rob

me of all manliness. Polya, as cheerful and well satisfied with herself

as though nothing had happened, was tidying the master's study and the

bedroom, rummaging in the cupboards, and making the crockery jingle, and

when she passed Zinaida Fyodorovna's door, she hummed something and

coughed. She was pleased that her mistress was hiding from her. In the

evening she would go out somewhere, and rang at two or three o'clock in

the morning, and I had to open the door to her and listen to remarks

about my cough. Immediately afterwards I would hear another ring; I

would run to the room next to the study, and Zinaida Fyodorovna, putting

her head out of the door, would ask, "Who was it rung?" while she looked

at my hands to see whether I had a telegram.

When at last on Saturday the bell rang below and she heard the familiar

voice on the stairs, she was so delighted that she broke into sobs. She

rushed to meet him, embraced him, kissed him on the breast and sleeves,

said something one could not understand. The hall porter brought up the

portmanteaus; Polya's cheerful voice was heard. It was as though some

one had come home for the holidays.

"Why didn't you wire?" asked Zinaida Fyodorovna, breathless with joy.

"Why was it? I have been in misery; I don't know how I've lived through

it.... Oh, my God!"

"It was very simple! I returned with the senator to Moscow the very

first 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 must sleep

and sleep.... I am worn out with the journey."

It was evident that he had not slept all night; he had probably been

playing cards and drinking freely. Zinaida Fyodorovna put him to bed,

and we all walked about on tiptoe all that day. The dinner went off

quite satisfactorily, but when they went into the study and had coffee

the explanation began. Zinaida Fyodorovna began talking of something

rapidly in a low voice; she spoke in French, and her words flowed like a

stream. Then I heard a loud sigh from Orlov, and his voice.

"My God!" he said in French. "Have you really nothing fresher to tell 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 certain condition. When I offered

to let her go, you insisted on her remaining, 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. "Let us

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 the

Baptist's Day--Orlov put on his black dress coat and his decoration to

go to visit his father and congratulate him on his name day. He had to

go at two o'clock, and it was only half-past one when he had finished

dressing. What was he to do for that half-hour? He walked about the

drawing-room, declaiming some congratulatory verses which he had recited

as a child to his father and mother.

Zinaida Fyodorovna, who was just going out to a dressmaker's or to the

shops, was sitting, listening to him with a smile. I don't know how

their conversation began, but when I took Orlov his gloves, he was

standing before her with a capricious, beseeching face, saying:

"For God's sake, in the name of everything that's holy, don't talk of

things that everybody knows! What an unfortunate gift our intellectual

thoughtful ladies have for talking with enthusiasm and an air of

profundity of things that every schoolboy is sick to death of! Ah, if

only you would exclude from our conjugal programme all these 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 quote from

any authors you choose, but make me one concession: don't hold forth in

my presence on either of two subjects: the corruption of the upper

classes and the evils of the marriage system. Do understand me, at last.

The upper class is always abused in contrast with the world of

tradesmen, priests, workmen and peasants, Sidors and Nikitas of all

sorts. I detest both classes, but if I had honestly to choose between

the two, I should without hesitation, prefer the upper class, and there

would be no falsity or affectation about it, since all my tastes are in

that direction. Our world is trivial and empty, but at any rate we speak

French decently, read something, and don't punch each other in the ribs

even in our most violent quarrels, while the Sidors and the Nikitas and

their worships in trade talk about 'being quite agreeable,' 'in a

jiffy,' 'blast your eyes,' and display the utmost license of pothouse

manners and the most degrading superstition."

"The peasant and the tradesman feed you."

"Yes, but what of it? That's not only to my discredit, but to theirs

too. They feed me and take off their caps to me, so it seems they have

not the intelligence and honesty to do otherwise. I don't blame or

praise any one: I only mean that the upper class and the lower are as

bad as one another. My feelings and my intelligence are opposed to both,

but my tastes lie more in the direction of the former. Well, now for the

evils of marriage," Orlov went on, glancing at his watch. "It's high

time for you to understand that there are no evils in the system itself;

what is the matter is that you don't know yourselves what you want from

marriage. What is it you want? In legal and illegal cohabitation, in

every sort of union and cohabitation, good or bad, the underlying

reality is the same. You ladies live for that underlying reality alone:

for you it's everything; your existence would have no meaning for you

without it. You want nothing but that, and you get it; but since you've

taken to reading novels you are ashamed of it: you rush from pillar to

post, you recklessly change your men, and to justify this turmoil you

have begun talking of the evils of marriage. So long as you can't and

won't renounce what underlies it all, your chief foe, your devil--so

long as you serve that slavishly, what use is there in discussing the

matter seriously? Everything you may say to me will be falsity and

affectation. I shall not believe you."

I went to find out from the hall porter whether the sledge was at the

door, and when I came back I found it had become a quarrel. As sailors

say, a squall had blown up.

"I see you want to shock me by your cynicism today," said Zinaida

Fyodorovna, walking about the drawing-room in great emotion. "It revolts

me to listen to you. I am pure before God and man, and have nothing to

repent of. I left my husband and came to you, and am proud 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 of what I

did. It raises you and me above thousands of people who would like to do

as we have done, but do not venture through cowardice or petty prudence.

But you are not a decent man. You are afraid of freedom, and you mock

the promptings of genuine feeling, from fear that some ignoramus may

suspect you of being sincere. You are afraid to show me to your friends;

there's no greater infliction for you than to go about with me in the

street.... Isn't that true? Why haven't you introduced me to your father

or your cousin all this time? Why is it? No, I am sick of it at last,"

cried Zinaida Fyodorovna, stamping. "I demand what is mine by right. You

must present me to your father."

"If you want to know him, go and present yourself. He receives visitors

every morning from ten till half-past."

"How base you are!" said Zinaida Fyodorovna, wringing her hands in

despair. "Even if you are not sincere, and are not saying what you

think, I might hate you for your cruelty. Oh, how base you are!"

"We keep going round and round and never reach the real point. The real

point is that you made a mistake, and you won't acknowledge it aloud.

You imagined that I was a hero, and that I had some extraordinary ideas

and ideals, and it has turned out that I am a most ordinary official, a

cardplayer, and have no partiality for ideas of any sort. I am a worthy

representative of the rotten world from which you have run away because

you were revolted with its triviality and emptiness. Recognise it and be

just: don't be indignant with 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 to your

level--I am too depraved; you can't descend to my level, either, for you

are too exalted. So there is only one thing left to do...."

"What?" Zinaida Fyodorovna asked quickly, holding her breath and turning

suddenly as white as a sheet of paper.

"To call logic to our aid...."

"Georgy, why are you torturing me?" Zinaida Fyodorovna said suddenly in

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't know

why--whether it was that he wished to cause her extra pain, or whether

he remembered it was usually done in such cases--he locked the door

after him. She cried out and ran after him with a rustle of her skirt.

"What does this mean?" she cried, knocking at his door. "What ... what

does this mean?" she repeated in a shrill voice breaking with

indignation. "Ah, so this is what you do! Then let me tell you I hate

you, I despise you! Everything is over between us now."

I heard hysterical weeping mingled with laughter. Something small in the

drawing-room fell off the table and was broken. Orlov went out 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 remembered

that she had no father or mother, no relations, and here she was living

between a man who hated her and Polya, who robbed her--and how desolate

her life seemed to me! I do not know why, but I went into the

drawing-room to her. Weak and helpless, looking with her lovely hair

like an embodiment of tenderness and grace, she was in anguish, as

though she were ill; she was lying on a couch, hiding her 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 looked at 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 give him the

letter. Every time I came back with the letter she scolded me, entreated

me, thrust money into my hand--as though she were in a fever. And all

the night she did not sleep, but sat in the drawing-room, talking to

herself.

Orlov returned to dinner next day, and they were reconciled.

The first Thursday afterwards Orlov complained to his friends of the

intolerable life he led; he smoked a great deal, and said with

irritation:

"It is no life at all; it's the rack. Tears, wailing, intellectual

conversations, begging for forgiveness, again tears and wailing; and the

long and the short of it is that I have no flat of my own now. I am

wretched, and I make her wretched. Surely I haven't to live another

month or two like this? How can I? But yet I may have to."

"Why don't you speak, then?" said Pekarsky.

"I've tried, but I can't. One can boldly tell the truth, whatever it may

be, to an independent, rational man; but in this case one has 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 in

perplexity 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?" sighed

Orlov. "I only hear endless conversations, but no way out of my

position. 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 into the

basket. The last thing I've ever set out to be is a hero. I never could

endure Turgenev's novels; and now, all of a sudden, as though to spite

me, I've heroism forced upon me. I assure her on my honour that I'm not

a hero at all, I adduce irrefutable proofs of the same, but she doesn't

believe me. Why doesn't she believe me? I suppose I really must have

something of the appearance of a hero."

"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 again ordered

to attend the senator, and the same evening he went off with his

portmanteaus to Pekarsky.

XI

An old man of sixty, in a long fur coat reaching to the ground, and a

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 the thick

brows and the characteristically compressed lips which I knew so 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 pursed up

his lips tightly and looked into space, reflecting, showing me his

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 the table,

and, before taking up the pen, for three minutes he pondered, shading

his eyes with his hand as though from the sun--exactly as 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 faces of the old and

religious. I stood behind him, gazed at his bald head and at the hollow

at the nape of his neck, and it was clear as daylight to me that this

weak old man was now in my power. There was not a soul in the flat

except my enemy and me. I had only to use a little physical violence,

then snatch his watch to disguise the object of the crime, and to get

off by the back way, and I should have gained infinitely more than I

could have imagined possible when I took up the part of a footman. I

thought that I could hardly get a better opportunity. But instead of

acting, I looked quite unconcernedly, first at his bald patch and then

at his fur, and calmly meditated on this man's relation to his only son,

and on the fact that people spoiled by power and wealth probably don't

want to die....

"Have you been long in my son's service?" he asked, writing a large hand

on the paper.

"Three months, your High Excellency."

He finished the letter and stood up. I still had time. I urged myself on

and clenched my fists, trying to wring out of my soul some trace of my

former hatred; I recalled what a passionate, implacable, obstinate hate

I had felt for him only a little while before.... But it is difficult to

strike a match against a crumbling stone. The sad old face and the cold

glitter of his stars roused in me nothing but petty, cheap, unnecessary

thoughts of the transitoriness of everything earthly, of the nearness of

death....

"Good-day, brother," said the old man. He put on his cap and went out.

There could be no doubt about it: I had undergone a change; I had become

different. To convince myself, I began to recall the past, but at once I

felt uneasy, as though I had accidentally peeped into a dark, damp

corner. I remembered my comrades and friends, and my first thought was

how I should blush in confusion if ever I met any of them. What was I

now? What had I to think of and to do? Where was I to go? What was I

living for?

I could make nothing of it. I only knew one thing--that I must make

haste to pack my things and be off. Before the old man's visit my

position as a flunkey had a meaning; now it was absurd. Tears dropped

into my open portmanteau; I felt insufferably sad; but how I longed to

live! I was ready to embrace and include in my short life every

possibility open to man. I wanted to speak, to read, and to 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 Zinaida Fyodorovna came in, I

rushed to open the door for her, and with peculiar tenderness took off

her fur coat. The last time!

We had two other visitors that day besides the old man. In the evening

when it was quite dark, Gruzin came to fetch some papers for Orlov. He

opened the table-drawer, took the necessary papers, and, rolling them

up, told me to put them in the hall beside his cap while he went in to

see Zinaida Fyodorovna. She was lying on the sofa in the drawing-room,

with her arms behind her head. Five or six days had already passed since

Orlov went on his tour of inspection, and no one knew when he would be

back, but this time she did not send telegrams and did not expect them.

She did not seem 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

pale face. Like Orlov, she wanted to be unhappy out of obstinacy. To

spite herself and everything in the world, she lay for days together on

the sofa, desiring and expecting nothing but evil for herself. Probably

she was picturing to herself Orlov's return and the inevitable quarrels

with him; then his growing indifference to her, his infidelities; then

how they would separate; and perhaps these agonising thoughts gave her

satisfaction. But what would she have said if she found out the actual

truth?

"I love you, Godmother," said Gruzin, greeting her and kissing her hand.

"You are so kind! And so dear _George_ has gone away," he lied. "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 want to go

home, and it's too early to go to the Birshovs'. The Birshovs are

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 slowly and

with obvious reluctance drank the tea, and returning the glass to me,

asked timidly:

"Can you give me ... something to eat, my friend? I have had no dinner."

We had nothing in the flat. I went to the restaurant and brought him the

ordinary rouble dinner.

"To your health, my dear," he said to Zinaida Fyodorovna, and he tossed

off a glass of vodka. "My little girl, your godchild, sends you her

love. Poor child! she's rickety. Ah, children, children!" he sighed.

"Whatever you may say, Godmother, it is nice to be a father. Dear

_George_ can't understand that feeling."

He drank some more. Pale and lean, with his dinner-napkin over his chest

like a little pinafore, he ate greedily, and raising his eyebrows, kept

looking guiltily, like a little boy, first at Zinaida Fyodorovna and

then at me. It seemed as though he would have begun crying if I had not

given him the grouse or the jelly. When he had satisfied his hunger he

grew more lively, and began laughingly telling some story about the

Birshov household, but perceiving that it was tiresome and that Zinaida

Fyodorovna was not laughing, he ceased. And there was a sudden feeling

of dreariness. After he had finished his dinner they sat in the

drawing-room by the light of a single lamp, and did not speak; it was

painful to him to lie to her, and she wanted to ask him something, but

could not make up her mind 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 bring me?" 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 have

forgotten everything. I've given it up long ago."

Looking at the ceiling as though trying to remember, he played two

pieces of Tchaikovsky with exquisite expression, with such warmth, such

insight! His face was just as usual--neither stupid nor intelligent--and

it seemed to me a perfect marvel that a man whom I was accustomed to see

in the midst of the most degrading, impure surroundings, was capable of

such purity, of rising to a feeling so 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 you

something," he said; "I heard it played on the violoncello."

Beginning timidly and picking out the notes, and then gathering

confidence, he played Saint-Saëns's "Swan Song." He played it through,

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 and think

nothing but good of you. But if you wish that I should speak generally

about the question that interests you," he went on, rubbing his sleeve

near the elbow and frowning, "then, my dear, you know.... To follow

freely the promptings of the heart does not always give good people

happiness. To feel free and at the same time to be happy, it seems to

me, one must not conceal from oneself that life is coarse, cruel, and

merciless in its conservatism, and one must retaliate with what it

deserves--that is, be as coarse and as 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 a finger

for my own salvation."

"Go into a nunnery."

He said this in jest, but after he had said it, tears glistened in

Zinaida Fyodorovna's eyes and then in his.

"Well," he said, "we've been sitting and sitting, and now we must go.

Good-bye, dear Godmother. God give you health."

He kissed both her hands, and stroking them tenderly, said that he

should 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's pelisse, he

fumbled long in his pockets to find a tip for me, but found 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 to the good.

I wanted to take advantage of this mood to speak to her openly and then

to go away, but I had hardly seen Gruzin out when I heard a ring. It was

Kukushkin.

"Is Georgy Ivanitch at home?" he said. "Has he come back? You say no?

What a pity! In that case, I'll go in and kiss your mistress's hand, 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, but I

felt as though he were staying a long while and would never go away. I

bit my lips from indignation and annoyance, and already hated Zinaida

Fyodorovna. "Why does she not turn him out?" I thought indignantly,

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 special

good-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.... You rascal!"

In spite of my experience of life, I knew very little of mankind at that

time, and it is very likely that I often exaggerated what was of little

consequence and failed to observe what was important. It seemed to me it

was not without motive that Kukushkin tittered and flattered me. Could

it be that he was hoping that I, like a flunkey, would gossip in other

kitchens and servants' quarters of his coming to see us in the evenings

when Orlov was away, and staying with Zinaida Fyodorovna till late at

night? And when my tittle-tattle came to the ears of his acquaintance,

he would drop his eyes in confusion and shake his little finger. And

would not he, I thought, looking at his little honeyed face, this very

evening at cards pretend and perhaps declare that he had already won

Zinaida Fyodorovna from 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 I listened to

the shuffle of his leather goloshes, I felt greatly tempted to fling

after him, as a parting shot, some coarse word of abuse, but I

restrained myself. And when the steps had died away on the stairs, I

went back to the hall, and, hardly conscious of what I was doing, took

up the roll of papers that Gruzin had left behind, and ran headlong

downstairs. Without cap or overcoat, I ran down into the street. It was

not cold, but big flakes of snow were falling and it was windy.

"Your Excellency!" I cried, catching up Kukushkin. "Your Excellency!"

He stopped under a lamp-post and looked round with surprise. "Your

Excellency!" I said breathless, "your Excellency!"

And not able to think of anything to say, I hit him two or three times

on the face with the roll of paper. Completely at a loss, and hardly

wondering--I had so completely taken him by surprise--he leaned his back

against the lamp-post and put up his hands to protect his face. At that

moment an army doctor passed, and saw how I was beating the man, but he

merely looked at us in astonishment and went 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 to my

room, and immediately flung off my swallow-tails, put on a reefer jacket

and an overcoat, and carried my portmanteau out into the passage; I must

get away! But before going I hurriedly sat down and began writing to

Orlov:

"I leave you my false passport," I began. "I beg you to keep it as a

memento, you false man, you Petersburg official!

"To steal into another man's house under a false name, to watch under

the mask of a flunkey this person's intimate life, to hear everything,

to see everything in order later on, unasked, to accuse a 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 dozens of 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 make you a present of my silence.

Besides, if there is not a living soul at hand who dares to tell you the

truth without flattery, let your flunkey 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 crumpled dress

coat on the floor, and my wet footprints, looked gloomy and forbidding.

And there was a peculiar stillness.

Possibly because I had run out into the street without my cap and

goloshes I was in a high fever. My face burned, my legs ached.... My

heavy head drooped over the table, and there was that kind of division

in my thought when every idea in the brain seemed dogged by its shadow.

"I am ill, weak, morally cast down," I went on; "I cannot write to you

as I should like to. From the first moment I desired to insult and

humiliate you, but now I do not feel that I have the right to do so. You

and I have both fallen, and neither of us will ever rise up again; and

even if my letter were eloquent, terrible, and passionate, 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 efforts could warm your accursed

cold blood, and you know that better than I do. Why write? But my mind

and heart are burning, and I go on writing; for some reason I am moved

as though this letter still might save you and me. I am so feverish that

my thoughts are disconnected, and my pen scratches the paper without

meaning; but the question I want to put to you stands before me as clear

as though in letters of flame.

"Why I am prematurely weak and fallen is not hard to explain. Like

Samson of old, I have taken the gates of Gaza on my shoulders to carry

them to the top of the mountain, and only when I was exhausted, when

youth and health were quenched in me forever, I noticed that that burden

was not for my shoulders, and that I had deceived myself. I have been,

moreover, in cruel and continual pain. I have endured cold, hunger,

illness, and loss of liberty. Of personal happiness I know and have

known nothing. I have no home; my memories are bitter, and my conscience

is often in dread of them. But why have you fallen--you? What fatal,

diabolical causes hindered your life from 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 because he is afraid himself? You are afraid of

life--as afraid of it as an 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 yet with what tender, purely Oriental, pasha-like care you

protect yourself from hunger, cold, physical effort, from pain and

uneasiness! How early your soul has taken to its dressing-gown! What a

cowardly part you have played towards real life and nature, with which

every healthy and normal man struggles! How soft, how snug, how warm,

how comfortable--and how bored you are! Yes, it is deathly boredom,

unrelieved by one ray of light, as in solitary confinement; but you try

to hide from that enemy, too, you play cards eight hours out of

twenty-four.

"And your irony? Oh, but how well I understand it! Free, bold, living

thought is searching and dominating; for an indolent, sluggish mind it

is intolerable. That it may not disturb your peace, like thousands of

your contemporaries, you made haste in youth to put it under bar and

bolt. Your ironical attitude to life, or whatever you like to call it,

is your armour; and your thought, fettered and frightened, dare not leap

over the fence you have put round it; and when you jeer at ideas which

you pretend to know all about, you are like the deserter fleeing from

the field of battle, and, to stifle his shame, sneering at war and at

valour. Cynicism stifles pain. In some novel of Dostoevsky's an old man

tramples underfoot the portrait of his dearly loved daughter because he

had been unjust to her, and you vent your foul and vulgar jeers upon the

ideas of goodness and truth because you have not the strength to follow

them. You are frightened of every honest and truthful hint at your

degradation, and you purposely surround yourself with people who do

nothing but flatter your weaknesses. And you may well, you may well

dread the sight of tears!

"By the way, your attitude to women. Shamelessness has been handed down

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. When you reached

manhood and _all_ ideas became known to you, you could not have failed

to see the truth; you knew it, but you did not follow it; you were

afraid of it, and to deceive your conscience you began loudly assuring

yourself that it was not you but woman that was to blame, that she was

as degraded as your attitude to her. Your cold, scabrous anecdotes, your

coarse laughter, all your innumerable theories concerning the underlying

reality of marriage and the definite demands made upon it, concerning

the ten _sous_ the French workman pays his woman; your everlasting

attacks on female logic, lying, weakness and so on--doesn't it all look

like a desire at all costs to force woman down into the mud that she may

be 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. I went and lay

on my bed, but remembering that it was time for me to go, I got up with

an effort and with a heavy, burning head went to the table again.

"But this is the question," I went on. "Why are we worn out? Why are we,

at first so passionate, so bold, so noble, and so full of faith, complete

bankrupts at thirty or thirty-five? Why does one waste in consumption,

another put a bullet through his brains, a third seeks forgetfulness in

vodka and cards, while the fourth tries to stifle his fear and misery by

cynically trampling underfoot the pure 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 seek something else? Why is it?

"The thief hanging on the Cross could bring back the joy of life and the

courage of confident hope, though perhaps he had not more than an hour

to live. You have long years before you, and I shall probably not die so

soon as one might suppose. What if by a miracle the present turned out

to be a dream, a horrible nightmare, and we should wake up renewed,

pure, strong, proud of our righteousness? Sweet visions fire me, and I

am almost breathless with emotion. I have a terrible longing to live. I

long for our life to be holy, lofty, and majestic as the heavens above.

Let us live! The sun doesn't rise twice a day, and life is not given us

again--clutch at what is left of your life and save it...."

I did not write another word. I had a multitude of thoughts in my mind,

but I could not connect them and get them on to paper. Without finishing

the letter, I signed it with my name and rank, and went into the study.

It was dark. I felt for the table and put the letter on it. I must have

stumbled against the furniture in the dark and made 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, feeling

for the handle; then I slowly opened it and walked into the

drawing-room. Zinaida Fyodorovna was lying on the couch, and raising

herself on her elbow, she looked towards me. Unable to bring myself to

speak, I walked slowly by, and she followed me with her eyes. I stood

for a little time in the dining-room and then walked by her again, and

she looked at me intently and with perplexity, even with alarm. 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 staying at

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 and entreaty. In

one instant all that had happened of late flashed through her mind; she

reflected, and with pitiless clarity she saw the whole truth. But at the

same time she remembered that I was a flunkey, a being of a lower

order.... A casual stranger, with hair ruffled, with face flushed with

fever, perhaps drunk, in a common overcoat, was coarsely intruding into

her intimate life, and that 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 not

interrupt me or go away, explained to her who I was and why I was living

there. This new discovery struck her more than the first. Till then she

had hoped that her footman had lied or made a mistake or been silly, but

now after my confession she had no doubts left. From the expression of

her unhappy eyes and face, which suddenly lost its softness and beauty

and looked old, I saw that she was insufferably miserable, and that the

conversation would lead to no good; but I went on impetuously:

"The senator and the tour of inspection were invented to deceive you. In

January, just as now, he did not go away, but stayed at Pekarsky'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 jeered at 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 her hair.

"Well, so be it."

Her eyes were full of tears, her lips were quivering, and her whole face

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 be it.

He imagines that I shall die of humiliation, and instead of that I am

... amused by it. There's no need for him to hide." She walked away from

the piano and said, shrugging her shoulders: "There's no need.... It

would have been simpler to have it out with me instead of keeping in

hiding in other people's flats. I have eyes; I saw it myself long

ago.... I was only waiting for him to come back to have things out once

for all."

Then she sat down on a low chair by the table, and, leaning her head on

the arm of the sofa, wept bitterly. In the drawing-room there was only

one candle burning in the candelabra, and the chair where she was

sitting was in darkness; but I saw how her head and shoulders were

quivering, and how her hair, escaping from her combs, covered her neck,

her face, her arms.... Her quiet, steady weeping, which was not

hysterical but a woman's ordinary weeping, expressed a sense of insult,

of wounded pride, of injury, and of something helpless, hopeless, which

one could not set right and to which one could not get used. Her tears

stirred an echo in my troubled and suffering heart; I forgot my illness

and everything else in the world; I walked about the drawing-room and

muttered distractedly:

"Is this life?... Oh, one can't go on living like this, one can'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 eyes through

her hair, wet with her tears, and pushing it back as it prevented 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 in despair,

that will amuse them, too; they will make a funny anecdote of it and

tell it at your requiem service. But why talk of them?" I said

impatiently. "We must get away from here--I cannot stay here 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 what we are

to do. Neither you nor I can stay here. Where do you intend to go?"

Suddenly there was a ring at the bell. My heart stood still. Could it be

Orlov, to whom perhaps Kukushkin had complained of me? How should we

meet? I went to open the door. It was Polya. She came in shaking the

snow off her pelisse, and went into her room without saying a word to

me. When I went back to the drawing-room, Zinaida Fyodorovna, 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 me to 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 dark and

deserted in the street. Wet snow was falling and a damp wind lashed in

one's face. I remember it was the beginning of March; a thaw had set in,

and for some days past the cabmen had been driving on wheels. Under the

impression of the back stairs, of the cold, of the midnight darkness,

and the porter in his sheepskin who had questioned us before letting us

out of the gate, Zinaida Fyodorovna was utterly cast down and

dispirited. When we got into the cab and the hood was put up, trembling

all over, she began hurriedly saying how grateful she was to me.

"I do not doubt your good-will, but I am ashamed that you should be