Part 16

These scenes always took place on the twentieth of the month, when Iván Mikhailovich received his salary, and the large number of small creditors had to be paid. Somehow there was never sufficient money to settle all the bills, and each time Iván Mikhailovich thought that the money ought to be enough to cover all expenses, and railed at the womenfolk who dreamed so much about the emancipation of women, while they did not even know how to regulate their own household. “Emancipation,” he grumbled, taking the money from his pocket-book and throwing it on the table.

“But what has emancipation to do with this matter?”

“They go and teach you the devil-knows-what--all kinds of geography, algebra, trigonometry, but you do not know how to make both ends meet--emancipation!”

“And you should go a little less to the club, Iván Mikhailovich; then probably the income would cover the expenditures!” replied Maria Petrovna, bitingly.

“And where, pray, can I get it for you? I am not coining money. I suppose you know I am not a counterfeiter?”

And all three started to upbraid and reproach each other, and for a moment they became submerged in such trivialities and unpleasantness that they were afterward thoroughly ashamed of themselves. After every twentieth of the month there remained in the soul of Xenia Pavlovna a kind of soot, and this greasy soot dimmed her eyes, made her apathetic and slow, and it seemed as if she had all at once become old, ill-looking, and disheartened. This young and very charming woman looked at such times like a beautiful bouquet of flowers that had withered and been thrown out of the window. So they lived day after day, months and years, and when an acquaintance asked, “How are you getting along?” they invariably replied: “Very well, thank you!”

It sometimes became necessary to refresh themselves after this kind of life--to depart, at least for a day, from the beaten track--and so Iván Mikhailovich went on a short spree two or three times a year. “One must overhaul himself thoroughly from time to time; it is not only useful, but also necessary,” he usually said on the next day after such an exploit.

The only thing that ever brightened Xenia Pavlovna’s life a little was going to the theatre. This happened so seldom, however, that she looked upon such rarely occurring occasions in the light of important events. Iván Mikhailovich did not like to go to the theatre, and when Xenia Pavlovna said, “We ought to go to the theatre and refresh ourselves a little,” Iván Mikhailovich was sure to remember how, ten years before, when they visited St. Petersburg on their honeymoon, they had been to the opera and the drama, and would reply: “After seeing Figner and Mme. Savina, it is not worth while, my dear, to go to see such small fry, and it only spoils an impression for us!”

But whenever “Faust” was presented on the stage of the local theatre, no pleadings were necessary: Iván Mikhailovich never failed to take seats in the third row of the orchestra for himself and Xenia Pavlovna.

“To-day we go to see ‘Faust,’” he said in an angry tone on returning from the bank, carelessly throwing two colored tickets upon the table.

“‘Faust’?” joyfully exclaimed Xenia Pavlovna, and her face became radiant with joy.

Gay and exalted with the pleasure that awaited her, Xenia Pavlovna usually began to get ready very early. And while she was dressing and combing her hair, Iván Mikhailovich stood close by to see that it was all done properly, because when he appeared with his wife in society he liked everything to be “just so,” and was pleased to have every one think, as they saw her pass on his arm, “A charming woman that! Really charming!” Therefore he was a very stern critic, and while she dressed he continually vexed her by his remarks: “Your coiffure is too small! You have the face of a Marguerite, and you dress your hair to make you look like a Jewess!”

“It is not true!”

“A curious thing, really: women understand less than any one else what is becoming to them, and they care less than all to win the admiration of their husbands!”

Xenia Pavlovna also wished to look well, but she did not trust overmuch to the good taste of Iván Mikhailovich, and at the same time she distrusted herself, too, and the upshot of it all was that they invariably quarreled, and left the house sulking and displeased with each other. Deeply aggravated and disheartened, they went to the theatre without any pleasurable anticipation, as if some one were driving them thither. First they walked arm in arm, feeling angry with each other, and longing to pull their arms away and walk apart; then Iván Mikhailovich called a cabman in an angry voice that seemed to hate all the cabbies in the world. Having helped his wife into the sleigh, he sat down by her side and placed his arm around her waist. The whole way they never exchanged a word, but Iván Mikhailovich gave vent to his irritation in a shower of abuse directed at the poor cabby: “Careful there! Don’t you see the hollows, you stupid!”--“To the right, you dolt!”

The orchestra played the overture from “Faust.” Iván Mikhailovich and his wife walked arm in arm through the long, carpeted aisle between two long rows of orchestra chairs toward their seats. Iván Mikhailovich felt as if all eyes were directed toward him, and he tried to walk with greater dignity, with his head proudly thrown back and his rounded paunch thrown forward. Xenia Pavlovna walked with downcast eyes and a face which looked rigidly cold and offended, as if she had been sentenced to die and were walking toward the gallows. The electric lights went out; the curtain rose upon a sea looking very much like a sky and a sky very much like a sea, with some sort of fantastic ruins and tropical vegetation. The traditional Faust, in his brown dressing-gown, nightcap, and long, gray beard, sang in his metallic tenor voice, smoothing his beard with his hand:

“Accursed be human science, human prayer, human faith!”

At first Xenia Pavlovna was not much affected by either the music or the singing. She looked more than she listened. When the red Mephistopheles appeared and sang that everything was well with him, and that he had plenty of money, Xenia Pavlovna remembered that it would soon be the twentieth and that they owed the butcher for two months. “Emancipation!” she seemed to hear Iván Mikhailovich exclaiming, and when she stopped thinking of the butcher and emancipation, Faust had already thrown off his dressing-gown and beard, and had changed from a decrepit old man into a handsome, strong youth, and this unexpectedness called forth the first smile upon her lips.

“To me returned lovely youth!” victoriously sang Faust, approaching the footlights and raising his hand, and Xenia Pavlovna began to think how old she was and how old Iván Mikhailovich was; that their youth had already passed, and would nevermore return. Xenia Pavlovna sighed and stealthily glanced at Iván Mikhailovich’s face. He sat deep in his chair, with head bent to one side and his hands locked over his paunch, and in his well-groomed face, with its waxed and twisted mustaches, there was so much of that self-sufficiency and well-bred sleekness of the native that Xenia Pavlovna hurriedly turned away.

During the first entr’acte they went into the lobby of the theatre, she leaning on his arm, and he feeling uneasy the whole time at the thought that his wife’s hair was badly dressed and that her face was not alight with the joy and rapture of the other women, who, with their sparkling eyes and rustling skirts, laughed and talked incessantly in their ringing, happy voices.

After walking a little up and down the spacious lobby, engrossed in their own thoughts, the pair returned to their seats. Under the cascades of light falling from the electric lustre, the orchestra dazzled the eyes with the beautiful dresses of the ladies, and buzzed like a beehive from the multitude of noises, motions, and rustling, but this talk, glitter, and dazzle seemed to Xenia Pavlovna distant and strange, and the walls of people, the boxes resembling rich bouquets of flowers, awakened in her a feeling of loneliness and remoteness. She sat with her hands lying listlessly on her lap and with downcast eyes; she did not wish to be disturbed in her present brooding mood, and feared that some acquaintance might approach them and ask how they were, or that Iván Mikhailovich might suddenly begin to compare the singers with those they had once heard.

When the lights went out and the curtain rose again, she felt a great relief, and it suddenly seemed to her that she was once more in her maiden bower and had locked the door on the outside world. Gazing at the scene before her, she was gradually carried away into the realm of sound and melody, and wholly surrendered herself to the vague, disturbing emotions that had arisen in her soul under the influence of music and song. The rancor and vexation she had felt toward her husband gradually subsided, and the memory of the harsh wrangles, petty disputes, all the tiresome prosiness of her daily life, vanished, and an exquisite calm and tranquillity took possession of her soul, brightening and clearing up everything within her. In the third act the soul of Xenia Pavlovna flew away from her native town, and she forgot herself and everybody else, and wholly surrendered herself to the power of music and song, to the moonlit night, the silvery shimmer of the stars, and the contemplation of a happy love, which waxed stronger and stronger, seemingly measureless and all-powerful, but at the same time full of a sadness and pensiveness as quiet and gentle as this moonlit night itself, and as this exquisite young girl before her, with her thick, long braid of golden hair, who, with the sincerity and straightforwardness of a child, was kneeling before her handsome, youthful lover, pleading with him for mercy. Here she stands flooded by the radiant moonlight, trembling with fear and happiness, her head resting on the shoulder of the handsome youth. Here she sings at the wide-open window, telling the stars, the quiet night, and the slumbering old garden, that seems to have been enchanted by dreams of love, of her happiness; and her song, pure and sacred like a prayer, soars upward to the starry, blue heavens.

How very dear and near this is to people who have lived through the fantom of happiness. She, Xenia Pavlovna, had once been just such a sweet girl, with a thick, golden braid hanging down her back; she had been just as happy and carefree, and sang just as sweetly to the stars and the silent garden flooded with the mysterious, sad moonlight, and she also, just as this maiden, had trembled with fear and pleaded with the man she loved for mercy.

“Ha! ha! ha! ha!” rolled the thundering laugh of Mephistopheles--such pitiless, powerful, and provoking laughter--and the chord, which echoed in Xenia Pavlovna’s heart with inexpressible tenderness and sadness, broke and grew silent, leaving room only for this laughter, oppressive and revolting in its triumphant triviality and truth. And reality suddenly broke into the realm of dreams and fancies. Xenia Pavlovna lowered her eyes, compressed her lips, and a smile passed over her face, the strange smile of a person who has been caught unawares.

“He laughs first rate!” remarked Iván Mikhailovich in an earnest voice, slightly moving in his chair.

Xenia Pavlovna looked at her husband and sighed sorrowfully. She had already resigned herself to Iván Mikhailovich, to his pompous solemnity, and his hands crossed over his paunch. Those hands no longer awakened her ire. Once this very same man who now sat by her side was _her_ Faust, and with him was closely bound up her love-drama. Even if it had been a mirage, a mistake, it was the mistake of her whole life, a mistake which would never be repeated--like youth itself.

The curtain came down. The noise of applause, resembling a rainstorm, and the wild roar of the over-enthusiastic gallery filled the theatre from top to bottom. The curtain rose once more on the sea and the ruins, and Faust, Marguerite, and Mephistopheles appeared holding each other’s hands, bowing and smiling to the public, and Xenia Pavlovna felt as if she had been suddenly awakened from a sleep full of tender, delicious dreams, vague and enchanting, but already forgotten, and she felt vexed because she was awakened, and was now possessed by a tormenting longing to recall and bring back the frightened-off dreams.

She did not want to look at Marguerite, who had suddenly turned into an actress, thirsting for hand-clapping and making eyes at that huge monster--the public; at Mephistopheles, who stood with his right hand pressed to his breast as a token of gratitude and sincere pleasure, nor at Faust, who suddenly looked very much like a hair-dresser, and who was sending in all directions sweetish, airy kisses.

“Come, Vania!”

Iván Mikhailovich rose and offered her his arm, and they once more repaired to the lobby. Here he treated her to tea and fruits. “It is splendid for allaying thirst!” he said, handing her an orange. And from this moment all animosity was forgotten, and peace reigned once more between them.

“Not sour, I hope?”

“No, it is very good.”

Xenia Pavlovna ate her orange, and gazed at the men who passed them. “They are all different here from what they are at home,” she thought; “they are all rude, all go to their clubs, and my Vania is in reality much better than many of these men.”

“How did you like Marguerite, Vania?”

“Pretty well--though, after Alma Fostrem, she is, of course--”

“Have you heard Alma in that rôle?”

“Well, I like that, really! Did we not hear her together at St. Petersburg! Have you forgotten already?”

“Ach, that was so long ago.”

“Though this opera is immortal by itself, I have seen it over a hundred times, and will be glad to see it as many times more. Here one sees life as in a mirror--Yes--Do you remember--in the garden?” he concluded in a low voice, leaning toward his wife.

Xenia Pavlovna’s face was covered with a slight blush, and her eyes had a thoughtful, far-away look in them, which gradually grew sad and dreamy.

“All this was, but it has passed as if in a dream,” her lips whispered, and her head swayed on her beautiful bare neck.

Here some acquaintances passed and, pressing their hands warmly, inquired:

“How are you?”

“Very well, thank you. And you?”

“Pretty well, as usual. But you, Xenia Pavlovna, still continue to grow more beautiful!”

Xenia Pavlovna blushed, and a hardly perceptible shade of pleasure flitted over her face, and made it sweet and strong and proud.

“What are you saying!” she replied, slightly screwing up her eyes and coquettishly fanning herself. “On the contrary, I think I am growing worse looking with each passing day!”

Then all the men began to protest in chorus, and the women silently fixed their coiffures with their fingers, while Iván Mikhailovich looked at his wife and thought that she was really a very lovely woman, probably one of the loveliest in the whole theatre, and he also began to feel very pleased, and twirling his mustaches, he spoke proudly:

“You ought to see her portrait when she was my fiancée! It hangs over my desk. She had a braid twice as thick as this Marguerite’s--”

In the last scene a whole revolution took place in the soul of Iván Mikhailovich. He began to imagine Xenia Pavlovna overtaken by the sad fate of Marguerite, and himself in the rôle of Faust, and grew very sorry for Xenia Pavlovna. The gloomy arches of the prison, on the gray stone floor some straw, and on it this woman, outraged, criminal, insane, and nevertheless so pure and saintly; the low melodies so full of sadness and tenderness in which arose hazy memories of past happiness, made Iván Mikhailovich’s breath come faster. He looked at Xenia Pavlovna, and noticing tears in her eyes, felt that this woman was very dear to him and that he was somehow very guilty toward her.

Iván Mikhailovich sadly gazed upon the stage, listened to the low strains of music, and it seemed to him at times that it was his Xenia thrown into prison, and he recalled how they first met at a ball and how he at the conclusion of it sang: “Amidst the noisy ball,” and how they afterward sat in the dark garden listening to the singing of the nightingale and gazing at the silvery stars.

All this was, but it had passed as if in a dream.

They returned from the theatre with souls refreshed, overfilled with sadness mingled with joy, and it seemed to both as if all their former disputes and frictions over trivialities had vanished forevermore, and a part of their former happiness had returned to them. They rode home dashingly in a light, new sleigh over the well-beaten road, and Iván Mikhailovich had his arm round Xenia Pavlovna’s waist as tightly as if he feared to lose her on the way. Xenia Pavlovna hid her face in the soft white fur of her collar, and only her sparkling eyes were visible from under a very becoming little hat of the same white fur, like two coals, dark and moist.

Iván Mikhailovich wished to kiss her, forgetting that they were in the open road, but Xenia Pavlovna screwed up her eyes, in which lurked silent laughter, and slightly shook her white fur hat.

At home the samovár and Maria Petrovna awaited them.

The samovár gurgled joyfully, rising importantly in all its beauty and sparkle from the snow-white of the table-cloth; the nice white loaves of bread smelt good and very tempting; and fresh, soft-boiled eggs seemed just waiting to be cracked over the nose with a spoon. And Maria Petrovna, sailing out of the nursery with her old wrap over her shoulders, spoke kindly: “Well, children, you must be quite hungry?”

Iván Mikhailovich did not reply. He entered the dimly lighted salon and paced it with a slow tread, smoothed his hair with the palm of his hand and purred: “Angel, Angel Marguerite!”

Then he returned to the dining-room, approached Xenia Pavlovna, silently kissed her on the head, and again went into the salon, where he continued purring.

“You had better eat and leave ‘Angel Marguerite’ for after,” said Maria Petrovna, thrusting her head into the doorway of the salon.

“In a moment! In a moment!” Iván Mikhailovich replied with vexation, and continued walking, wholly surrendering himself to vague emotions and recollections and the feeling of tender sadness for the past.

Afterward they all three had tea and spoke very amiably, and a good and peaceful feeling filled their hearts. Xenia Pavlovna changed her evening dress for a white capote with sleeves resembling wings, and let down her hair. She visited the nursery several times, and, sinking on her knees before the three little beds, she gazed with a mother’s passion and tenderness at the sleeping babies with their full, chubby little arms and sweet, carefree faces, and it seemed to her that here were sleeping the little angels, pure, gentle, helpless, and great in their purity, that had carried Marguerite into heaven.

“You look like Marguerite in prison,” remarked her husband, leaning on his arm and gazing at his wife long and attentively, and it seemed to him as if a whole chapter of his life had disappeared and before him was a sweet, young maiden with golden hair, whom one longed to love, to adore forever.

And under this glance Xenia Pavlovna lowered her eyes, smiled, and felt that somewhere far down at the very bottom of her soul the broken, unfinished song of her youthful heart sounded like a mountain echo.

Iván Mikhailovich who, generally supping at home in his shirt-sleeves, now felt constrained to take off his coat, endeavored to lend to his gestures and motions as much elegance and grace as possible, and was amiable and courteous at table, even to his mother-in-law.

“Shall I hand you the butter?” he asked, anticipating her wish.

“You are acting just as if you had come on a visit,” Maria Petrovna remarked, and, taking the butter with a pleasant smile, said: “Merci!”

“Well, good night, my Marguerite!” said Iván Mikhailovich, approaching his wife and once more gazing attentively into her eyes; then he kissed her hand and cheek.

“Good night, my Faust!” jokingly replied Xenia Pavlovna, kissing her husband on the lips.

Then Iván Mikhailovich pressed Maria Petrovna’s hand and went into the bedroom.

The blue hanging-lamp flooded the chamber with a soft, tender, soothing, bluish light, and it was so peaceful and cozy. Iván Mikhailovich undressed, and, taking off his boots, still continued to sing from “Faust” in a tender falsetto:

“’Tis life alone to be near thee, Thine only, all thine own!”

THE DUEL

BY NIKOLAI DMITRIEVITCH TELESHOV

[Illustration]

_Teleshov was born in 1867 and studied at the Moscow Academy of Applied Sciences. He started on his literary career in 1884 and met with almost immediate recognition._

_In his choice of subjects, as well as in the strong objective way in which he treats them, Teleshov is a disciple of Anton Chekhov, and his affinity with that great artist has been pointed out by the foremost Russian critics._

_Unlike some of the other younger Russian writers, Teleshov is wholly sound, sympathetic, and gentle in his writings. He takes his subjects wherever he can most easily lay his hand upon them--in the petty, gray, every-day life of the tradesman or from among the loose, unrestrained half-Bohemianism which is found in every great city._

[Illustration]

THE DUEL BY NIKOLAI TELESHOV

Translated by Lizzie B. Gorin. Copyright, 1907, by P. F. Collier & Son.

It was early morning--

Vladímir Kladunov, a tall, graceful young man, twenty-two years of age, almost boyish in appearance, with a handsome face and thick, fair curls, dressed in the uniform of an officer and in long riding boots, minus overcoat and cap, stood upon a meadow covered with new-fallen snow, and gazed at another officer, a tall, red-faced, mustached man, who faced him at a distance of thirty paces, and was slowly lifting his hand in which he held a revolver, and aimed it straight at Vladímir.

With his arms crossed over his breast and also holding in one hand a revolver, Kladunov, almost with indifference, awaited the shot of his opponent. His handsome, young face, though a little paler than usual, was alight with courage, and wore a scornful smile. His dangerous position, and the merciless determination of his adversary, the strenuous attention of the seconds who silently stood at one side, and the imminence of death, made the moment one of terrible intensity--mysterious, almost solemn. A question of honor was to be decided. Every one felt the importance of the question; the less they understood what they were doing, the deeper seemed the solemnity of the moment.