Part 8

“Excellent! . . . Then let us begin with your connexion with Kalinin. . . . If you consult your memory it will tell you that you began to visit the Kalinins immediately after your arrival in our God-protected district. Your acquaintance was not sought by them. At first you did not please the Justice of the Peace, owing to your arrogant manner, your sarcastic tone, and your friendship with the dissolute Count, and you would never have been in the Justice's house if you yourself had not paid him a visit. You remember? You became acquainted with Nadezhda Nikolaevna, and you began to frequent the Justice's house almost every day. . . . Whenever one came to the house you were sure to be there. . . . You were welcomed in the most cordial manner. You were shown all possible marks of friendship—by the father, the mother, and the little sister. . . . They became as much attached to you as if you were a relative. . . . They were enraptured by you . . . you were made much of, they were in fits of laughter over your slightest witticism. . . . You were for them the acme of wisdom, nobility, gentle manners. You appeared to understand all this, and you reciprocated their attachment with attachment—you went there every day, even on the eve of holidays—the days of cleaning and bustle. Lastly, the unhappy love that you aroused in Nadezhda's heart is no secret to you. . . . Is that not so? Well, then, you, knowing she was over head and ears in love with you, continued to go there day after day. . . . And what happened then, friend? A year ago, for no apparent reason, you suddenly ceased visiting the house. You were awaited for a week . . . a month. . . . They are still waiting for you, and you still don't appear . . . they write to you . . . you do not reply. . . . You end by not even bowing. . . . To you, who set so much store by decorum, such conduct must appear as the height of rudeness! Why did you break off your connexion with the Kalinins in such a sharp and off-hand manner? Did they offend you? No. . . . Did they bore you? In that case you might have broken off gradually, and not in such a sharp and insulting manner, for which there was no cause. . . .”

“I stopped visiting a house and therefore have become a psychopath!” I laughed. “How naive you are, Screwy! What difference is there if you suddenly cease an acquaintance or do so gradually? It's even more honest to do so suddenly—there's less hypocrisy in it. But what trifles all these are!”

“Let us admit that all this is trifling, or that the cause of your sharp action is a secret that does not concern other people. But how can you explain your further conduct?”

“For instance?”

“For instance, you appeared one day at a meeting of our Zemstvo Board—I don't know what your business was there—and in reply to the president, who asked you how it came that you were no longer to be met at Kalinin's, you said. . . . Try to remember what you said! ‘I'm afraid they want to marry me!’ That's what fell from your lips! And this you said during the meeting in a loud and distinct voice, so that all the hundred men who were present could hear you! Pretty? In reply to your words laughter and various offensive witticisms about fishing for husbands could be heard on all sides. Your words were caught up by a certain scamp, who went to Kalinin's and repeated them to Nadenka during dinner. . . . Why such an insult, Sergei Petrovich?”

Pavel Ivanovich barred the way. He stood before me and continued looking at me with imploring, almost tearful eyes.

“Why such an insult? Why? Because this charming girl loves you? Let us admit that her father, like all fathers, had intentions on your person. . . . He is like all fathers, they all have an eye on you, on me, on Markuzin. . . . All parents are alike! . . . There's not the slightest doubt that she is over head and ears in love; perhaps she had hoped she would become your wife. . . . Is that a reason to give her such a sounding box on the ear? Dyadinka, dyadinka!* Was it not you yourself who encouraged these intentions on your person? You went there every day; ordinary guests never go so often. In the daytime you went out fishing with her, in the evening you walked about the garden with her, jealously guarding your _tête-à-tête_. . . . You learned that she loved you, and you made not the slightest change in your conduct. . . . Was it possible after that not to suspect you of having good intentions? I was convinced you would marry her! And you—you complained—you laughed! Why? What had she done to you?”

* Little uncle, a familiar form of affectionate address.

“Don't shout, Screwy, the people are staring at us,” I said, getting round Pavel Ivanovich. “Let us change this conversation. It's old women's chatter. I'll explain in a few words, and that must be enough for you. I went to the Kalinin's house because I was dull and also because Nadenka interested me. She's a very interesting girl. . . . Perhaps I might even have married her. But, finding out that you had preceded me as a candidate for her heart, that you were not indifferent to her, I decided to disappear. . . . It would have been cruel on my part to stand in the way of such a good fellow as yourself. . . .”

“Thanks for the favour! I never asked you for this gracious gift, and, as far as I can judge by the expression of your face, you are now not speaking the truth; you are talking nonsense not reflecting on what you say. . . . And besides, the fact of my being a good fellow did not hinder you on one of your last meetings with Nadenka to make her some proposals in the summer-house, which would have brought no good to the excellent young fellow if he had married her.”

“O-ho! Screwy, where did you find out about this proposal? It seems that your affairs are not going on badly, if such secrets are confided to you! . . . However, you've grown white with rage and almost look as if you were going to strike me. . . . And just now we agreed to be objective! Screwy, what a funny fellow you are! Well, we've had about enough of all this nonsense. . . . Let's go to the post office. . . .”

X

We went to the post office, which looked out gaily with its three little windows on to the market place. Through the grey paling gleamed the many coloured flower garden of our postmaster, Maxim Fedorovich, who was known in the whole district as a great connoisseur of all that concerned gardening and the art of laying out beds, borders, lawns, etc.

We found Maxim Fedorovich very pleasantly occupied. Smiling, and red with pleasure, he was seated at his green table, turning over hundred-rouble notes as if they were a book. Evidently even the sight of another man's money had a pleasing effect on his frame of mind.

“How do you do, Maxim Fedorovich?” I said to him. “Where have you got such a pile of money?”

“It's to be sent to St. Petersburg,” the postmaster replied, smiling sweetly, and he pointed his chin at the corner of the room where a dark figure was sitting on the only chair in the post office.

This dark figure rose when he saw me and came towards us. I recognized my new acquaintance, my new enemy, whom I had so grievously insulted when I had got drunk at the Count's.

“My best greetings!” he said.

“How are you, Kaetan Kazimirovich?” I answered, pretending not to notice his outstretched hand. “How's the Count?”

“Thank God, he's quite well. . . . He's only a little dull. . . . He's expecting you to come every minute.”

I read on Pshekhotsky's face the desire to converse with me. How could that desire have arisen after the “swine” with which I had treated him on that evening, and what caused this change of tone?

“What a lot of money you have!” I said, gazing at the packet of hundred-rouble notes he was sending away.

It seemed as if somebody had given a fillip to my brain! I noticed that one of the hundred-rouble notes had charred edges, and one corner had been quite burnt off. . . . It was the hundred-rouble note which I had wanted to burn in the flame of a Chandor candle, when the Count refused to accept it from me as my share of the payment for the gipsies, and which Pshekhotsky had picked up when I flung it on the ground.

“It's better that I should give it to the poor, than let it be consumed by the flames,” he had said then.

To what “poor” was he sending it now?

“Seven thousand five hundred roubles,” Maxim Fedorovich counted in a drawling voice. “Quite right!”

It is ill to pry into the secrets of other people, but I wanted terribly to find out whose this money was and to whom this black-browed Pole was sending it to Petersburg, This money was certainly not his, and the Count had nobody to whom he would send it.

“He has plundered the drunken Count,” I thought. “If deaf and silly Scops-Owl knows how to plunder the Count, what difficulty will this goose have in thrusting his paw into his pockets?”

“Oh, by-the-by, I'll also take this opportunity of sending some money,” Pavel Ivanovich said hastily. “Do you know, gentlemen, it's quite incredible! For fifteen rouble you can get five things carriage free! A telescope, a chronometer, a calendar, and something more. . . . Maxim Fedorovich, kindly let me have a sheet of paper and an envelope!”

Screw sent off his fifteen roubles, I received my newspaper and a letter, and we left the post office.

We went towards the church. Screwy paced after me, as pale and dismal as an autumn day. The conversation in which he had tried to show himself to be “objective” had excited him quite beyond all expectation.

All the church bells were being rung. An apparently endless crowd was slowly descending the steps that led from the church porch.

Ancient banners and a dark cross were held high above the crowd, at the head of the procession. The sun played gaily on the vestments of the priests, and the icon of the Holy Virgin emitted blinding rays. . . .

“Ah, there are our people!” the doctor said, pointing to the _beau-monde_ of our district which had separated itself from the crowd and was standing aside.

“Your people, but not mine,” I said.

“That's all the same. . . . Let us join them. . . .”

I approached my acquaintances and bowed. The Justice of the Peace, Kalinin, a tall, broad-shouldered man with a grey beard and crawfish-like eyes, was standing in front of all the others, whispering something in his daughter's ear. Trying to appear as if he had not noticed me, he made not the slightest movement in answer to my general salute that had been made in his direction.

“Good-bye, my angel,” he said in a lachrymose voice as he kissed his daughter on the forehead. “Drive home alone. I shall be back by evening. My visits will take but little time.”

Having kissed his daughter again and smiled sweetly on the _beau-monde_, he frowned fiercely, and turning sharply round on one heel, towards a muzhik wearing the disc of a foreman, he said hoarsely to him:

“When will they allow my carriage to drive up?”

The muzhik became excited and waved his arms.

“Look out!”

The crowd that was following the procession made way and the carriage of the Justice of the Peace drove up with chic and the sound of bells to where Kalinin was standing. He sat down, bowed majestically, and alarming the crowd by his “Look out!” he disappeared from sight without casting a single glance at me.

“What a majestic swine!” I whispered in the doctor's ear. “Come along!”

“Don't you want to say a word to Nadezhda Nicolaevna?” Pavel Ivanovich asked:

“It's time for me to go home. I'm in a hurry.”

The doctor looked at me angrily, sighed, and turned away. I made a general bow and went towards the booths. As I was making my way through the dense crowd, I turned to look back at the Justice's daughter. She was looking after me and appeared to be trying whether I could bear her pure, searching gaze, so full of bitter injury and reproach.

Her eyes said: “Why?”

Something stirred in my breast, and I felt remorse and shame for my silly conduct. I suddenly felt a wish to return and caress and fondle with all the strength of my soft, and not yet quite corrupt, soul this girl who loved me passionately, and who had been so grievously wronged by me; and to tell her that it was not I who was in fault, but my accursed pride that prevented me from living, breathing or advancing a step. Silly, conceited, foppish pride, full of vanity. Could I, a frivolous man, stretch out the hand of reconciliation, when I knew and saw that every one of my movements was watched by the eyes of the district gossips and the “ill-omened old women”? Sooner let them laugh her to scorn and cover her with derisive glances and smiles, than undeceive them of the “inflexibility” of my character and the pride, which silly women admired so much in me.

Just before, when I had spoken with Pavel Ivanovich about the reasons that had caused me suddenly to cease my visits to the Kalinins, I had not been candid and quite inaccurate. . . . I had held back the real reason; I had concealed it because I was ashamed of its triviality. . . . The cause was as tiny as a grain of dust. . . . It was this. On the occasion of my last visit, after I had given up Zorka to the coachman and was entering the Kalinin's house, the following phrase reached my ears:

“Nadenka, where are you? . . . Your betrothed has come!”

These words were spoken by her father, the Justice of the Peace, who probably did not think that I might hear him. But I heard him, and my self-love was aroused.

“I her betrothed?” I thought. “Who allowed you to call me her betrothed? On what basis?”

And something snapped in my breast. Pride rebelled within me, and I forgot all I had remembered when riding to Kalinin's. . . . I forgot that I had allured the young girl, and I myself was being attracted by her to such a degree that I was unable to pass a single evening without her company. . . . I forgot her lovely eyes that never left my memory either by night or day, her kind smile, her melodious voice. . . . I forgot the quiet summer evenings that will never return either for her or me. . . . Everything had crumbled away before the pressure of the devilish pride that had been aroused by the silly phrase of her simple-minded father. . . . I left the house in a rage, mounted Zorka, and galloped off, vowing to snub Kalinin, who without my permission had dared to consider me as his daughter's betrothed.

“Besides, Voznesensky is in love with her,” I thought, trying to justify my sudden departure, as I rode home. “He began to twirl around her before I did, and they were considered to be engaged when I made her acquaintance. I won't interfere with him!”

From that day I never put a foot in Kalinin's house, though there were moments when I suffered from longing to see Nadia, and my soul yearned for the renewal of the past. . . . But the whole district knew of the rupture, knew that I had “bolted” from marriage. . . . How could my pride make concessions?

Who can tell? If Kalinin had not said those words, and if I had not been so stupidly proud and touchy, perhaps I would not have had to look back, nor she to gaze at me with such eyes. . . . But even those eyes were better, even the feeling of being wronged and of reproach was better, than what I saw in those eyes a few months after our meeting in the Tenevo church! The grief that shone in the depths of those black eyes now was only the beginning of the terrible misfortune that, like the sudden onrush of a train, swept that girl from the earth. They were like little flowers compared to those berries that were then already ripening in order to pour terrible poison into her frail body and anguished heart.

XI

When I left Tenevo I took the same road by which I had come. The sun showed it was already midday. As in the morning, peasants' carts and landowners' britzkas, beguiled my hearing by their squeaking and the metallic rumble of their bells. Again, the gardener, Franz, drove past me with his vodka barrel, but this time it was probably full. Again his eyes gave me a sour look, and he touched his cap. His nasty face jarred on me, but this time again the disagreeable impression that the meeting with him had made on me was entirely wiped away by the forester's daughter, Olenka, whose heavy wagonette caught me up.

“Give me a lift!” I called to her.

She nodded gaily to me and stopped her vehicle. I sat down beside her, and the wagonette rattled on along the road, which like a light stripe cut through the three versts of the Tenevo forest. For about two minutes we looked at each other in silence.

“What a pretty girl she really is!” I thought as I looked at her throat and chubby chin. “If I were told to choose between Nadenka and her, I would choose her. . . . She's more natural, fresher, her nature is broader, bolder. . . . If she fell into good hands, much could be made of her! . . . The other is morose, visionary . . . clever.”

Lying at Olenka's feet there were two pieces of linen and several parcels.

“What a number of purchases you have made!” I said. “For what can you want so much linen?”

“That's not all I need!” Olenka replied. “I only bought these among all the rest. To-day I was a whole hour buying things in the market; to-morrow I must go to make purchases in the town. . . . And then all this must be made up. . . . I say, don't you know any woman who would go out to sew?”

“No, I think not. . . . But why have you to buy so many things? Why have they to be sewn? God knows your family is not large. . . . One, two . . . there, I've counted you all. . . .”

“How queer all you men are! You don't understand anything! Wait till you get married, you yourself will be angry then if after the wedding your wife comes to you all slovenly. I know Pëtr Egorych is not in want of anything. Still, it seems a bit awkward not to appear as a good housewife from the first. . . .”

“What has Pëtr Egorych to do with it?”

“Hm! . . . You are laughing at me, as if you don't know!” Olenka said and blushed slightly.

“Young lady, you are talking in riddles.”

“Have you really not heard? Why, I am going to marry Pëtr Egorych!”

“Marry?” I said in astonishment, making big eyes. “What Pëtr Egorych?”

“Oh, good Lord! Urbenin, of course!”

I stared at her blushing and smiling face.

“You? Going to marry . . . Urbenin? What a joke!”

“It's not a joke at all. . . . I really can't understand where you see the joke. . . .”

“You to marry . . . Urbenin. . . .” I repeated, getting pale, I really don't know why. “If this is not a joke, what is it?”

“What joke! I can't understand what is there extraordinary—what is there strange in it?” Olenka said, pouting.

A minute passed in silence. . . . I gazed at the pretty girl, at her young, almost childish face, and was astonished that she could make such terrible jokes! I instantly pictured to myself Urbenin, elderly, fat, red-faced with his standing-out ears and hard hands, whose very touch could only scratch that young female body which had scarcely begun to live. . . . Surely the thought of such a picture must frighten this pretty wood fay, who knew how to look poetically at the sky when it is reft by lightning and thunder growls angrily! I, even I, was frightened!

“It's true he's a little old,” Olenka sighed, “but he loves me. . . . His love is trustworthy.”

“It's not a matter of trustworthy love, but of happiness. . . .”

“I shall be happy with him. . . . He has means, thank God, and he's no pauper, no beggar, but a nobleman. Of course, I'm not in love with him, but are only those who marry for love happy? Oh, I know those marriages for love!”

“My child, when have you had time to stuff your brain with this terrible worldly wisdom?” I asked. “Admitted that you are joking with me, but where have you learned to joke in such a coarse, old way? . . . Where? When?”

Olenka looked at me with astonishment and shrugged her shoulders.

“I don't understand what you are saying,” she said. “You don't like to see a young girl marry an old man? Is that so?”

Olenka suddenly blushed all over, her chin moved nervously, and without waiting for my answer she rattled on rapidly.

“This does not please you? Then have the goodness to go into the wood . . . into that dullness, where there is nothing except merlins and a mad father . . . and wait there until a young suitor comes along! It pleased you the other evening, but if you saw it in winter, when one only wishes . . . that death might come——”

“Oh, all this is absurd, Olenka, all this is unripe, silly! If you are not joking. . . . I don't even know what to say! You had better be silent and not offend the air with your tongue. I, in your place, would have hanged myself on seven aspens, and you buy linen . . . and smile. Akh!”

“In any case, he with his means will have father cured,” she whispered.

“How much do you require for your father's cure?” I cried. “Take it from me—a hundred? Two hundred? . . . A thousand? Olenka, it's not your father's cure that you want!”