As if in answer to my thoughts, a desperate shout suddenly rang out in the yard.
‘He-elp!’
It was a thin, female-like voice. As though trying to mimic it, the wind suddenly shrilled in the chimney. Half a minute passed and again I heard that voice through the sound of the wind, but this time it appeared to come from the other end of the yard.
‘He-elp!’
‘Misail, did you hear that?’ my wife asked softly. ‘Did you hear?’
She came out from her bedroom in her nightdress, her hair hanging loose; peering at the dark window, she listened hard.
‘Someone’s being murdered!’ she said. ‘That’s the last straw!’
I took my gun and went out. It was very dark outside and the strong wind made it difficult to stand. I walked up to the gates and listened. The trees moaned, the wind whistled and a dog – most likely the village idiot’s – lazily howled in the garden. Outside the gates it was pitch-dark, without one light along the railway track. From somewhere just by the outbuilding where the office had been last year, there suddenly came a strangled cry.
‘He-elp!’
‘Who’s there?’ I called.
Two men were struggling. One was pushing, the other trying to hold his ground, and both were breathing heavily.
‘Let go!’ one of them said and I recognized Ivan Cheprakov. So he was the one who had shouted in that shrill, woman’s voice. ‘Let go, damn you, or I’ll bite your hands!’ he said.
I recognized the other as Moisey. As I parted them I couldn’t resist hitting Moisey twice in the face. He fell, stood up, and then I hit him again.
‘That gent wanted to kill me,’ he muttered. ‘He was trying to get into his mum’s chest of drawers. I’d like to have him locked up in the outbuilding, for safety’s sake, sir.’
Cheprakov was drunk and didn’t recognize me. He breathed heavily, as if filling his lungs before shouting ‘He-elp!’ again.
I left them and went back into the house. My wife was lying on the bed, fully dressed. I told her what had happened outside and did not even hide the fact that I had hit Moisey.
‘It’s terrible living in the country,’ she said. ‘And what a long night, damn it.’
‘He-elp!’ came the cry again.
‘I’ll go and separate them,’ I said.
‘No, let them tear each other’s throats out,’ she said with a disgusted look.
She glanced up at the ceiling, listening hard, while I sat close by, not daring to speak and feeling that I was to blame for those cries for help outside and for the interminable night.
We said nothing to each other and I waited impatiently for dawn to glimmer at the windows. Masha looked as if she had just come out of a deep sleep and now she was asking herself how such a clever, well-educated, respectable woman like herself could land herself in this wretched, provincial wilderness, among a crowd of insignificant nobodies. How could she lower herself so, fall for one of these people and be his wife for more than six months? I felt that it was all the same if it were me, Moisey or Cheprakov: for her, everything had become identified with that drunken, wild cry for help – myself, our marriage, our farming and the dreadful autumn roads. When she sighed or made herself more comfortable, I could read in her face: ‘Oh, please come quickly, morning!’
In the morning she left. I stayed on at Dubechnya for another three days waiting for her. Then I packed all our things into one room, locked it and walked to town. When I rang the engineer’s bell it was already evening and the lamps were lit on Great Dvoryansky Street. Pavel told me there was no one at home. Viktor Ivanych had gone to St Petersburg, while Mariya Viktorovna must be at a rehearsal at the Azhogins’. I remember how anxious I felt as I went to the Azhogins’, how my heart throbbed and sank as I climbed the stairs and stood for a long time on the landing, not daring to enter that temple of the muses. In the ballroom, candles in groups of three were burning everywhere – on the little table, on the piano and on the stage. The first performance was to be on the thirteenth and the first rehearsal on a Monday, an unlucky day. This was the battle against superstition! All the lovers of drama were already there. The eldest, middle and youngest sisters were walking over the stage, reading their parts from notebooks. Away from everybody stood Radish, his head pressed sideways to the wall as he watched the stage with adoring eyes, waiting for the rehearsal to begin. Everything was still the same!
I went over to greet the mistress of the house when suddenly everyone started crying ‘Ssh!’ and waving at me to tread softly. There was silence. They raised the piano lid and a lady sat down and screwed up her shortsighted eyes at the music. Then my Masha walked over to the piano. She was beautifully dressed – but she looked beautiful in a strange new way, not at all like the Masha who had come to see me at the mill that spring.
Why do I love thee, O radiant night?13
It was the first time since I had known her that I had heard her sing. She had a fine, rich, powerful voice, and hearing her was like eating a ripe, sweet, fragrant melon. When she finished everyone applauded and she smiled and looked very pleased as she flashed her eyes, turned over the music and smoothed her dress. She was like a bird that has finally broken out of its cage and preens its wings in freedom. Her hair was combed behind her ears and she looked aggressive, defiant, as if she wanted to challenge us all or shout at us, as though we were horses, ‘Whoa, my beauties!’
And at that moment she must have looked very like her grandfather, the coachman.
‘So you’re here as well?’ she said, giving me her hand. ‘Did you hear me sing? What do you think of it?’ And without waiting for a reply she went on, ‘You’ve timed it very well. Tonight I’m leaving for St Petersburg, just for a short stay. Is that all right with you?’
At midnight I took her to the station. She embraced me tenderly – most probably out of gratitude for not bothering her with useless questions, and she promised to write. For a long time I held and kissed her hands, barely able to keep back my tears and without saying a single word to her.
After she had gone I stood looking at the receding lights and fondled her in my imagination.
‘My dear Masha, my wonderful Masha,’ I said softly.
I stayed the night at Karpovna’s in Makarikha. In the morning,
Radish and I upholstered some furniture for a rich merchant who was marrying his daughter to a doctor.
XVII
On Sunday my sister came for tea.
‘I’m reading a lot now,’ she said, showing me some books that she had borrowed from the public library on her way. ‘I must thank your wife and Vladimir, they’ve made me aware again. They’ve saved me and made me feel like a human being. Up to now I couldn’t sleep at night for worrying – “Oh, we’ve used too much sugar this week! Oh, I mustn’t put too much salt on the cucumbers!” I don’t sleep now, but I’ve other thoughts on my mind. It’s sheer torture to think how stupidly, spinelessly I’ve spent half my life. I despise my past, I’m ashamed of it, and now I consider Father my enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to your wife! And Vladimir? He’s such a wonderful man! They’ve opened my eyes.’
‘That’s no good, not sleeping,’ I said.
‘So you think I’m ill? Not one bit. Vladimir listened to my chest and told me I’m perfectly healthy. But it’s not my health that’s the problem, that’s not so important… Tell me, am I right in what I’m doing?’
She needed moral support, that was clear. Masha had gone, Dr Blagovo was in St Petersburg, and except myself there was no one in town to tell her that she was right. She stared at me, trying to read my innermost thoughts, and if I was thoughtful or silent in her company, she would take it personally and become miserable. I had to be on my guard the whole time and whenever she asked me if she was right, I would hurriedly reply that she was and that I had great respect for her.
‘Did you know? I’ve been given a part at the Azhogins’,’ she continued. ‘I want to act. I want to live, to drain the cup of life. I’ve no ta
lent at all, and the part’s only ten lines. But that’s still infinitely better and nobler than pouring out tea five times a day and spying on the cook to see if she’s been eating too much. But most important, Father must come and see that I’m capable of protesting.’
After tea she lay down on my bed and stayed there for some time with her eyes closed, looking very pale.
‘How feeble,’ she exclaimed, getting up. ‘Vladimir said that all the women and girls in this town have become anaemic from laziness. How clever Vladimir is! He’s right, so absolutely right. One must work!’
Two days later she went to a rehearsal at the Azhogins’, notebook in hand. She wore a black dress with a coral necklace, a brooch that resembled puff-pastry from a distance, and large earrings, each with a jewel sparkling in it. I felt embarrassed looking at her and was shocked at her lack of taste. Others noticed too how unsuitably dressed she was, how out of place those earrings with the jewels were. I could see their smiles, and I heard someone laugh and say, ‘Queen Cleopatra of Egypt!’
She had tried to be worldly, relaxed and assured, but she had only succeeded in looking pretentious and bizarre. Her simplicity and charm had deserted her.
‘I just told Father that I was going to a rehearsal,’ she began, coming over to me, ‘and he shouted that he wouldn’t give me his blessing and he even nearly hit me. Just imagine, I don’t know my part,’ she said, glancing at the notebook. ‘I’m bound to mess it up. And so,’ she went on, highly agitated, ‘the die is cast. The die is cast…’
She felt that everyone was looking at her, that everyone was amazed at the decisive step she had taken, and that something special was expected of her. It was impossible to convince her that no one ever took any notice of such dull, mediocre people as she and I.
She didn’t come on until the third act, and her part – a guest, a provincial scandalmonger – was merely to stand at the door as though eavesdropping and then make a short speech. For at least half an hour before her cue, while others strolled across the stage, read, drank tea, argued, she never left my side. She kept mumbling her lines and nervously crumpling her notebook. Imagining that everyone was looking at her and waiting for her to come on, she kept smoothing her hair with trembling hand.
‘I’m bound to do it wrong,’ she told me. ‘If you knew how dreadful I feel! It’s as if I’m being led out to execution, I’m so scared!’
In the end it was her cue.
‘Cleopatra Poloznev, you’re on!’ the producer said.
She went out into the middle of the stage and she looked ugly and clumsy. Horror was written all over her face. She stood there for about thirty seconds as if in a stupor – quite still apart from the enormous earrings swinging on her ears.
‘As it’s the first time, you can use the book,’ someone said.
I saw quite clearly that she was shaking so much that she could neither speak nor open the book, and that she wasn’t up to it at all. I was just about to go over and speak to her when she suddenly sank on to her knees in the middle of the stage and burst into loud sobs.
There was general uproar and commotion. Only I stood still as I leant on the scenery in the wings, shattered by what had happened and at a complete loss what to do. I saw them lift her up and take her away. I saw Anyuta Blagovo come up to me. Until then I hadn’t noticed her in the ballroom and now she seemed to have sprung out of the floor. She wore her hat and veil and, as always, looked as if she had only dropped in for a minute.
‘I told her not to try and act,’ she said angrily, snapping out each word and blushing. ‘It’s sheer madness! You should have stopped her!’
Thin and flat-chested, Mrs Azhogin hurried over in a short blouse with short sleeves – there was cigarette ash on the front.
‘It’s terrible, my dear,’ she said, wringing her hands and staring me in the face as usual. ‘It’s terrible. Your sister’s in a certain condition… she’s… mm… pregnant! Take her away from here, I request you to.’
She was breathing heavily from excitement. Her three daughters, as thin and flat-chested as the mother, stood nearby, huddling together in terror. They were petrified, as if a convict had been caught in their house. How disgraceful, how terrible, they would have said! And yet this honourable family had been fighting prejudice and superstition throughout its existence. In their considered opinion, three candles, the thirteenth, unlucky Monday, constituted the entire stock of the superstitions and errors of mankind.
‘I must re quest you…’ Mrs Azhogin repeated, pursing her lips on the ‘quest’. ‘I must request you to take her home.’
XVIII
A little later my sister and I were walking down the street, and I protected her with the skirt of my coat. We hurried along side-streets where there were no lamps, avoiding passers-by as if we were fugitives.
She no longer cried, but looked at me with dry eyes. It was only about twenty minutes’ walk to Makarikha, where I was taking her, and, strange to relate, in that short time we managed to recall the whole of our lives. We discussed everything, weighed up our position, thought of the best course of action.
We decided that we could stay no longer in that town and that as soon as I had a little money we would move somewhere else. In some houses the people were already in bed, in others they were playing cards. We detested and feared those houses and talked about the fanaticism, callousness and worthlessness of those worthy families, those lovers of dramatic art whom we had frightened so much. ‘How are those stupid, cruel, lazy, dishonest people any better than the drunken, superstitious peasants of Kurilovka?’ I asked. ‘Are they any better than animals, which are similarly thrown into disarray when some random incident upsets the monotony of their lives that are bounded by instincts?’ What would happen to my sister now if she continued to live at home? What moral torments would she have to endure, talking to Father, or meeting her friends every single day? I saw all this quite clearly and then I recalled all those people I knew who were slowly being hounded to death by their nearest and dearest. I remembered those tormented dogs that had gone mad, those live sparrows plucked bare by street urchins and thrown into water. And I remembered the long, long unbroken sequence of muted, protracted suffering that I had observed in that town since childhood. And I could not understand how those sixty thousand people coped, why they read the Gospels, prayed, read books and magazines. What good to them was all that had been so far written and spoken by mankind if they were still spiritually unenlightened, if they still had the same horror of freedom as a hundred, three hundred years ago? A carpenter would spend all his life building houses in that town, but for all that he would go to his grave mispronouncing ‘gallery’. Similarly, those sixty thousand inhabitants had been reading and hearing about truth, mercy and freedom for generations, yet to their dying day they would carry on lying from morning to night, making life hell for each other, and they feared and loathed freedom as if it were their deadly enemy.
‘So, my fate is decided,’ my sister said when we arrived home. ‘After what has happened I can never go back there again. Heavens, that’s good! I feel better now.’
She immediately went to bed. Tears glistened on her eyelashes, but her face was happy. She slept soundly and sweetly and I could see that she really was relaxed and able to rest now. It was simply ages since she had slept like that.
And so our life together began. She was always singing and telling me that she felt very well. Books borrowed from the library were returned by me unread, since she wasn’t in the mood for reading now. Her only wish was to dream and talk of the future. While she mended my underwear or helped Karpovna at the stove, she would hum or talk about her Vladimir, praising his intellect, good manners, kindness, exceptional learning. I would agree with her, although I didn’t like her doctor any more. She wanted to work and earn her own living, without any assistance. She said that she was going to be a teacher as soon as she was well enough and that she would scrub floors and do the washing herself. She loved her unborn child pa
ssionately – even though he had not entered this world yet. She knew already the colour of his eyes, what his hands were like, how he laughed. She loved talking about education, and since Vladimir was the best person in the world, all her thoughts on the subject centred around one thing – the son must be as fascinating as the father. We talked endlessly and everything she said filled her with keen joy. I felt glad too, without knowing why.
Her dreaminess must have infected me too. All I did was lounge about, and I too read nothing. For all my tiredness, I paced up and down the room in the evenings, hands in pockets, talking about Masha.
‘When do you think she’ll be back?’ I would ask my sister. ‘Towards Christmas, I think, no later. What can she be doing there?’
‘She hasn’t written, that means she’ll be back soon.’
‘That’s true,’ I would agree, although I knew very well that there was nothing in our town for Masha to come back to.
I missed her terribly and since I could no longer deceive myself, I tried to make others deceive me. My sister was waiting for her doctor, I was waiting for Masha, and we both talked and laughed incessantly without ever noticing that we were keeping Karpovna awake. She would lie over the stove in her room forever muttering, ‘This morning the samovar was a-humming, oh, how it was humming! That means bad luck, my dears. Bad luck!’
The only caller was the postman, who brought my sister letters from the doctor, and Prokofy, who sometimes dropped in during the evening. He would look at my sister without saying a word and then go back into the kitchen.
‘Everyone should stick to his calling,’ he would say, ‘and those what are too proud to understand will walk through a vale of tears in this life.’
He loved his ‘vale of tears’. Once, around Christmas, when I was walking through the market, he called me to his butcher’s stall and without shaking my hand declared that he had something very important to discuss. He was red in the face from frost and vodka. Next to him, at the counter, stood Nikolka of the murderous face, holding a bloody knife.
The Lady With the Little Dog and Other Stories, 1896-1904 Page 27