by Maxim Gorky
“Okh! well, what sort…what sort of a wife…should I make for you! It’s as ridiculous…as the ostrich and the bee! Ha, ha, ha!”
And he, also, broke into laughter,—not at her queer comparison, but at his own failure to comprehend the springs which governed the movements of her soul.
“You are a charming girl!”—he broke out sincerely.
“Give me your hand…you walk very slowly, and I will pull you along! It is time for us to turn back…high time! We have been roaming for four hours…and Elizavéta Sergyéevna will be displeased with us, because we are late for dinner.…”
They went back. Ippolít Sergyéevitch felt himself bound to return to his explanation of her errors, which did not permit him to feel as free by her side as he would have liked to be. But first it was necessary to suppress within himself that obscure uneasiness, which was dully fermenting in him, impeding his intention to listen calmly to her arguments, and to controvert them with decision. It would be so easy for him to cut away the abnormal excrescence from her brain by the cold logic of his mind, if that strange, enervating, nameless sensation did not embarrass him. What was it? It resembled a disinclination to introduce into the spiritual realm of this young girl ideas which were foreign to her.… But such an evasion of his obligations would be shameful in a man who was steadfast in his principles. And he regarded himself in that light, and was profoundly convinced of the power of his mind, and of its supremacy over feeling.
“Is to-day Tuesday?” she said.—“Yes, of course. That means, that three days hence the little black gentleman will arrive.…”
“Who will arrive, and where, did you say?”
“The little black gentleman, Benkóvsky, will come to us on Saturday.”
“Why?”
She began to laugh, gazing searchingly at him.
“Don’t you know? He’s an official.…”
“Ah! yes, my sister told me.…”
“She told you?” said Várenka, becoming animated.—
“Well, tell me then—will they be married soon?”
“What do you mean by that? Why should they marry?”—asked Ippolít Sergyéevitch disconcerted.
“Why?”—said Várenka, in amazement, with a vivid blush.—“Why, I don’t know. It’s the regulation thing to do! But, oh Lord! Can it be possible that you did not know about that?”
“I know nothing!—” ejaculated Ippolít Sergyéevitch with decision.
“And I have told you!”—she cried, in despair.—“A pretty thing, truly! Please, my dear Ippolít Sergyéevitch, don’t know anything about it now…as though I had not said anything!”
“Very well! But permit me; I really do not know anything. I have understood one thing—that my sister is going to marry Mr. Benkóvsky.. is that it?”
“Well, yes! That is to say, if she herself has not told you that, perhaps it will not take place. You will not tell her about this?”
“I will not tell her, of course!” promised he.—“I came hither to a funeral, and have hit upon a wedding, it seems? That is pleasant!”
“Please don’t say a word about the wedding!—” she entreated him.—“You don’t know anything.”
“That is perfectly true.—What sort of a person is this Mr. Benkóvsky? May I inquire?”
“You may, about him! He’s rather black of complexion, rather sweet, and rather taciturn. He has little eyes, a little mustache, little lips, little hands and a little fiddle. He loves tender little songs, and little cheese patties. I always feel like rapping him over his little snout.”
“Well, you don’t love him!” exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, feeling sorry for Mr. Benkóvsky at this humiliating description of his exterior.
“And he does not love me! I…I can’t endure little, sweet, unassuming men. A man ought to be tall, and strong; he ought to talk loudly, his eyes should be large, fiery, and his emotions should be bold, and know no impediments. He should will a thing and do it—that’s a man!”
“Apparently, there are no more such!” said Ippolít Sergyéevitch, with a dry laugh, feeling that her ideal of a man was repulsive to him, and irritated him.
“There must be some!” she exclaimed with confidence.
“But Varvára Vasílievna, you have depicted a sort of wild beast! What is there attractive about such a monster?”
“He’s not a wild beast at all, but a strong man! Strength—that is what is attractive. The men nowadays are born with rheumatism, with a cough, with various diseases—is that nice? Would I find it interesting, for example, to have for a husband a gentleman with pimples on his face, like County Chief Kokóvitch? or a pretty little gentleman, like Benkóvsky? Ora round-shouldered, gaunt hop-pole, like court-usher Múkhin? Or Grísha Tchernonéboff, the merchant’s son, a fat man, with the asthma, and a bald head, and a red nose? What sort of children could such trashy husbands have? For, you see, one must think of that…mustn’t one? For the children are a very important consideration! But those men don’t think.… They love nothing. They are good for nothing, and I…I would beat my husband if I were married to any of those men!”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch stopped her, demonstrating that her judgment of men was, in general, incorrect, because she had seen too few people. And the men she had mentioned must not be regarded from the external point of view alone—that was unjust. A man may have an ugly nose, but a fine soul, pimples on his face, but a brilliant mind. He found it tiresome and difficult to enunciate these elementary truths; until his meeting with her, he had so rarely remembered their existence, that now they all appeared to him musty and threadbare. He felt that all this did not suit her, and that she would not accept it.
“There is the river!” she exclaimed joyfully, interrupting his speech.
And Ippolít Sergyéevitch reflected:
“She rejoices, because I am silenced.”
Again they floated along the river, seated facing each other. Várenka took possession of the oars, and rowed hastily, powerfully; the water involuntarily gurgled under the boat, little waves flowed to the shores. Ippolít Sergyéevitch watched the shores moving to meet the boat, and felt exhausted with all he had said and heard during the course of this expedition.
“See, how fast the boat is going!” Várenka said to him.
“Yes,” he replied briefly, without turning his eyes to her. It made no difference even without seeing her, he could picture to himself how seductively her body was bending and her bosom was heaving.
The park came in sight…Soon they were walking up its avenue, and the graceful figure of Elizavéta Sergyéevna was coming to meet them, with a significant smile. She held some papers in her hands, and said:
“Well, you have had a long walk!”
“Have we been gone long! On the other hand, I have such an appetite, that I—ugh! I could eat you!”
And Várenka, encircling Elizavéta Sergyéevna’s waist, whirled her lightly round her, laughing at the latter’s cries.
The dinner was tasteless and tiresome, because Várenka was engrossed with the process of satisfying her hunger, and maintained silence, and Elizavéta Sergyéevna was angry with her brother, who observed the searching glances which she directed at his face, every now and then. Soon after dinner, Várenka drove off homeward, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch went to his room, lay down on the divan, and began to meditate, summing up the impressions of the day. He recalled the most trivial details of the walk, and felt that a turbid sediment was being formed from them, which was eating into his stable equilibrium of mind and feeling. He even felt the physical novelty of his mood, in the shape of a strange weight, which oppressed his heart—as though his blood had coagulated during that time, and was circulating more slowly than was its wont. This resembled fatigue, inclined him to revery, and formed the preface to some desire which had not yet assumed form. And this was disagreeable only because it remained a namele
ss sensation, despite Ippolít Sergyéevitch’s efforts to give it a name.
“I must wait to analyze it, until the fermentation has subsided.…” he came to the conclusion.
But a feeling of keen dissatisfaction with himself presented itself, and he simultaneously reproached himself for having lost the ability to control his emotions, and for having that day conducted himself in a manner unbecoming a serious man. Alone with himself, he was always firm and stem with himself, more so than when with other people. Accordingly, he now began to scrutinize himself.
Indisputably, that young girl was stupefyingly beautiful, but to behold her, and instantly to enter in the dark circle of some troubled sensation or other—was too much for her, and was disgraceful for him, for that was wantonness, a lack of strength of character. She strongly stirred his sensuality,—yes, but he must contend against that.
“Must I?”—suddenly flashed into his head the curt, poignant question.
He frowned, and bore himself toward the question as though it had been put by someone outside of himself. In any case, what was going on within him was not the beginning of a passion for a woman, rather was it a protest of his mind, which had been affronted by the encounter from which he had not emerged as the conqueror, although his opponent had been as weak as a child. He ought to have talked to that girl figuratively, for it was evident that she did not understand a logical argument. His duty was to exterminate her wild conceptions, to destroy all those coarse and stupid fancies, with which her brain was soaked. He must strip her mind of all those errors, purify, empty her soul, and then she would be capable of accepting the truth and of holding it within her.
“Can I do that?”—an irrelevant question again flashed up within him. And again he evaded it.… What would she be like, when she had accepted something new, and contrary to what was already in her? And it seemed to him, that when her soul, freed from the captivity of error, should have become permeated with harmonious teaching, foreign to everything obscure and blinding,—that young girl would be doubly beautiful.
When he was called to tea, he had already firmly made up his mind to reconstruct her world, imposing this decision upon himself as a direct obligation. Now he would meet her coldly and composedly, and would impart to his intercourse with her a character of stem criticism of everything that she should say, or should do.
“Well, how do you like Várenka?”—inquired his sister, when he emerged on the terrace.
“Very charming girl,” he replied, elevating his brows.
“Yes? So, that’s it…I thought you would be struck by her lack of development.”
“I really am rather surprised at that side of her,—” he assented.—“But, to speak frankly, she is, in many ways, better than the girls who are developed and who put on airs over that fact.”
“Yes, she is handsome.. and a desirable bride…she has five hundred desyatinas of very fine land, about one hundred of building timber. And, in addition, she will inherit a solid estate from her aunt. And neither estate is mortgaged.…”
He perceived that his sister was determined not to understand him, but he did not care to explain to himself why she found this necessary.
“I do not look at her from that point of view,—” said he.
“Do so, then…I seriously advise it.”
“Thanks.”
“You are a little out of temper, apparently?”
“On the contrary. But what of that?”
“Nothing. I want to know it, as an anxious sister.”
She smiled prettily, and rather ingratiatingly. That smile reminded him of Mr. Benkóvsky, and he, also, smiled at her.
“What are you laughing at?—” she inquired.
“And you, what are you laughing at?”
“I feel merry.”
“I feel merry also, although I did not bury my wife two weeks ago,—” he said, with a laugh.
But she put on a serious face, and sighed, as she said:
“Perhaps, in your soul, you condemn me for lack of feeling toward my deceased husband. You think that I am egotistical? But, Ippolít, you know what my husband was, I wrote to you what my life was like. And I often said to myself:—‘My God! and was I created merely for the purpose of pleasing the coarse appetites of Nikoláï Stepánovitch Banártzeff, when he has drunk himself into such a state of intoxication that he cannot distinguish his wife from a simple peasant woman, or a woman of the street?’”
“You don’t say so!”…exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch, recalling her letters, in which she had talked a great deal about her husband’s lack of character, his fondness for liquor, his indolence, and of all vices except debauchery.
“Do you doubt it?—” she inquired reproachfully, and sighed. —“Nevertheless, it is a fact. He was often in such a condition.… I do not assert that he betrayed me, but I admit it. Could he be conscious, whether I was with him, or some other woman, when he mistook the window for the door? Yes.. and that was the way I lived for years.…” She talked long and tediously to him about her sad life, and he listened and waited for her to tell him the thing that she wished to tell. And it involuntarily occurred to him, that Várenka would never be likely to complain of her life, however it might turn out for her.
“It seems to me that fate ought to reward me for those long years of grief.… Perhaps it is near—my recompense.”
Elizavéta Sergyéevna paused, and casting an interrogative glance at her brother, she blushed slightly.
“What do you mean to say?”—he inquired, affectionately, bending toward her.
“You see…perhaps I shall…marry again!”
“And you will do exactly right! I congratulate you!… But why are you so disconcerted?”
“Really, I do not know!”
“Who is he?”
“I think I have mentioned him to you…Benkóvsky…the future procurator…and, in the meantime, a poet and dreamer.… Perhaps you have come across his verses? He prints them.…”
“I do not read verses. Is he a good man? However, of course he is good.…”
“I am sufficiently clever not to answer in the affirmative; but I think I may say, without self-delusion, that he is capable of making up to me for the past. He loves me.… I have invented a little philosophy for myself…perhaps it will seem rather harsh to you.”
“Philosophize without fear, that’s the fashion at present …” jested Ippolít Sergyéevitch.
“Men and women are two tribes, which are everlastingly at war” said the woman softly…“Confidence, friendship and other feelings of that sort, are hardly possible between me and a man. But love is possible.… And love is the victory of the one who loves the least over the one who loves the most.… I have been conquered once, and have paid for it…now I have won the victory, and shall enjoy the fruits of conquest.…”
“It is a tolerably fierce sort of philosophy…” Ippolít Sergyéevitch interrupted her, feeling, with satisfaction, that Várenka could not philosophize in that manner.
“Life has taught it to me.… You see, he is four years younger than I am…he has only just finished at the university…I know that that is dangerous for me…and, how shall I express it?… I should like to arrange matters with him in such a way, that my property-right shall not be subjected to any risk.”
“Yes…so what then?” inquired Ippolít Sergyéevitch, becoming attentive.
“So, you are to advise me as to how this is to be arranged. I do not wish to give him any legal rights over my property…and I would not give him any over my person, if that could be avoided.”
“It strikes me that that could be effected by a civil marriage. However.…”
“No, I reject a civil marriage.…”
He looked at her, and thought, with a feeling of fastidiousness: “Well, she is wise! If God created men, life re-creates them so easily, that they certainl
y must have long ago become repulsive to him.”
And his sister convincingly explained to him her view of marriage.
“Marriage ought to be a reasonable contract, excluding every risk. That is precisely how I mean to deal with Benkóvsky. But, before taking that step, I should like to clear up the legality of that vexatious brother’s claim. Please look over these documents.”
“Will you permit me to undertake this matter to-morrow”—he inquired.
“Of course, when you like.”
She continued, for a long time, to set forth her ideas to him, then she told him a great deal about Benkóvsky. Of him she spoke condescendingly, with a smile flitting over her lips, and, for some reason, with her eyes puckered up, Ippolít listened to her, and was amazed at the utter absence in himself of all sympathy for her fate, or interest in her remarks.
The sun had already set when they parted, he, exhausted by her, to his own room; she, animated by the conversation, with a confident sparkle in her eyes,—to attend to her housekeeping.
When he arrived in his own quarters, Ippolít lighted the lamp, got a book, and tried to read; but with the very first page, he comprehended that it would please him equally well if he closed the book. Stretching himself luxuriously, he closed it, and fidgetted about in his arm-chair, seeking a comfortable attitude, but the chair was hard; then he betook himself to the divan, and lay down on it. At first, he thought of nothing at all; then, with vexation, he remembered, that he would soon be obliged to make the acquaintance of Mr. Benkóvsky, and immediately he smiled, as he recalled the sketch which Várenka had given of that gentleman.
And soon she alone occupied his thoughts and his imagination. Among other things, he thought:
“And what if I were to marry such a charming monster? I think she might prove a very interesting wife if only for the reason that one does not hear from her mouth the cheap wisdom of the popular books.…”
But after having surveyed his position, in the character of Várenka’s husband, from all sides, he began to laugh, and categorically answered himself: