by Maxim Gorky
“But if you were to make Várenka suffer—what would become of her?” Ippolít Sergyéevitch asked himself.
They soon parted. She began to play, and he, going off to his own room, lay down on his couch and began to reflect,—what sort of an idea of him had that young girl formed? Did she consider him handsome? Or clever? What was there about him that could please her? Something attracted her to him—that was evident to him. But it was not likely that he possessed in her eyes any value as a clever, learned man; she so lightly brushed aside all his theories, views, exhortations. It was more probable that he pleased her simply as a man.
And on arriving at this conclusion, Ippolít Sergyéevitch flushed with proud joy. Closing his eyes, with a smile of satisfaction, he pictured to himself this girl as submissive to him, conquered by him, ready to do anything for him, timidly entreating him to take her, and teach her to think, to live, to love.
III.
When Elizavéta Sergyéevna’s cabriolet stopped at the porch of Colonel Ólesoff’s house, the tall, thin figure of a woman in a loose gray gown made its appearance, and a bass voice rang out, with a strong burr on the letter “r”:
“A-ah! What a pleasant surprise!”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch even shivered at this greeting, which resembled a bellow.
“My brother Ippolít …” Elizavéta Sergyéevna introduced him, after she and the woman had kissed each other.
“Margarita Rodiónovna Lutchítzky.”
Five cold, sticky bones pressed Ippolít Sergyéevitch’s fingers; flashing gray eyes were riveted on his face, and Aunt Lutchítzky boomed away in her bass voice, distinctly enunciating every phrase, as though she were counting them, and were afraid of saying too much.
“I am very glad to make your acquaintance.…”
Then she moved to one side, and laid her hand on the house-door.
“Pray, come in!”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch stepped across the threshold, and a hoarse cough and an irritated exclamation were borne to meet him from some quarter:
“Devil take your stupidity! Go along, see, and tell me, who-o has come.…”
“Go in, go in, Elizavéta Sergyéevna,” urged on her brother, perceiving that he had halted, hesitatingly.—“It’s the colonel shouting…It is we who have come, colonel!”
In the middle of a large room with a low ceiling, stood a massive arm-chair, and in it was squeezed a big, lymphatic body, with a red, wizened face, overgrown with gray moss. The upper part of this mass turned heavily, emitting a choking snort. Behind the arm-chair rose the shoulders of a tall, stout woman, who gazed into Ippolít Sergyéevitch’s face with lack-lustre eyes.
“I’m glad to see you…is this your brother?… Colonel Vasíly Ólesoff…he beat the Turks and the Tekke Turkomans, and now he himself is conquered by diseases…ho, ho, ho! I’m glad to see you. Varvára has been drumming in my ears all summer about your learning, and all the rest of it…Pray, come hither, into the drawing-room…Thékla, push me in!”
The wheels of the chair squeaked piercingly, the colonel lurched forward, threw himself back, and broke into a hoarse cough, wagging his head about as though he wanted it to break off.
“When your master coughs—stand still! Haven’t I told you that a thousand times?”
And Aunt Lutchítzky, seizing Thékla by the shoulder, crushed her down to the floor.
The Polkánoffs stood and waited, until the heavily swaying body of Ólesoff should have finished coughing. At last they moved forward, and found themselves in a small room, where it was suffocating, dark and cramped with a superabundance of softly-stuffed furniture in canvas covers.
“Pray seat yourselves…Thékla,—call your young mistress!” commanded Aunt Lutchítzky.
“Elizavéta Sergyéevna, my dear, I am glad to see you!” announced the colonel, staring at his guest from beneath his gray eyebrows which met over his nose, with eyes as round as those of an owl. The colonel’s nose was comically huge, and its tip, purple and shining, mournfully hid itself in the thick brush of his whiskers.
“I know that you are as glad to see me as I am to see you.…” said his visitor caressingly.
“Ho, ho, ho! That’s a lie—begging your pardon! What pleasure is there in seeing an old man, crippled with gout, and sick with an inexorable thirst for vódka? Twenty-five years ago, one might really have rejoiced at the sight of Váska Ólesoff…and many women did rejoice…but now, I’m utterly useless to you, and you’re utterly useless to me.… But when you are here, they give me vódka—and so, I’m glad to see you!”
“Don’t talk much, or you’ll begin to cough again.…” Margarita Bodiónovna warned him.
“Did you hear?—” the colonel turned to Ippolít Sergyéevitch.—“I must not talk—it’s injurious, I must not drink, it’s injurious,—I must not eat as much as I want,—it’s injurious! Everything is injurious, devil take it! And I see, that it’s injurious for me to live! Ho, ho, ho! I have lived too long…I hope you may never have occasion to say the same thing about yourself.… However, you will certainly die early, you’ll get the consumption,—you have an impossibly narrow chest.…”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch looked, now at him, now at Aunt Lutchítzky, and thought of Várenka:
“And what monsters she lives among!”
He had never tried to depict to himself the setting of her life, and now he was crushed by what he beheld. The harsh, angular leanness of Aunt Lutchítzky offended his eyes; he could not bear to look at her long neck, covered with yellow skin, and every time she spoke he began to be apprehensive of something, as though in anticipation that the bass sounds, which emanated from this woman’s broad bosom, flat as a board, would rend her breast. And the rustle of Aunt Lutchítzky’s skirts seemed to him to be her bones rubbing against each other. The colonel reeked with some sort of liquor, sweat, and vile tobacco. Judging from the gleam in his eyes, he must often be in a fury, and Ippolít Sergyéevitch, as he imagined him in a state of exasperation, felt loathing for the old man. The rooms were not comfortable, the wall-paper was smoke-begrimed, and the tiles of the stoves were streaked with cracks, which, however, made them look like marble. The paint had been rubbed off of the floors by the wheels of the rolling-chair, the window-frames were awry, the panes were dull, everything breathed forth an odor of age, perishing with exhaustion.
“It is sultry to-day…” remarked Elizavéta Sergyéevna.
“There will be rain,” declared Mrs. Lutchítzky categorically.
“Really?” said the visitor doubtfully.
“Trust to Margarita,—” said the old man hoarsely.—“She knows everything that will take place.… She assures me so every day.… ‘You will die,’ she says, ‘and they will rob Várya, and break her head.…’—you see? I dispute it:—the daughter of Colonel Ólesoff will not permit anyone to turn her head…she’ll do it herself; and that I shall die—is true.. that is to say, it is as it should be. And you, my learned gentleman, how do you feel yourself? A very small fish in a big tank?”
“No, why should I? It is a beautiful wooded country .…” replied Ippolít Sergyéevitch courteously.
“It is a beautiful wooded country here? Phew! That means that you haven’t seen anything beautiful on earth. The valley of Kazanlik in Bulgaria is beautiful…it is beautiful in Kherassan…on the Murgal river there is a spot like paradise itself… Ah! My precious child!…”
Várenka brought with her an aroma of freshness into the musty atmosphere of the drawing-room. Her form was enveloped in some sort of mantle, of light lilac sarpinka.72 In her hands she held a huge bouquet of freshly-gathered flowers, and her face was beaming with pleasure. “How nice that you have come to-day!—” she exclaimed, as she greeted her guests.—“I was just preparing to go to you…they have been nagging me!”
And with a sweeping gesture, she designated her father and Margarita Rodiónovna, who
was sitting beside her visitor with such unnatural rigidity, that her backbone seemed to have turned to stone, and to be incapable of bending.
“Varvára! You’re talking nonsense!” she cried sternly to the young girl, with flashing eyes.
“Don’t scream! If you do, I’ll tell about Lieutenant Yákovleff, and his fiery heart.…”
“Ho, ho, ho! Várka73—be quiet! I’ll tell it myself.…”
“What sort of a place have I got into?”—meditated Ippolít Sergyéevitch, gazing at his sister in amazement.
But, evidently, all this was familiar to her, and although a smile of disdain quivered on the corners of her mouth, she looked on and listened with composure.
“I will go and see about tea!”—announced Margarita Bodiónovna, stretching herself upward, without bending her body, and disappeared, after casting a glance of reproach at the colonel.
Várenka sat down in her aunt’s place, and began to whisper something in Elizavéta Sergyéevna’s ear.
“Why has she such a passion for loose garments!” said Ippolít Sergyéevitch to himself, casting a furtive glance at her figure, as it bent toward his sister, in a fine pose. But the colonel rumbled away, like a cracked double-bass:
“Of course, you are aware, that Margarita is the wife of my comrade, Lieutenant-Colonel Lutchítzky, who was killed at Iski-Zagra. She made the campaign with him, that she did! She’s an energetic woman, you know. Well, and in our regiment there was a Lieutenant Yákovleff…such a delicate young lady he was…his chest was crushed by a Turkish volunteer, and consumption ensued, so that was the end of him! Well, and when he fell ill, she nursed him for five months! What do you think of that? hey? And, do you know, she gave him her word that she would not marry. She was young, and handsome…a very striking woman. Very worthy men courted her, courted her seriously—Captain Shmurló, a very fine young Little Russian, even took to drink and left the service. I, also…that is to say, I also proposed to her:— ‘Margarita! marry me!’…She would not…it was very stupid of her, but noble, of course. And then, when I was seized with the gout, she presented herself, and said: ‘You are alone in the world, I am alone …’ and so forth and so on. Touching and saintly. Eternal friendship, and we snarl at each other all the time. She comes here every summer, she even wants to sell her estate and settle down here forever, that is to say, until I die. I appreciate it—but it’s all ridiculous, isn’t it? Ho, ho, ho! For she was a passionate woman, and you see how he has dried her up? Don’t play with fire…ho! She flies into a rage, you know, when one narrates this poetry of her life, as she expresses it. ‘Don’t you dare,’ says she, ‘to insult the holy things of my heart with your abominable tongue!’ Ah! Ho, ho, ho! But, as a matter of fact, what sort of a holy thing is it? A delusion of the mind…the dreams of a school-girl.… Life is simple, isn’t it? Enjoy yourself, and die when your time comes, that’s the whole philosophy! But…die when your time comes! But here now, I have overlived the right time, I hope you won’t do that.…”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch’s head was reeling with the story, and the odor which emanated from the colonel. But Várenka, paying no heed whatever to him, and, probably, not comprehending how little agreeable the conversation with her father was to him, was chatting, in a low tone, with Elizavéta Sergyéevna, listening seriously and attentively to her.
“I invite you to drink tea!—” Margarita Rodiónovna’s bass voice rang out in the doorway.—“Varvára, wheel your father!”
Ippolít Sergyéevitch drew a breath of relief and followed Várenka, who lightly pushed in front of her the heavy chair.
Tea was prepared in the English fashion, with a mass of cold viands. A huge rare piece of roast beef was flanked by bottles of wine, and this evoked a laugh of contentment on the part of the colonel. It seemed as though even his half-dead legs, enveloped in bear-skin, quivered with the anticipation of pleasure. He was rolled up to the table, and stretching out his fat, trembling hands, overgrown with dark hair, toward the bottles, he laughed aloud, shaking the air of the great dining-room, set around with chairs plaited from osier twigs.
The tea-drinking lasted a torturingly long time, and throughout it the colonel narrated military anecdotes, in a hoarse voice, Margarita Bodiónovna interposed brief remarks in her bass, and Várenka chatted softly but vivaciously with Elizavéta Sergyéevna.
“What is she talking about?”—thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch sadly, delivered over to the colonel as a victim.
It seemed to him that she was paying too little attention to him to-day. Was this coquetry? And he felt that he was on the point of becoming angry with her. But now she cast a glance in his direction, and uttered a ringing laugh.
“My sister has called her attention to me!” reflected Ippolít Sergyéevitch, frowning with displeasure.
“Ippolít Sergyéevitch! Have you finished your tea?” inquired Várenka.
“Yes, long ago.…”
“Would you like to take a stroll? I will show you some splendid places!”
“Let us go. And will you come too, Liza?”
“No! I find it pleasant to sit with Margarita Rodiónovna and the Colonel.”
“Ho, ho, ho! Agreeable to stand on the brink of the grave, into which my half-dead body is rolling!” and the colonel roared with laughter. “Why do you say that?”
“The next thing, she will be asking me—‘don’t you find it tiresome at our house?’—” thought Ippolít Sergyéevitch, as he emerged with Várenka from the house into the garden. But she asked him:
“How do you like papa?”
“Oh!”—exclaimed Ippolít Sergyéevitch softly. “He inspires respect!”
“Aha!” replied Várenka, with satisfaction.—“That’s what everybody says. He’s frightfully brave! You know, he does not talk about himself, but Aunt Lutchítzky was in the same regiment with him, and she said that at Górny Dubnyák a ball crushed his horse’s nostrils, and the animal carried him straight in among the Turks. But the Turks pursued him; he managed to wheel and gallop along their line; of course, they killed the horse; he fell, and saw that four men were running toward him…One rushed up, and brandished the butt-end of a rifle over him, but papa let fly,—whack! and the man fell at his feet. He discharged a revolver straight in his face—bang! And then he pulled his leg out from under the horse, and the other three rushed up, and more after them, and our own soldiers flew to meet them, with Yákovleff…you know who he was?… Papa seized the dead man’s rifle, sprang to his feet—and forward! But he was awfully strong, and that came near ruining him; he hit the Turk over the head, and the gun broke, and he had nothing but his sword left, but it was bad and dull, and a Turk was trying to kill him with a bayonet-thrust in the breast. Then papa grasped the strap of the rifle in his hand, and ran to meet his own men, dragging the Turk after him. He understood that he was lost, turned his face toward the foe, wrenched the gun away from the Turk, and dashed at them—hurrah! Then Yákovleff rushed up with the soldiers, and they set to work so heartily, that the Turks beat a retreat. They gave papa the George74 for that, but he flew into a rage, because they did not give the George to a non-commissioned officer of his regiment, who had saved Yákovleff twice and papa once in that fight, and refused the cross. But when they gave it to the non-commissioned officer, then he took it.”
“You tell about that fight exactly as though you had taken part in it.…” remarked Ippolít Sergyéevitch, interrupting her narration.
“Ye-es.…” she said slowly, sighing and puckering up her eyes.—“I like war…And I’m going, as a Sister of Mercy, if they begin to fight.…”
“Then I shall go as a soldier.…”
“You?” she inquired, scanning his figure.—“Come, you are jesting…you would make a poor soldier.. you are so weak, so thin.…”
This stung him.
“I am strong enough, I assure you.…” he declared, as though warning her.<
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“Well, you don’t say so?” said Várenka composedly, not believing him.
A raging desire to seize her in his arms, and crush her to his breast with all his might flamed up within him—to crush her so that the tears would gush forth from her eyes. He cast a hasty glance around, twitched his shoulders, and immediately felt ashamed of his impulse.
They walked through the garden along a path set with regular rows of apple-trees, and behind them, at the end of the path, gazed forth the windows of the house. Apples kept falling from the trees, striking the earth dully, and voices resounded somewhere close at hand. One asked:
“I suppose he has come wooing too?”
But the other swore gruffly.
“Wait …” Várenka stopped her companion, grasping his sleeve, “let’s hear what they have to say about us.…”
He cast a harsh glance at her, and said:
“I am not fond of eavesdropping to the gossip of servants.”
“But I love it.…” declared Várenka, “when they are by themselves, they always talk very interestingly about us, their masters.…”
“It may be interesting, but it is not nice.…” laughed Ippolít Sergyéevitch.
“Why not? They always speak well of me.”
“I congratulate you.…”
He was the prey of a malicious impulse to speak sharply, rudely to her, to wound her. To-day her conduct agitated him:—yonder, in the house, she had paid no attention to him for a long time, just as though she did not understand that he had come for her sake, and to see her, and not to see her crippled father, and dried-up aunt. Then, when she pronounced him a weakling, she had begun to look upon him with a certain condescension.
“What is the meaning of all this?” he said to himself.—“If my exterior does not please her, and I am not interesting from the internal point of view—what has attracted her to me? A new face—and nothing more?”
He believed that she was gravitating toward him, and thought that he had to deal with coquetry under the guise of ingenuousness and artlessness.