“I’ve heard, Anna Andreyevna,” I answered, “that this fiancée of his is a charming girl, and even Natalya Nikolayevna said as much – “
“You shouldn’t believe everything you hear!” Anna Andreyevna struck in. “‘Charming girl’ indeed! You scribblers are all the same, anything’s charming provided it’s in petticoats. If Natasha has a good word for the girl, that’s just her generous nature. She has no idea how to handle him and lets him get away with murder, and she’s the one that suffers. The number of times he’s been unfaithful to her! Stony-hearted monsters, all of them! Ivan Petrovich, I can’t tell you the torment I go through. Everyone is blinded by his pride. If only my Nikolai Sergeich could swallow his, there’d be nothing to stop him forgiving my angel and bringing her home. I’d fold her in my arms and feast my eyes on her! Has she got thinner?”
“She has, Anna Andreyevna.”
“My angel! Listen, Ivan Petrovich, I’m at my wits’ end! I’ve wept all night tonight and all day… but never mind that! I’ll tell you all about it later! The number of times I’ve tried to persuade him to forgive her – never to his face mind, always in a roundabout, crafty sort of way. But my heart sank every time… What if he got really angry, I thought, and cursed her for ever! To be honest, I’ve not heard any cursing from him so far… but I can’t help feeling he might. What would happen then? Father’s curse – God’s wrath. So every passing day I live in fear and trepidation. As for you, Ivan Petrovich, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. You grew up in this house and were treated like one of the family, and all you can say is ‘charming girl’! You should have heard what Marya Vasilyevna had to say. (I must confess, I invited her for coffee once when my Nikolai Sergeich was away on business for the whole morning.) She told me the whole story. Alyosha’s father, the Prince, lives in sin with his Countess. They say she has been going on at him for some time now to marry her, but he’s always managed to talk himself out of it. But this Countess, even in her husband’s lifetime, had a reputation. No sooner had her husband, a wine dealer by trade, died than off she dashed abroad. She collected Italians, Frenchmen, barons, the lot. That’s where she picked up Prince Pyotr Alexandrovich Valkovsky too. Meanwhile her stepdaughter, her first husband’s, the wine dealer’s daughter, was growing up fast. The Countess had gone through her own money, by which time Katerina Fyodorovna had matured, and so had the two million which her father, the dealer, had invested for her. They say she’s worth three now. The Prince’s eyes immediately lit up – marry off Alyosha to her! (No flies on him! The opportunity was too good to miss!) And the Count, the high-and-mighty courtier, the Prince’s relative, you remember him, he’s also in favour of the plan – after all, three million isn’t to be sneezed at. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘why don’t you have a word with the Countess?’ – which the Prince duly did. The Countess was up in arms – kicked up a dreadful fuss. She’s totally shameless, they say, a real harpy! Lots of people here, never mind abroad, won’t receive her. ‘No,’ she says, ‘we two will get married, my Prince, but not Alyosha and my stepdaughter!’* It so happens that this young girl thinks the world of her stepmother, worships her and obeys her in everything. She’s as gentle as a lamb they say, with the heart of an angel! But the Prince, seeing through all this, says, ‘Don’t you worry, Countess. You’ve spent your pile and you’re hopelessly in debt. But let your stepdaughter marry Alyosha, they’re birds of a feather – one can’t say boo to a goose, the other’s a simple Simon. We’ll take them in hand and look after them – that way the money will be yours for the taking. As for marrying me,’ he says, ‘what for?’ Cunning devil! A regular Mason! Six months ago the Countess couldn’t decide what to do, but now the two of them have gone off to Warsaw and they’re supposed to have struck a deal there. So I’ve heard, anyway. Marya Vasilyevna told me the whole sordid story, every detail, and she herself heard it from someone you can trust. Now you see what’s involved, money, millions – never mind ‘charming girl’!”
Anna Andreyevna’s story gave me food for thought. It tallied perfectly with what I had recently heard from Alyosha. When he had spoken about all this, he boasted that he would never marry for money. But Katerina Fyodorovna had bowled him over and he had become infatuated with her. I also heard from Alyosha that his father was perhaps going to get married himself, though he denied the rumour so as not to annoy the Countess before time. I have already said that Alyosha loved his father very much, admired him, was proud of him, and believed in him as though he were an oracle.
“She’s hardly what you might call a Countess herself, that charmer of yours, you know,” Anna Andreyevna continued, still incensed at my having complimented the young prince’s future bride. “Natasha would have made a much better match for him. The girl’s just a trader’s daughter, whereas Natasha’s from an old noble line, a well-born young lady. Yesterday Nikolai Sergeich – I quite forgot to tell you – opened his box (the iron one, have you seen it?) and spent the whole evening sitting opposite me going through our family records. He was so engrossed! I was knitting a sock at the time, I didn’t dare look at him. So when he saw that I wasn’t going to say anything, he lost his temper, called me over and spent the rest of the evening explaining our family tree to me. It’s quite true that our lineage – that is, the Ikhmenevs’ – goes back to the days of Ivan the Terrible, and my branch of the family on the Shumilov side was already famous in the seventeenth century – we’ve documents to prove it, and it’s mentioned in Karamzin.* So there you are, my dear sir, it’s obvious we’re just as good as anybody else in this respect. When my Nikolai Sergeich started explaining it all to me, I began to see what was on his mind. He’s bitter that Natasha’s been slighted. It’s only money that has helped them get the better of us. Well, let that fiend – Pyotr Alexandrovich I mean – worry about money. Everybody knows him for what he is, a hard-hearted, grasping brute. They say he’s joined the Jesuits in Warsaw on the quiet. Is that true?”
“It’s a silly rumour,” I replied, though I was struck by its persistence. The fact that Nikolai Sergeich had been going through his family records was intriguing. He had never boasted of his lineage before.
“Stony-hearted monsters!” Anna Andreyevna continued. “So how is she, my dear, is she unhappy, does she cry a lot? Oh dear, it’s time you went to see her! Matryona, Matryona! I’ll kill that girl!… They’re not being cruel to her, are they? Do tell me, Vanya.”
What could I say to her? Anna Andreyevna burst into tears. I asked her if there was anything else troubling her that she wanted to tell me about.
“Oh dear, misfortunes never come singly – it seems my cup has not yet been drained! Do you remember, my dear, I used to have a little medallion set in a gold frame, a keepsake, with a portrait of my darling Natasha as a little girl. She’d have been about eight then, my angel. Nikolai Sergeich and I had it done by a travelling artist. See, my dear, you seem to have forgotten all about it! He was a good artist, and portrayed her as a cupid. She had such lovely fair hair then, all in ringlets. He painted her in a muslin shift, with her body showing through – she was so lovely, you couldn’t stop admiring her. I asked the artist to add on a pair of little wings, but he refused. Well then, my dear Vanya, after all the horrors we’d gone through, I took the medallion out of my jewellery box and wore it round my neck on a string next to my crucifix, but I was frightened that Nikolai Sergeich might see it. It was the time when he insisted that every last thing of hers had to be thrown out of the house or burnt, so that there’d be nothing left to remind us of her. But all I wanted was to have a look at her portrait every now and then. Many’s the time I’d cry my heart out looking at it – I always felt better for it afterwards – or else, when I was on my own, I’d smother it in kisses as though it was her very self I was kissing. I’d call her by all her pet names and bless her with the sign of the cross every night. I’d talk to her out loud when I was alone in my room, ask her a question and imagine she was answering me, and then ask her an
other question. Oh, my dear Vanya, I can hardly bring myself to tell you all this! I was so glad Nikolai Sergeich didn’t suspect anything about the medallion – but when I felt for it yesterday morning, it was gone. All that was left was the string it had hung by – it must have frayed through – but no medallion. I nearly died. I started looking for it. I looked and looked and looked, everywhere – it had vanished without trace! Where could it have got to? It must be somewhere amongst the bedclothes, I thought. I turned everything over – nothing! If it had fallen off somewhere, perhaps somebody had picked it up – but who could have, except him or Matryona! Well, you can rule out Matryona, she’s devoted to me heart and soul… (Matryona, how much longer are you going to be with that samovar?) Well, I thought, if he finds it, what shall I do? There I was, sitting comfortless, crying my heart out. As for Nikolai Sergeich, he was getting more and more affectionate with me, looking at me sadly, as though he knew what I was crying about, and felt sorry for me. And I couldn’t help wondering to myself, how could he possibly know? Could he have found the medallion and thrown it out of the window? I wouldn’t have put it past him, when he was in a temper. He’d thrown it out and now he was sorry he’d done it. I even went outside with Matryona and looked under the window – not a thing. It had vanished into thin air. I cried the whole night through. It was the first time I hadn’t made the sign of the cross over her for the night. Dear oh dear, this is a bad sign, a bad sign indeed, my Ivan Petrovich, it bodes no good. It’s two days now I haven’t been able to stop crying. I’ve been waiting for you to come, my dear, like an angel of God, hoping to unburden my soul…”
And the good lady began to cry bitterly.
“Oh yes, I nearly forgot to mention it!” she resumed suddenly, glad to have remembered. “Have you heard anything from him about an orphan girl?”
“I have, Anna Andreyevna. It seems that you’ve both made up your mind to take in a poor orphan girl and bring her up. Is that so?”
“Never in my life, it never even entered my mind! I don’t want any orphan girls! She’d only remind me of our bitter lot, our misfortune. I don’t want anyone except Natasha. I’ve had one daughter, and there’ll be no other. But my dear, where did he get this orphan-girl idea from? What do you think, Ivan Petrovich? Was it perhaps to comfort me, seeing me crying, or to blot out all memory of his own daughter and transfer his affections to another child? What did he say to you about me on the way here? How did he strike you? Gloomy? Angry? Sh! He’s coming! Later, my dear, you’ll tell me the rest later!… Don’t forget to look in tomorrow…”
13
Ikhmenev came into the room. He looked at us with uneasy curiosity, frowned and went to the table.
“Still no samovar?” he asked. “Does it really take so long to bring it?”
“It’s coming, dearest, it’s coming. Well, here we are at last,” Anna Andreyevna began to fuss.
As soon as Matryona saw Nikolai Sergeich, she appeared with the samovar as though she had been waiting to bring it in. She was an experienced, hard-working and devoted old soul, but the most wilful, grumpy person you could ever wish to meet – stubborn and obdurate. She was afraid of Nikolai Sergeich, and always careful what she said in his presence. With Anna Andreyevna on the other hand she indulged herself to the full, was impudent to her at every turn, and betrayed an unmistakable desire to bully her mistress, though she loved her and Natasha dearly for all that. I knew this Matryona from Ikhmenevka days.
“Hm… it’s bad enough getting drenched, and when you come home they won’t even make tea for you,” Nikolai Sergeich muttered under his breath.
Anna Andreyevna immediately winked at me. He detested these surreptitious gestures, and even though he tried to avoid looking at us at that moment, it was clear from his expression that he knew perfectly well what Anna Andreyevna was winking about and that she was winking about him.
“I’ve been out on business, Vanya,” he suddenly began. “Bad news. Did I tell you? The odds are against me. You see, I’ve no proof. I haven’t got the right papers. My case won’t stand up… Hm…”
He was referring to his lawsuit with the Prince, which was still dragging on; things did not bode at all well for Nikolai Sergeich. I was silent, not knowing what to say. He threw me a suspicious glance.
“So!…” he suddenly burst out, as though irritated by our silence. “The sooner the better. I’ll not be made out to be a scoundrel even if I do have to pay up. My conscience is clear, whatever the verdict. At least it’ll all be over. I’ll be ruined, but free… I’ll throw everything up and go to Siberia.”
“Good Lord, whatever next! All that way!” Anna Andreyevna could not help exclaiming.
“What’s the good of staying here?” he asked gruffly, as though enjoying the challenge.
“Well… we know people here…” Anna Andreyevna said, and looked wistfully at me.
“What people?” he cried, turning his blazing eyes from me to her and back again. “What people? Robbers, slanderers, traitors? There’s plenty like that everywhere. Don’t worry, we’ll find them in Siberia too. And if you’d rather not come with me, please yourself, you can stay behind. I’ll not force anyone.”
“Goodness me, Nikolai Sergeich! How do you imagine I’d survive without you!” poor Anna Andreyevna exclaimed. “I’ve no one but you in the whole…” she stuttered, fell silent and turned her terror-stricken eyes to me as though imploring me for help and protection. The old man was incensed and in a belligerent mood; it was no use contradicting him.
“Come now, Anna Andreyevna,” I said. “It’s not as bad in Siberia as people make out. If the worst came to the worst and you had to sell Ikhmenevka, Nikolai Sergeich’s proposal might be the best solution after all. There’s every opportunity to set yourself up in Siberia, and then…”
“At last a bit of sense, Vanya, from you if from no one else. That’s precisely what I thought. I’ll leave everything and go.”
“Well, I never expected this!” Anna Andreyevna exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “Is that all you can say, Vanya? Ivan Petrovich, you’re the last person I expected this from… We’ve shown you every kindness, and now you—”
“Ha ha ha! And what did you expect! What are we going to live on here? Have you thought about that? All the money’s gone, we’re down to our last kopeck! Unless you’d like me to go and ask Prince Pyotr Alexandrovich for forgiveness?”
At this mention of the Prince, Anna Andreyevna began to shake with fear – the teaspoon she was holding began a merry jingle against the saucer.
“No, seriously,” Nikolai Sergeich pressed his point home, working himself up into a stubborn, vicious ecstasy, “what do you think, Vanya, perhaps I really ought to go to see him? Why go to Siberia! I’ll put on my best bib and tucker tomorrow, comb my hair and smarten myself up, Anna Andreyevna will get me a new shirt front – you’ve got to look your best going to see a toff like that! I’ll buy a pair of gloves to add the finishing touch, and I’ll be ready to meet His Excellency: ‘Your Gracious Excellency, lord and master! I humbly beg your forgiveness, kindly let me have a crust of bread – I’ve a wife and small children to feed! …’ Is that right, Anna Andreyevna? Is that what you want?”
“Dear husband… I want nothing! It was just a slip of the tongue, forgive me if I offended you, only please don’t shout at me,” Anna Andreyevna said, shaking more and more violently with fear.
I am sure that deep down Ikhmenev was in a state of turmoil and pain as he witnessed the tears and torment of his poor wife; I am sure it was more agonizing for him than for her – but he could not control himself. This is what happens sometimes even with the most kind-hearted of people, who are nevertheless weak-willed, and who, despite their kind-heartedness, are apt to get carried off into a state of ecstasy when unburdening themselves of their grief and anger, even at the expense of hurting someone innocent, more often than not someone who is dear to them. A woman, for
example, may sometimes affect pain and misery even when she doesn’t feel either. And there are many men who are very much like women in this respect – even men who are far from weak and aren’t in any way effeminate. Ikhmenev felt the need for a quarrel even if it meant suffering as a result.
I remember a suspicion flashed through my mind at that instant that he really had been up to something of the sort that Anna Andreyevna had suggested. Who knows, the Good Lord might have inspired him, he might actually have set off to see Natasha but had changed his mind on the way, or perhaps something had gone wrong, maybe his plans had suffered a setback – as was bound to happen – and there he was, home again, angry and beaten, embarrassed by his recent desires and emotions, eager to vent his anger on someone else for his own inadequacy, and choosing to do so on those he most suspected of harbouring desires and emotions similar to his own… Perhaps in his haste to forgive his daughter, he already anticipated the happiness and joy of his poor Anna Andreyevna, but when he saw his efforts had failed, she was of course the first to take the brunt of his displeasure.
He was moved, however, by her look of despondency as she stood before him trembling with fear. Perhaps ashamed of his own anger, he hesitated for a moment. None of us said a word. I tried not to look at him. But the respite was brief. Whatever the cost, the old man had to express what was within him, even if it took the form of a curse.
“You see, Vanya,” he suddenly burst out again, “I regret what I said, I wish I hadn’t spoken like that, but it’s time to come to the point, without beating about the bush, as any honest man should… do you follow me, Vanya? I’m delighted you came to see us, and I want to say loud and clear in your presence, so that others may hear it too, that I’ve had enough of all this nonsense, all these tears, all this moaning and groaning. I shall never be able to put back what I’ve torn from my bleeding heart. Yes! I mean what I say. I’m talking about what happened six months ago, you understand, Vanya? I’m being open and direct so that you won’t misunderstand me.” He looked at me with bloodshot eyes, at the same time trying to avoid the terrified glances his wife was casting at him. “I repeat – it’s utter nonsense; I won’t stand for it!… What drives me mad is that everybody takes me for a fool and a scoundrel when they attribute such base and feeble sentiments to me… they think I’m going mad with grief… Rubbish! I’ve cast aside my old feelings! I’ve consigned them to oblivion! I have no memories… none! None! None! And once again none!…”
Humiliated and Insulted Page 9