‘‘You can’t do without an iron in the household,’’ said Samoilenko, blushing because Laevsky was talking to him so openly about a lady he knew. ‘‘I notice you’re out of sorts today, Vanya. Nadezhda Fyodorovna is a wonderful, educated woman, you’re a man of the greatest intelligence... Of course, you’re not married,’’ said Samoilenko, turning to look at the neighboring tables, ‘‘but that’s not your fault, and besides ... one must be without prejudices and stand on the level of modern ideas. I myself stand for civil marriage, yes... But in my opinion, once you’re together, you must go on till death.’’
‘‘Without love?’’
‘‘I’ll explain to you presently,’’ said Samoilenko. ‘‘Some eight years ago there was an agent here, an old man of the greatest intelligence. And this is what he used to say: the main thing in family life is patience. Do you hear, Vanya? Not love but patience. Love can’t last long. You lived in love for two years, but now evidently your family life has entered the period when, to preserve the balance, so to speak, you must put all your patience to use...’
‘‘You believe your old agent, but for me his advice is meaningless. Your old man could play the hypocrite, he could exercise patience and at the same time look at the unloved person as an object necessary for his exercise, but I haven’t fallen so low yet. If I feel a wish to exercise my patience, I’ll buy myself some dumbbells or a restive horse, but the person I’ll leave in peace.’’
Samoilenko ordered white wine with ice. When they had each drunk a glass, Laevsky suddenly asked:
‘‘Tell me, please, what does softening of the brain mean?’’
‘It’s ... how shall I explain to you ? . . . a sort of illness, when the brains become softer ... thin out, as it were.’’
‘‘Curable?’’
‘‘Yes, if the illness hasn’t been neglected. Cold showers, Spanish fly... Well, something internal.’’
‘So ... So you see what my position is like. Live with her I cannot: it’s beyond my strength. While I’m with you, I philosophize and smile, but at home I completely lose heart. It’s so creepy for me that if I were told, let’s say, that I had to live with her for even one more month, I think I’d put a bullet in my head. And at the same time, it’s impossible to break with her. She’s alone, unable to work, I have no money, and neither does she... What will she do with herself? Who will she go to? I can’t come up with anything... Well, so tell me: what’s to be done?’’
‘Mm-yes ...’ growled Samoilenko, not knowing how to reply. ‘‘Does she love you?’’
‘‘Yes, she loves me to the extent that, at her age and with her temperament, she needs a man. It would be as hard for her to part with me as with powder or curling papers. I’m a necessary component of her boudoir.’’
Samoilenko was embarrassed.
‘‘You’re out of sorts today, Vanya,’’ he said. ‘‘You must have slept badly.’’
‘‘Yes, I did... Generally, brother, I feel lousy. My head’s empty, my heartbeat’s irregular, there’s some sort of weakness ... I’ve got to escape!’’
‘‘Where to?’’
‘‘There, to the north. To the pines, to the mushrooms, to people, to ideas... I’d give half my life to be somewhere in the province of Moscow or Tula right now, swimming in a little river, getting chilled, you know, then wandering around for a good three hours with the worst of students, chattering away... And the smell of hay! Remember? And in the evenings, when you stroll in the garden, the sounds of a piano come from the house, you hear a train going by...’
Laevsky laughed with pleasure, tears welled up in his eyes, and, to conceal them, he reached to the next table for matches without getting up.
‘‘And it’s eighteen years since I’ve been to Russia,’’ said Samoilenko. ‘‘I’ve forgotten how it is there. In my opinion, there’s no place in the world more magnificent than the Caucasus.’’
‘‘Vereshchagin6 has a painting: two men condemned to death languish at the bottom of a deep well. Your magnificent Caucasus looks to me exactly like that well. If I were offered one of two things, to be a chimney sweep in Petersburg or a prince here, I’d take the post of chimney sweep.’’
Laevsky fell to thinking. Looking at his bent body, at his eyes fixed on one spot, at his pale, sweaty face and sunken temples, his bitten nails, and the slipper run down at the heel, revealing a poorly darned sock, Samoilenko was filled with pity and, probably because Laevsky reminded him of a helpless child, asked:
‘‘Is your mother living?’’
‘‘Yes, but she and I have parted ways. She couldn’t forgive me this liaison.’’
Samoilenko liked his friend. He saw in Laevsky a good fellow, a student, an easygoing man with whom one could have a drink and a laugh and a heart-to-heart talk. What he understood in him, he greatly disliked. Laevsky drank a great deal and not at the right time, played cards, despised his job, lived beyond his means, often used indecent expressions in conversation, went about in slippers, and quarreled with Nadezhda Fyodorovna in front of strangers—and that Samoilenko did not like. But the fact that Laevsky had once been a philology student, now subscribed to two thick journals, often spoke so cleverly that only a few people understood him, lived with an intelligent woman—all this Samoilenko did not understand, and he liked that, and he considered Laevsky above him, and respected him.
‘‘One more detail,’’ said Laevsky, tossing his head. ‘‘Only this is between you and me. So far I’ve kept it from Nadezhda Fyodorovna, don’t blurt it out in front of her... Two days ago I received a letter saying that her husband has died of a softening of the brain.’’
‘‘God rest his soul...’ sighed Samoilenko. ‘‘Why are you keeping it from her?’’
‘‘To show her this letter would mean: let’s kindly go to church and get married. But we have to clarify our relations first. Once she’s convinced that we can’t go on living together, I’ll show her the letter. It will be safe then.’’
‘‘You know what, Vanya?’’ said Samoilenko, and his face suddenly assumed a sad and pleading expression, as if he was about to ask for something very sweet and was afraid he would be refused. ‘‘Marry her, dear heart!’’
‘‘What for?’’
‘‘Fulfill your duty before that wonderful woman! Her husband has died, and so Providence itself is showing you what to do!’’
‘‘But understand, you odd fellow, that it’s impossible. To marry without love is as mean and unworthy of a human being as to serve a liturgy without believing.’’
‘‘But it’s your duty!’’
‘‘Why is it my duty?’’ Laevsky asked with annoyance.
‘‘Because you took her away from her husband and assumed responsibility for her.’’
‘‘But I’m telling you in plain Russian: I don’t love her!’’
‘‘Well, so there’s no love, then respect her, indulge her...’
‘‘Respect her, indulge her...’ Laevsky parroted. ‘‘As if she’s a mother superior... You’re a poor psychologist and physiologist if you think that, living with a woman, you can get by with nothing but deference and respect. A woman needs the bedroom first of all.’’
‘‘Vanya, Vanya...’ Samoilenko was embarrassed.
‘‘You’re an old little boy, a theoretician, while I’m a young old man and a practician, and we’ll never understand each other. Better let’s stop this conversation. Mustafa!’’ Laevsky called out to the waiter. ‘‘How much do we owe you?’’
‘‘No, no ...’ the doctor was alarmed, seizing Laevsky by the hand. ‘‘I’ll pay it. I did the ordering. Put it on my account!’’ he called to Mustafa.
The friends got up and silently walked along the embankment. At the entrance to the boulevard they stopped and shook hands on parting.
‘‘You’re much too spoiled, gentlemen!’’ sighed Samoilenko. ‘‘Fate has sent you a young woman, beautiful, educated—and you don’t want her, but if God just gave me some lopsided old woman, provi
ded she was gentle and kind, how pleased I’d be! I’d live with her in my little vineyard and...’
Samoilenko caught himself and said:
‘‘And the old witch would serve the samovar there.’’
Having taken leave of Laevsky, he walked down the boulevard. When, corpulent, majestic, a stern expression on his face, in his snow-white tunic and perfectly polished boots, his chest thrust out, adorned by a Vladimir with a bow,7 he went down the boulevard, for that time he liked himself very much, and it seemed to him that the whole world looked at him with pleasure. Not turning his head, he kept glancing from side to side and found that the boulevard was perfectly well organized, that the young cypresses, eucalyptuses, and scrawny, unattractive palm trees were very beautiful and would, with time, afford ample shade; that the Circassians were an honest and hospitable people. ‘‘Strange that Laevsky doesn’t like the Caucasus,’’ he thought, ‘‘very strange.’’ Five soldiers with rifles passed by and saluted him. On the sidewalk to the right side of the boulevard walked the wife of an official with her schoolboy son.
‘‘Good morning, Marya Konstantinovna!’’ Samoilenko called out to her, smiling pleasantly. ‘‘Have you been for a swim? Ha, ha, ha... My respects to Nikodim Alexandrych!’’
And he walked on, still smiling pleasantly, but, seeing an army medic coming towards him, he suddenly frowned, stopped him, and asked:
‘‘Is there anyone in the infirmary?’’
‘‘No one, Your Excellency.’’
‘‘Eh?’’
‘‘No one, Your Excellency.’’
‘‘Very well, on your way...’
Swaying majestically, he made for a lemonade stand, where an old, full-breasted Jewess who passed herself off as a Georgian sat behind the counter, and said to her as loudly as if he was commanding a regiment:
‘‘Be so kind as to give me a soda water!’’
II
LAEVSKY’S DISLIKE OF Nadezhda Fyodorovna expressed itself chiefly in the fact that everything she said or did seemed to him a lie or the semblance of a lie, and that everything he read against women and love seemed to him to go perfectly with himself, Nadezhda Fyodorovna, and her husband. When he came back home, she was sitting by the window, already dressed and with her hair done, drinking coffee with a preoccupied face and leafing through an issue of a thick journal, and he thought that drinking coffee was not such a remarkable event that one should make a preoccupied face at it, and that she need not have spent time on a modish hairdo, because there was no one there to attract and no reason for doing so. In the issue of the journal, he saw a lie as well. He thought she had dressed and done her hair in order to appear beautiful and was reading the journal in order to appear intelligent.
‘‘Is it all right if I go for a swim today?’’ she asked.
‘‘Why not! I suppose it won’t cause an earthquake whether you do or don’t go...’
‘‘No, I’m asking because the doctor might get angry.’’
‘‘Well, so ask the doctor. I’m not a doctor.’’
This time what Laevsky disliked most of all in Nadezhda Fyodorovna was her white, open neck and the little curls of hair on her nape, and he remembered that Anna Karenina, when she stopped loving her husband, disliked his ears first of all, and he thought: ‘‘How right that is! How right!’’ Feeling weak and empty in the head, he went to his study, lay down on the sofa, and covered his face with a handkerchief so as not to be bothered by flies. Sluggish, viscous thoughts, all about the same thing, dragged through his brain like a long wagon train on a rainy autumnal day, and he lapsed into a drowsy, oppressed state. It seemed to him that he was guilty before Nadezhda Fyodorovna and before her husband, and that he was to blame for her husband’s death. It seemed to him that he was guilty before his own life, which he had ruined, before the world of lofty ideas, knowledge, and labor, and that this wonderful world appeared possible and existent to him not here on this shore, where hungry Turks and lazy Abkhazians wandered about, but there, in the north, where there were operas, theaters, newspapers, and all forms of intellectual work. One could be honest, intelligent, lofty, and pure only there, not here. He accused himself of having no ideals or guiding idea in his life, though now he vaguely understood what that meant. Two years ago, when he had fallen in love with Nadezhda Fyodorovna, it had seemed to him that he had only to take up with Nadezhda Fyodorovna and leave with her for the Caucasus to be saved from the banality and emptiness of life; so now, too, he was certain that he had only to abandon Nadezhda Fyodorovna and leave for Petersburg to have everything he wanted.
‘‘To escape!’’ he murmured, sitting up and biting his nails. ‘‘To escape!’’
His imagination portrayed him getting on a steamer, then having breakfast, drinking cold beer, talking with the ladies on deck, then getting on a train in Sebastopol and going. Hello, freedom! Stations flash by one after another, the air turns ever colder and harsher, here are birches and firs, here is Kursk, Moscow... In the buffets, cabbage soup, lamb with kasha, sturgeon, beer, in short, no more Asiaticism, but Russia, real Russia. The passengers on the train talk about trade, new singers, Franco-Russian sympathies; everywhere you feel living, cultured, intelligent, vibrant life... Faster, faster! Here, finally, is Nevsky, Bolshaya Morskaya, and here is Kovensky Lane, where he once used to live with the students, here is the dear gray sky, the drizzling rain, the wet cabs...
‘‘Ivan Andreich!’’ someone called from the next room. ‘‘Are you at home?’’
‘‘I’m here!’’ Laevsky responded. ‘‘What do you want?’’
‘‘Papers!’’
Laevsky got up lazily, with a spinning head, and, yawning and dragging on his slippers, went to the next room. Outside, at the open window, stood one of his young colleagues laying out official papers on the windowsill.
‘‘One moment, my dear boy,’’ Laevsky said softly and went to look for an inkstand; coming back to the window, he signed the papers without reading them and said: ‘‘Hot!’’
‘‘Yes, sir. Will you be coming today?’’
‘Hardly... I’m a bit unwell. Tell Sheshkovsky, my dear boy, that I’ll stop by to see him after dinner.’’
The clerk left. Laevsky lay down on the sofa again and began to think:
‘‘So, I must weigh all the circumstances and consider. Before leaving here, I must pay my debts. I owe around two thousand roubles. I have no money... That, of course, is not important; I’ll pay part of it now somehow and send part of it later from Petersburg. The main thing is Nadezhda Fyodorovna... First of all, we must clarify our relations... Yes.’’
A little later, he considered: hadn’t he better go to Samoilenko for advice?
I could go, he thought, but what use will it be? Again I’ll speak inappropriately about the boudoir, about women, about what’s honest or dishonest. Devil take it, what talk can there be here about honest or dishonest if I have to save my life quickly, if I’m suffocating in this cursed captivity and killing myself?... It must finally be understood that to go on with a life like mine is meanness and cruelty, before which everything else is petty and insignificant. ‘‘To escape!’’ he murmured, sitting up. ‘‘To escape!’’
The deserted seashore, the relentless heat, and the monotony of the smoky purple mountains, eternally the same and silent, eternally solitary, aroused his anguish and, it seemed, lulled him to sleep and robbed him. Maybe he was very intelligent, talented, remarkably honest; maybe, if he weren’t locked in on all sides by the sea and the mountains, he would make an excellent zemstvo activist,8 a statesman, an orator, a publicist, a zealot. Who knows! If so, wasn’t it stupid to discuss whether it was honest or dishonest if a gifted and useful man, a musician or an artist, for example, breaks through the wall and deceives his jailers in order to escape from captivity? In the position of such a man, everything is honest.
At two o’clock Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna sat down to dinner. When the cook served them rice soup with tomatoes, Laevsky said:
/>
‘‘The same thing every day. Why not make cabbage soup?’’
‘‘There’s no cabbage.’’
‘‘Strange. At Samoilenko’s they make cabbage soup, and Marya Konstantinovna has cabbage soup, I alone am obliged for some reason to eat this sweetish slop. It’s impossible, my dove.’’
As happens with the immense majority of spouses, formerly not a single dinner went by for Laevsky and Nadezhda Fyodorovna without caprices and scenes, but ever since Laevsky had decided that he no longer loved her, he had tried to yield to Nadezhda Fyodorovna in everything, spoke gently and politely to her, smiled, called her ‘‘my dove.’’
The Complete Short Novels Page 15