‘‘You mean to say that you despise my past, and you’re right,’’ she said in great agitation. ‘‘You belong to a special category of people who can’t be measured by the usual yardstick; your moral demands are distinguished by an exceptional strictness, and, as I understand, you cannot forgive; I understand you, and if I sometimes contradict you, it doesn’t mean that I look at things differently than you; I say old rubbish simply because I haven’t had time yet to wear out my old dresses and prejudices. I myself hate and despise my past, and Orlov, and my love . . . What kind of love is that? Now it’s all even ridiculous,’’ she said, going over to the window and looking down on the canal. ‘‘All these loves only darken one’s conscience and throw one off. The meaning of life is only in one thing—in struggle. To plant your heel on the vile serpent’s head so that it goes ‘crack!’ The meaning is in that. In that alone, or else there’s no meaning at all.’’
I told her long stories from my past and described for her my indeed amazing adventures. But I never let out a word about the change that had taken place in me. She listened to me with great attention each time and rubbed her hands at the interesting places, as if vexed that she had not yet managed to live through such adventures, fears, and joys, but suddenly she would turn pensive, withdraw into herself, and I could see from her face that she wasn’t listening to me.
I’d close the windows looking out on the canal and ask if I shouldn’t light the fire.
‘‘No, God help it. I’m not cold,’’ she would say, smiling listlessly, ‘‘it’s just that I’m all faint. You know, it seems to me that I’ve become terribly intelligent recently. I have such extraordinary, original thoughts now. When I think about the past, for instance, about my life then . . . well, about people in general, it all merges into one thing in me—the image of my stepmother. Crude, impudent, heartless, false, depraved, and a morphine addict besides. My father, a weak, spineless man, married my mother for money and drove her to consumption, but this second wife, my stepmother, he loved passionately, to distraction . . . The things I suffered! Well, what’s there to talk about! So, as I was saying, it all merges into one image... And that vexes me: why did my stepmother die? I’d like to meet her now! . . .’’
‘‘Why?’’
‘‘Just so, I don’t know . . .’’ she answered with a laugh, shaking her head prettily. ‘‘Good night. Get well. As soon as you recover, we’ll take care of our affairs... It’s time.’’
When I had already taken leave and stood holding the door handle, she would say:
‘‘What do you think? Does Polya still live there?’’
‘‘Probably.’’
And I would go to my room. We lived like that for a whole month. One overcast noontime, when we were both standing by the window in my room and silently looking at the clouds coming in from the sea, and at the canal, which had turned dark blue, and expecting the rain to pour down any minute, and when a narrow, dense strip of rain had already covered the coastline like gauze, we both suddenly felt bored. That same day we left for Florence.
XVI
THIS HAPPENED THAT autumn in Nice. One morning when I came to her room, she was sitting in an armchair, her legs crossed, hunched up, shrunken, her face buried in her hands, and weeping bitterly, sobbing, and her long, undone hair fell over her knees. The impression of the marvelous, astonishing sea, which I had only just seen, which I wanted to tell her about, suddenly left me, and my heart was wrung with pain.
‘‘What is it?’’ I asked. She took one hand away from her face and waved for me to leave. ‘‘Well, what is it?’’ I repeated, and for the first time in our acquaintance, I kissed her hand.
‘‘No, no, it’s nothing!’’ she said quickly. ‘‘Oh, nothing, nothing . . . Go away . . . You can see I’m not dressed.’’
I left in terrible confusion. My peace and the untroubled mood I had been in for so long were poisoned by compassion. I passionately wanted to fall at her feet, to implore her not to weep alone but to share her sorrow with me, and the even sound of the sea now growled in my ears like a dark prophecy, and I saw new tears ahead, new griefs and losses. What, what was she crying about?—I asked, remembering her face and her suffering eyes. I remembered that she was pregnant. She tried to hide her condition both from people and from her own self. At home she went about in a loose blouse or a chemise with exaggeratedly sumptuous pleats in front, and when she went somewhere, she laced her corset so tightly that she fell into a swoon twice during her walks. She never talked with me about her pregnancy, and once, when I tried to mention that it would do no harm to get a doctor’s advice, she turned all red and didn’t say a word.
When I came to her room later, she was already dressed, and her hair was done.
‘‘Come, come!’’ I said, seeing that she was again about to cry. ‘‘Better let’s go to the sea and have a talk.’’
‘‘I can’t speak. Forgive me, I’m in such a mood now that I’d rather be alone. And please, Vladimir Ivanovich, the next time you want to come into my room, give a preliminary knock on the door.’’
That ‘‘preliminary’’ had some special, unfeminine ring to it. I left. The cursed Petersburg mood was coming back, and all my dreams curled up and shriveled like leaves in the heat. I felt that I was alone again, that there was no closeness between us. I was the same for her as the spiderweb for this palm tree, which hung on it accidentally and would be torn off and blown away by the wind. I strolled through the square, where music was playing, and went into a casino; there I looked at the dressed-up, much-perfumed women, and each of them looked at me as if she wanted to say: ‘‘You’re lonely, that’s splendid . . .’’ Then I went out to the terrace and looked at the sea for a long time. Not a single sail on the far horizon; on the shore to the left, hills, gardens, towers, houses in a purple mist; the sun plays on it all, but it’s all alien, indifferent, some sort of tangle...
XVII
SHE CAME TO me as before to have coffee in the mornings, but we no longer dined together; she, so she said, did not feel like eating, and subsisted on nothing but coffee, tea, and various trifles such as oranges and caramels.
Nor did we have conversations in the evenings. I don’t know why that was. After the time I found her in tears, she began to treat me somehow lightly, sometimes carelessly, even with irony, and for some reason called me ‘‘my sir.’’ That which earlier had seemed frightening, astonishing, heroic to her, and which had aroused envy and rapture in her, now didn’t touch her at all, and usually, having heard me out, she would stretch a little and say:
‘‘Yes, there were big doings at Poltava,28 my sir, there were indeed.’’
It even happened that I wouldn’t meet her for whole days. I’d knock timidly and guiltily at her door—no answer; I’d knock again—silence . . . I’d stand by the door and listen; but then a maid goes by and announces coldly: ‘‘Madame est partie.’’6 Then I’d pace the hotel corridor, pace, pace . . . Englishmen of some sort, full-breasted ladies, garçons in tailcoats . . . And when I’ve looked for a long time at the long striped carpet that stretches all down the corridor, it occurs to me that I’m playing a strange, probably false role in this woman’s life, and that I’m no longer able to change this role; I run to my room, fall on my bed, think and think, and can’t think anything up, and it’s only clear to me that I want to live, and that the more unattractive, dry, and tough her face becomes, the closer she is to me, and the more strongly and painfully I feel our affinity. Let me be ‘‘my sir,’’ let there be this light, disdainful tone, let there be anything, only don’t abandon me, my treasure. I’m afraid to be alone now.
Then I go out to the corridor again, listen with anxiety . . . I don’t have dinner, don’t notice how evening comes. Finally, past ten o’clock, I hear familiar footsteps, and Zinaida Fyodorovna appears at the turning by the stairs.
‘‘Taking a stroll?’’ she asks, passing by. ‘‘You’d do better to go out . . . Good night!’’
‘‘But
won’t we see each other today?’’
‘‘It’s already late, it seems. However, as you wish.’’
‘‘Tell me, where have you been?’’ I ask, following her into her room.
‘‘Where? To Monte Carlo.’’ She takes some ten gold pieces from her pocket and says, ‘‘Here, my sir. I won. At roulette.’’
‘‘Well, you’re not going to start gambling.’’
‘‘Why not? And I’ll go again tomorrow.’’
I imagined her with an unpleasant, sickly face, pregnant, tightly laced, standing at the gaming table in a crowd of cocottes, of doddering old women who swarm around gold like flies around honey, remembered that she had left for Monte Carlo in secret from me for some reason...
‘‘I don’t believe you,’’ I said once. ‘‘You won’t go there.’’
‘‘Don’t worry. I can’t lose much.’’
‘‘It’s not a matter of losing,’’ I said with vexation. ‘‘Didn’t it occur to you, as you were gambling there, that the gleam of gold, all those women, old and young, the croupier, the whole setting, that it’s all a low, vile mockery of a worker’s labor, of his sweat and blood?’’
‘‘If you don’t gamble, what is there to do here?’’ she asked. ‘‘The worker’s labor, sweat and blood—set aside that eloquence for another time. But now, since you’ve started, allow me to continue; allow me to put the question point-blank: what am I to do here, and what will I do?’’
‘‘What to do?’’ I said, shrugging. ‘‘It’s impossible to answer that question all at once.’’
‘‘I ask you to answer me in all conscience, Vladimir Ivanych,’’ she said, and her face became angry. ‘‘If I’ve ventured to ask you this question, it is not in order to hear commonplaces. I’m asking you,’’ she went on, rapping the table with her palm as if beating time, ‘‘what should I do here? And not only here in Nice, but generally?’’
I said nothing and looked out the window at the sea. My heart began to pound terribly.
‘‘Vladimir Ivanych,’’ she said softly, gasping for breath; it was hard for her to speak. ‘‘Vladimir Ivanych, if you don’t believe in the cause yourself, if you don’t intend to return to it, then why...why did you drag me away from Petersburg? Why did you promise me, and why did you arouse mad hopes in me? Your convictions have changed, you’ve become a different person, and no one blames you for that—convictions aren’t always in our power, but...but Vladimir Ivanych, for God’s sake, why are you insincere?’’ she went on softly, coming up to me. ‘‘When I dreamed aloud all these months, raved, admired my plans, reconstructed my life in a new way, why, instead of telling me the truth, did you keep silent or encourage me with stories and behave as if you fully sympathized with me? Why? What did you need that for?’’
‘‘It’s difficult to confess your bankruptcy,’’ I said, turning around but not looking at her. ‘‘No, I don’t believe, I’m weary, disheartened . . . It’s hard to be sincere, terribly hard, and so I kept silent. God forbid that anyone should go through what I’ve gone through.’’
It seemed to me that I was about to burst into tears, and I fell silent.
‘‘Vladimir Ivanych,’’ she said and took me by both hands. ‘‘You’ve experienced and gone through a great deal, you know more than I do; think seriously and tell me: what am I to do? Teach me. If you’re no longer able to go yourself and lead others behind you, at least show me where to go. You must agree, I’m a living, feeling, and reasoning person. To get into a false position . . . to play some absurd role...is hard for me. I’m not reproaching, I’m not accusing you, I’m only asking.’’
Tea was served.
‘‘Well, so?’’ asked Zinaida Fyodorovna, handing me a glass. ‘‘What have you to tell me?’’
‘‘There’s more than one light in the window,’’ I replied. ‘‘There are other people besides me, Zinaida Fyodorovna.’’
‘‘Point them out for me, then,’’ she said briskly. ‘‘That’s the only thing I ask of you.’’
‘‘And I want to say more,’’ I went on. ‘‘You can serve the idea in more than just some one field. If you make a mistake and lose faith in one thing, you can find another. The world of ideas is wide and inexhaustible.’’
‘‘The world of ideas!’’ she said and looked me mockingly in the face. ‘‘Then we’d better stop . . . What’s the point . . .’’
She blushed.
‘‘The world of ideas!’’ she repeated and flung the napkin aside, and her face acquired an indignant, squeamish expression. ‘‘I see that all your beautiful ideas come down to one inevitable, indispensable step: I must become your mistress. That’s what’s needed. To fuss with ideas and not be the mistress of the most honest, most idea-conscious man— means not to understand ideas. One must begin with this...that is, with the mistress, and the rest will go by itself.’’
‘‘You’re irritated, Zinaida Fyodorovna,’’ I said.
‘‘No, I’m sincere!’’ she cried, breathing heavily. ‘‘I’m sincere.’’
‘‘Maybe you’re sincere, but you’re deluded, and it’s painful for me to listen to you.’’
‘‘I’m deluded!’’ she laughed. ‘‘Anyone can say that, but not you, my sir. Let me seem indelicate to you, cruel, but so it goes: you’re in love with me, aren’t you? Well, aren’t you?’’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘‘Yes, shrug your shoulders!’’ she went on mockingly. ‘‘When you were ill, I heard you raving, then there were those constantly adoring eyes, the sighs, the well-intentioned conversations about closeness, spiritual affinity . . . But above all, why have you been insincere up to now? Why did you hide what was there, and talk about what wasn’t? You should have told me from the very beginning what, in fact, the ideas were that forced you to drag me away from Petersburg. Then I would have known. I would have poisoned myself, as I wanted to, and there would not have been this tedious comedy now... Eh, what’s there to talk about!’’ She waved her hand at me and sat down.
‘‘You speak in such a tone as if you suspect me of dishonorable intentions.’’ I was offended.
‘‘Well, all right now. What’s the point. It’s not that I suspect your intentions, but that you never had any intentions. If you’d had any, I’d know them. Besides ideas and love, you had nothing. Ideas and love now, and down the road—me as your mistress. Such is the order of things both in life and in novels . . . You denounced him,’’ she said and slapped the table with her palm, ‘‘but, willy-nilly, one must agree with him. It’s not for nothing he despises all these ideas.’’
‘‘He doesn’t despise ideas, he’s afraid of them,’’ I cried. ‘‘He’s a coward and a liar.’’
‘‘Well, all right now! He’s a coward, a liar, and he deceived me—and you? Forgive my frankness, but who are you? He deceived me and abandoned me to my fate in Petersburg, and you deceived me and abandoned me here. But he at least didn’t drag ideas into his deceit, while you . . .’’
‘‘For God’s sake, why do you say that?’’ I was horrified and, wringing my hands, quickly went over to her. ‘‘No, Zinaida Fyodorovna, no, that’s cynicism, you shouldn’t be in such despair, hear me out,’’ I went on, seizing upon a thought that had suddenly glimmered vaguely in my head and, it seemed, might still save us both. ‘‘Listen to me. I’ve experienced much in my time, so much that my head is spinning with memories now, and I have now firmly understood with my brain, with my pain-weary soul, that man’s purpose is either in nothing or in only one thing—the selfless love of one’s neighbor. That’s where we should go and what our purpose is! That is my faith!’’
I meant to speak further about mercy, about all-forgiveness, but my voice suddenly rang false, and I got embarrassed.
‘‘I want to live!’’ I said sincerely. ‘‘To live, to live! I want peace, quiet, I want warmth, this sea here, your closeness. Oh, how I’d like to inspire this passionate love of life in you as well! You were just talking about love, bu
t for me your closeness alone, your voice, the expression of your face would be enough . . .’’
She blushed and said quickly, so as to keep me from talking:
‘‘You love life, but I hate it. Therefore our paths are different.’’
She poured herself tea but didn’t touch it, went to the bedroom, and lay down.
‘‘I suppose it will be better if we stop this conversation,’’ she said to me from there. ‘‘For me everything’s already over, and I don’t need anything . . . Why go on talking about it!’’
‘‘No, everything’s not over!’’
‘‘Well, all right! . . . I know! I’m sick of it . . . Enough.’’
I stood there for a while, paced from corner to corner, and went out to the corridor. Afterwards, late at night, when I came to her door and listened, I clearly heard weeping.
The next morning the servant, giving me my clothes, told me with a smile that the lady in number thirteen was giving birth. I dressed haphazardly and, sinking with terror, hurried to Zinaida Fyodorovna. In her room were a doctor, a midwife, and an elderly Russian lady from Kharkov by the name of Darya Mikhailovna. There was a smell of ether drops. I had barely stepped over the threshold when a soft, plaintive moan came from the room where she lay, and it was as if the wind had brought it to me from Russia, I remembered Orlov, his irony, Polya, the Neva, big snowflakes, then the cab with no flap, the prophecy I had read in the cold morning sky, and the desperate cry: ‘‘Nina! Nina!’’
‘‘Go to her,’’ said the lady.
I went into Zinaida Fyodorovna’s room feeling as if I was the father of the child. She lay with her eyes closed, thin, pale, in a white cap trimmed with lace. I remember there were two expressions on her face: one indifferent, cold, listless; the other childlike and helpless, given her by the white cap. She didn’t hear me come in, or maybe she did, but paid no attention to me. I stood, looked at her, and waited.
The Complete Short Novels Page 34