But then her face twisted with pain, she opened her eyes and started looking at the ceiling, as if trying to figure out what was the matter with her... On her face there was a look of disgust.
‘‘Vile,’’ she whispered.
‘‘Zinaida Fyodorovna,’’ I called weakly.
She gave me an indifferent, listless look and closed her eyes. I stood there for a while and then left.
During the night, Darya Mikhailovna told me that the baby was a girl, but the mother was in a dangerous state; then there was running in the corridor, a commotion. Darya Mikhailovna came to me again and, with a desperate look, wringing her hands, said:
‘‘Oh, it’s terrible! The doctor suspects she’s taken poison! Oh, how badly the Russians behave themselves here!’’
And the next day at noon, Zinaida Fyodorovna passed away.
XVIII
TWO YEARS WENT by. My circumstances changed, I went back to Petersburg and could live there without hiding. I was no longer afraid to be and to seem sentimental, and gave myself entirely to the fatherly or, more precisely, the idolatrous feeling aroused in me by Sonya, Zinaida Fyodorovna’s daughter. I fed her with my own hands, bathed her, put her to bed, spent whole nights looking at her, and cried out when I thought the nurse was going to drop her. My thirst for ordinary, humdrum life grew stronger and more exasperating as time went on, but my vast dreams settled around Sonya, as if they had finally found in her precisely what I needed. I loved that little girl madly. I saw in her the continuation of my life, and it was not that it seemed so to me, but I felt, and almost believed, that when I had finally cast off this long, bony, bearded body, I would live in those light blue eyes, in that blond silky hair and those plump pink arms that so lovingly stroked my face and embraced my neck.
Sonya’s destiny frightened me. Her father was Orlov, on her birth certificate her name was Krasnovsky, and the only person who knew of her existence and found it interesting— that is, I—was already drawing out his last song. I had to think about her seriously.
The day after my arrival in Petersburg, I went to see Orlov. A fat old man with red side-whiskers and no mustache, apparently a German, opened the door. Polya, who was tidying up in the drawing room, didn’t recognize me, but Orlov did at once.
‘‘Ah, Mr. Seditionist!’’ he said, looking me over with curiosity and laughing. ‘‘What brings you here?’’
He hadn’t changed at all: the same sleek, unpleasant face, the same irony. And on the table, as in former times, lay some new book with an ivory paper knife in place of a bookmark. He had evidently been reading before I came. He sat me down, offered me a cigar, and, with a delicacy proper only to very well-bred people, hiding the unpleasant feeling provoked in him by my face and my gaunt figure, observed in passing that I hadn’t changed at all and was easily recognizable, even though I had grown a beard. We talked of the weather, of Paris. To have done the sooner with the unavoidable painful question that was oppressing both him and me, he asked:
‘‘Did Zinaida Fyodorovna die?’’
‘‘Yes, she did,’’ I replied.
‘‘In childbed?’’
‘‘Yes, in childbed. The doctor suspected there was some other cause of death, but . . . for you and for me, it’s easier to think she died in childbed.’’
He sighed out of politeness and was silent. An angel passed.
‘‘So, sir. And with me, everything’s as before, no particular changes,’’ he said briskly, noticing that I was looking around his study. ‘‘Father, as you know, resigned and is now retired, I’m still where I was. Remember Pekarsky? He’s the same as ever. Gruzin died last year of diphtheria... Well, sir, Kukushkin’s alive and often remembers you. Incidentally,’’ Orlov went on, lowering his eyes bashfully, ‘‘when Kukushkin learned who you were, he began telling everywhere that you had supposedly made an assault on him, had wanted to kill him...and he had barely escaped with his life.’’
I said nothing.
‘‘Old servants don’t forget their masters . . . It’s very nice on your part,’’ Orlov joked. ‘‘However, would you like some wine or coffee? I’ll order it made.’’
‘‘No, thank you. I’ve come to you on very important business, Georgiy Ivanych.’’
‘‘I’m not a lover of important business, but I’m glad to be of service to you. What is it you want?’’
‘‘You see,’’ I began agitatedly, ‘‘the daughter of the late Zinaida Fyodorovna is at present here with me... Till now I have occupied myself with her upbringing, but as you see, one of these days I shall turn into an empty sound. I’d like to die with the thought that she has been settled.’’
Orlov turned slightly red, frowned, and glanced at me sternly, fleetingly. He was unpleasantly affected not so much by the ‘‘important business’’ as by my words about turning into an empty sound, about death.
‘‘Yes, that must be given thought,’’ he said, shielding his eyes as from the sun. ‘‘Thank you. You say it’s a girl?’’
‘‘Yes, a girl. A wonderful girl!’’
‘‘So. It’s not a pug dog, of course, but a human being... I see it must be given serious thought. I’m ready to take a hand and . . . and I’m much obliged to you.’’
He got up, paced about, biting his nails, and stopped before a painting.
‘‘It must be given thought,’’ he said tonelessly, standing with his back to me. ‘‘I’ll go to Pekarsky today and ask him to call on Krasnovsky. I think Krasnovsky won’t make too many difficulties and will agree to take the girl.’’
‘‘Excuse me, but I don’t see what Krasnovsky has to do with it,’’ I said, also getting up and going over to the painting at the other end of the study.
‘‘But she bears his name, I hope!’’ said Orlov.
‘‘Yes, maybe he’s obliged by law to take this girl in, I don’t know, but I haven’t come to you to talk about laws, Georgiy Ivanych.’’
‘‘Yes, yes, you’re right,’’ he promptly agreed. ‘‘It seems I’m talking nonsense. But don’t worry. We’ll discuss it all to our mutual satisfaction. If not one thing, then another, if not another, then a third, but one way or another, this ticklish question will be resolved. Pekarsky will arrange it all. Kindly leave me your address, and I’ll inform you immediately of what decision we come to. Where do you live?’’
Orlov wrote down my address, sighed, and said with a smile:
‘‘What a chore, O Creator, to be the father of a little daughter! 29 But Pekarsky will arrange it all. He’s a ‘nintelligent’ man. How long did you live in Paris?’’
‘‘About two months.’’
We fell silent. Orlov was obviously afraid I’d bring up the girl again, and to divert my attention in a different direction, he said:
‘‘You’ve probably forgotten about your letter. But I keep it. I understand your mood at the time, and I confess, I respect that letter. The cursed cold blood, the Asiatic, the horse laugh—it’s nice and characteristic,’’ he went on, smiling ironically. ‘‘And the main thought is perhaps close to the truth, though one could argue no end. That is,’’ he faltered, ‘‘argue not with the thought but with your attitude to the question, with your temperament, so to speak. Yes, my life is abnormal, corrupt, good for nothing, and cowardice keeps me from starting a new life—there you’re perfectly right. But that you take it so close to heart, that you worry and despair, is not reasonable—there you’re quite wrong.’’
‘‘A living man can’t help worrying and despairing when he sees himself and others around him perishing.’’
‘‘Who’s talking! I’m by no means preaching indifference, I merely want an objective attitude towards life. The more objective, the less risk of falling into error. One must look at the root and seek the cause of all causes in each phenomenon. We’ve become weak, gone to seed, fallen finally, our generation consists entirely of neurasthenics and whiners, the only thing we know how to do is talk about being tired and overexhausted, but neither you nor I
is to blame for it: we’re too small for the fate of a whole generation to hang upon our will. Here, one must think, there are large, general causes, which, from a biological point of view, have a sound raison d’être. We are neurasthenics, soured spirits, back-sliders, but maybe that’s needful and useful for the generations that will live after us. Not a single hair falls from our heads without the will of the Heavenly Father—in other words, nothing in nature and the human environment happens just like that. Everything is well grounded and necessary. But if so, why should we be so especially worried and write desperate letters?’’
‘‘That may be so,’’ I said after some reflection. ‘‘I believe that for the coming generations, it will be easier and clearer; they will have our experience at their service. But one wants to live independently of the future generations and not merely for them. Life is given only once, and one would like to live it cheerfully, meaningfully, beautifully. One would like to play a prominent, independent, noble role; one would like to make history, so that those same generations would have no right to say of each of us: ‘He was a nonentity,’ or even worse than that . . . I do believe in the purposefulness and necessity of what happens around us, but what does that necessity have to do with me? Why should my ‘I’ perish?’’
‘‘Well, what to do!’’ sighed Orlov, getting up and as if giving me to understand that our conversation was over.
I took my hat.
‘‘We’ve sat for only half an hour and resolved so many questions, just think!’’ Orlov said, seeing me off to the front hall. ‘‘So I’ll take care of that . . . Today I’ll be seeing Pekarsky. Have no doubts.’’
He stopped to wait while I put on my coat, and obviously felt pleasure at the fact that I would soon be gone.
‘‘Georgiy Ivanych, give me back my letter,’’ I said.
‘‘Yes, sir.’’
He went to the study and came back a moment later with the letter. I thanked him and left.
The next day I received a note from him. He congratulated me upon the fortunate solution of the problem. A lady of Pekarsky’s acquaintance, he wrote, kept a boarding school, something like a kindergarten, where even very small children were accepted. The lady was totally reliable, but, before entering into any agreements with her, it would do no harm to discuss things with Krasnovsky—formality required it. He advised me to go immediately to Pekarsky and, incidentally, to bring the birth certificate with me, if there was such a thing. ‘‘Accept the assurance of your humble servant’s sincere respect and devotion . . .’’
I was reading this letter, and Sonya was sitting on the table and looking at me attentively, without blinking, as if she knew her fate was being decided.
1892
THREE YEARS
I
IT WAS NOT dark yet, but here and there lights had been lit in the houses, and beyond the barracks at the end of the street a pale moon was rising. Laptev sat on a bench by the gate and waited for the end of vespers in the Peter-and-Paul church. He reckoned that Yulia Sergeevna, on her way home from vespers, would pass by, and then he would start talking with her and perhaps spend the whole evening with her.
He had been sitting there for about an hour and a half, and his imagination all the while had been picturing his Moscow apartment, his Moscow friends, his footman Pyotr, his desk; he kept glancing in perplexity at the dark, motionless trees, and it seemed strange to him that he was not now living in his dacha1 in Sokolniki, but in a provincial town, in a house past which a large herd was driven every morning and evening, accompanied by a frightful cloud of dust and the blowing of a horn. He remembered long Moscow conversations in which he himself had taken part still so recently—conversations about how it was possible to live without love, how passionate love was a psychosis, how there was finally no such thing as love, but only physical attraction between the sexes—all in the same vein; he remembered and thought sadly that if he were now asked what love was, he would be at a loss to answer.
Vespers were over, people appeared. Laptev peered at the dark figures intently. The bishop had driven past in his carriage, the bell ringing had stopped, and the red and green lights on the bell tower—this was an illumination on the occasion of the church’s feast day 2—had gone out one by one, yet people still walked unhurriedly, talking, stopping under windows. But then, finally, Laptev heard the familiar voice, his heart began to pound, and because Yulia Sergeevna was not alone but with some two ladies, he was overcome with despair.
‘‘This is terrible, terrible!’’ he whispered, jealous over her. ‘‘This is terrible!’’
At the corner, before turning into the lane, she stopped to say good-bye to the ladies and at that moment glanced at Laptev.
‘‘And I’m on my way to your house,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve come to have a talk with your father. Is he at home?’’
‘‘Probably,’’ she replied. ‘‘It’s too early for him to go to the club.’’
The lane was all gardens, and lindens grew by the fences, now casting a broad shadow in the moonlight, so that on one side, the fences and gates were completely drowned in darkness; from there came the whisper of women’s voices, restrained laughter, and someone very softly played a balalaika. It smelled of lindens and hay. This smell and the whispering of the invisible ones stirred Laptev. He suddenly wanted passionately to embrace his companion, to cover her face, hands, shoulders with kisses, to burst into sobs, to fall at her feet, to tell her how long he had been waiting for her. She gave off a slight, barely perceptible smell of incense, and it reminded him of the time when he also believed in God and went to vespers and dreamed much of a pure, poetic love. And because this girl did not love him, it seemed to him now that the possibility of the happiness he had dreamed of then was lost to him forever.
She began speaking with concern about the health of his sister, Nina Fyodorovna. Some two months ago, his sister had had a cancer removed, and now everyone expected the illness to return.
‘‘I went to see her this morning,’’ said Yulia Sergeevna, ‘‘and it seemed to me that in this last week she has not so much grown thin as faded away.’’
‘‘Yes, yes,’’ Laptev agreed. ‘‘There’s no relapse, but with each day, I’ve noticed, she grows weaker and weaker and wastes away before my eyes. I don’t understand what’s wrong with her.’’
‘‘Lord, and how healthy, plump, and red-cheeked she used to be!’’ said Yulia Sergeevna after a moment’s silence. ‘‘Here they all used to call her a robin. How she laughed! On feast days she’d dress up like a simple peasant, and it became her very well.’’
Dr. Sergei Borisych was at home; stout, red-faced, in a long frock coat below his knees, which made him seem short-legged, he paced up and down his study, his hands in his pockets, and hummed in a low voice: ‘‘Roo-roo-rooroo.’’ His gray side-whiskers were disheveled, his hair uncombed, as if he had just gotten out of bed. And his study, with pillows on the sofas, heaps of old papers in the corners, and a sick, dirty poodle under the desk, made the same disheveled and rough impression as the man himself.
‘‘M’sieur Laptev wishes to see you,’’ said the daughter, going into the study.
‘‘Roo-roo-roo-roo,’’ he sang louder and, veering into the drawing room, gave his hand to Laptev and said: ‘‘What’s the good news?’’
It was dark in the drawing room. Laptev, not sitting down, and holding his hat in his hand, began to apologize for the disturbance; he asked what to do so that his sister could sleep at night, and why she was becoming so terribly thin, and he was embarrassed by the thought that he seemed to have asked the doctor these same questions that day during his morning visit.
‘‘Tell me,’’ he asked, ‘‘shouldn’t we invite some specialist in internal diseases from Moscow? What do you think?’’
The doctor sighed, shrugged his shoulders, and made an indefinite gesture with both hands.
It was obvious that he was offended. He was an extremely touchy doctor, very quick to take offense, a
nd always imagined that he was not believed, that he was not recognized and not sufficiently respected, that the public exploited him and his colleagues treated him with ill will. He always laughed at himself, saying such fools as he were created only so that the public could ride on them.
Yulia Sergeevna lighted the lamp. She had gotten tired in church, and that could be noticed by her pale, weary face, by her sluggish gait. She wanted to rest. She sat on the sofa, leaned her arms on her knees, and lapsed into thought. Laptev knew that he was unattractive, and now it seemed to him that he even felt this unattractiveness on his body. He was of small stature, thin, with ruddy cheeks, and his hair was already quite sparse, so that his head got chilled. His expression was totally deprived of that graceful simplicity which makes even coarse, unattractive faces sympathetic; in the company of women, he was awkward, excessively garrulous, affected. And now he almost despised himself for that. To keep Yulia Sergeevna from getting bored in his company, it was necessary to talk. But what about? Again about his sister’s illness?
And he began saying what is usually said about medicine, praised hygiene, and mentioned that he had long wished to set up a night shelter in Moscow and that he even had an estimate. According to his plan, a worker coming to the night shelter in the evening would, for five or six kopecks, get a portion of hot cabbage soup with bread, a warm, dry bed with a blanket, and a place to dry his clothes and shoes.
Yulia Sergeevna was usually silent in his presence, and in a strange way, perhaps with the intuition of a man in love, he could guess her thoughts and intentions. And now he realized that if she did not go to her room to change her clothes and have tea after vespers, it meant she was invited somewhere else that evening.
‘‘But I’m in no rush with this night shelter,’’ he went on, now with annoyance and vexation, addressing the doctor, who gazed at him somehow dully and with perplexity, evidently not understanding why on earth he had turned the conversation to medicine and hygiene. ‘‘And most likely I won’t soon make use of our estimate. I’m afraid our night shelter will fall into the hands of our Moscow hypocrites and philanthropic ladies, who ruin every undertaking.’’
The Complete Short Novels Page 35