Yulia Sergeevna got up and gave Laptev her hand.
‘‘Sorry,’’ she said, ‘‘it’s time for me to go. Please give my greetings to your sister.’’
‘‘Roo-roo-roo-roo,’’ sang the doctor. ‘‘Roo-roo-rooroo.’’
Yulia Sergeevna left, and a little later, Laptev took his leave of the doctor and went home. When a man is dissatisfied and feels unhappy, how banal seem to him all these lindens, shadows, clouds, all these self-satisfied and indifferent beauties of nature! The moon was already high, and clouds raced swiftly under it. ‘‘But what a naïve, provincial moon, what skimpy, pathetic clouds!’’ thought Laptev. He was ashamed that he had just spoken of medicine and the night shelter, and he was terrified that tomorrow, too, he would not have character enough, and he would again try to see her and speak with her, and once more be convinced that he was a stranger to her. The day after tomorrow—again the same thing. What for? And when and how would all this end?
At home he went to his sister’s room. Nina Fyodorovna still looked sturdy and gave the impression of a well-built, strong woman, but a marked pallor made her look like a dead person, especially when, as now, she lay on her back with her eyes closed. Near her sat her elder daughter, Sasha, ten years old, reading something to her from her school reader.
‘‘Alyosha’s come,’’ the sick woman said softly to herself. Between Sasha and her uncle a silent agreement had long been established: they took turns. Now Sasha closed her reader and, without saying a word, quietly left the room; Laptev took a historical novel from the chest of drawers and, finding the page he needed, sat down and started reading aloud.
Nina Fyodorovna was a native Muscovite. She and her two brothers had spent their childhood and youth on Pyatnitskaya Street, in a family of merchants. It was a long, boring childhood; her father treated her severely and even punished her with a birching three times or so, and her mother was sick with something for a long time and died; the servants were dirty, coarse, hypocritical; priests and monks often came to the house, also coarse and hypocritical; they drank and ate and crudely flattered her father, whom they did not like. The boys had the luck to be sent to school, but Nina remained uneducated, wrote in a scrawl all her life, and read only historical novels. Seventeen years ago, when she was twenty-two, at their dacha in Khimki, she made the acquaintance of her present husband, Panaurov, a landowner, fell in love with him, and married him secretly, against her father’s will. Panaurov, handsome, slightly insolent, given to lighting cigarettes from the icon lamp and whistling, seemed utterly worthless to her father, and when, in letters afterward, the son-in-law started demanding a dowry, the old man wrote to his daughter that he would send to her on the estate fur coats, silverware, and various objects left by her mother, and thirty thousand in cash, but without his parental blessing; then he sent another twenty thousand. This money and the dowry were run through, the estate was sold, and Panaurov moved to town with his family and took a job with the provincial government. In town he acquired another family for himself, and that caused much talk every day, since his illegitimate family lived quite openly.
Nina Fyodorovna adored her husband. And now, listening to the historical novel, she was thinking about how she had lived through so much, had suffered so greatly in all that time, and that if someone were to describe her life, it would come out as very pitiful. Since the tumor was in her breast, she was certain that she had fallen ill from love, from her family life, and that it was jealousy and tears that had brought her to bed.
But here Alexei Fyodorovich closed his book and said:
‘‘The end, and God be praised. Tomorrow we’ll start another.’’
Nina Fyodorovna laughed. She had always laughed readily, but now Laptev had begun to notice that she had moments, on account of illness, when her mind seemed to weaken, and she laughed at the least trifle and even for no reason.
‘‘Yulia came here before dinner, while you were away,’’ she said. ‘‘From what I can see, she doesn’t have much faith in her father. ‘Let my papa treat you,’ she says, ‘but all the same, write to the holy elder on the quiet and ask him to pray for you.’ They’ve acquired some elder here. Yulechka forgot her parasol here, send it to her tomorrow,’’ she went on after a pause. ‘‘No, when it’s the end, no doctors or elders will help.’’
‘‘Nina, why don’t you sleep at night?’’ Laptev asked, to change the subject.
‘‘Just because. I don’t sleep, that’s all. I lie here and think.’’
‘‘What do you think about, dear?’’
‘‘About the children, about you . . . about my life. I’ve lived through so much, Alyosha. Once I start remembering, once I start... Lord God!’’ She laughed. ‘‘No joke, I’ve given birth five times, I’ve buried three children . . . Once I was about to give birth, and my Grigory Nikolaich was with some other woman just then, there was nobody to send for the midwife or a wise woman; I went to the front hall to call for the maid, and there were Jews, shopkeepers, moneylenders—waiting for him to come back. It made my head spin... He didn’t love me, though he never said so. By now I’ve calmed down, my heart is more at peace, but before, when I was younger, it hurt me—hurt me, oh, how it hurt me, dear heart! Once—this was still on the estate—I found him in the garden with a lady, and I went away... I went wherever my legs would carry me and, I don’t know how, I found myself on the church porch, I fell on my knees: ‘Queen of Heaven!’ I said. And it was night out, a crescent moon was shining...’
She was exhausted and began to gasp; then, after resting a little, she took her brother’s hand and went on in a weak, soundless voice:
‘‘How kind you are, Alyosha... How intelligent you are... What a good man you’ve turned out to be!’’
At midnight Laptev said good night to her and, on his way out, took along the parasol forgotten by Yulia Sergeevna. Despite the late hour, the servants, men and women, were having tea in the dining room. What disorder! The children were not asleep and were sitting right there in the dining room. They were talking softly, in low voices, and did not notice that the lamp was growing dim and was about to go out. All these big and small people were upset by a whole series of inauspicious omens, and the mood was oppressive: the mirror in the front hall had broken, the samovar had hummed every day and, as if on purpose, was humming even now; someone said that as Nina Fyodorovna was getting dressed, a mouse had leaped out of her shoe. And the children already knew the awful meaning of these omens; the older girl, Sasha, a thin brunette, sat motionless at the table, and her face was frightened, sorrowful, and the younger, Lida, seven years old, a plump blonde, stood beside her sister and looked at the fire from under her eyebrows.
Laptev went to his rooms on the lower floor, lowceilinged rooms, where it was stuffy and always smelled of geraniums. In his drawing room sat Panaurov, Nina Fyodorovna’s husband, reading a newspaper. Laptev nodded to him and sat down opposite. They both sat and were silent. It sometimes happened that they would spend the whole evening thus silently, and this silence did not embarrass them.
The girls came from upstairs to say good night. Panaurov silently, unhurriedly crossed them both several times and gave them his hand to kiss; they curtseyed, then went over to Laptev, who also had to cross them and give them his hand to kiss. This ceremony with kissing and curtseying was repeated every evening.
When the girls left, Panaurov laid the paper aside and said:
‘‘It’s boring in our God-protected town! I confess, my dear,’’ he added with a sigh, ‘‘I’m very glad you’ve finally found yourself some distraction.’’
‘‘What do you mean?’’ asked Laptev.
‘‘I saw you earlier coming out of Dr. Belavin’s house. I hope you didn’t go there for the papa’s sake.’’
‘‘Of course not,’’ said Laptev, reddening.
‘‘Well, of course not. And, incidentally speaking, you won’t find another such plug horse as this papa if you search with a lamp in broad daylight. You can’t ima
gine what a slovenly, giftless, and clumsy brute he is! You people there in your capital are still interested in the provinces only from the lyrical side, so to speak, from the paysage and Anton the Wretch 3 side, but I swear to you, my friend, there are no lyrics, there’s only wildness, meanness, vileness—and nothing more. Take the local high priests of science, the local intelligentsia, so to speak. Can you imagine, there are twenty-eight doctors here in town, they’ve all made fortunes and live in their own houses, and the populace meanwhile is in the same helpless situation as before. Here Nina had to have an operation, essentially a trifling one, and for that we had to invite a surgeon from Moscow—not a single one here would undertake it. You can’t imagine. They know nothing, understand nothing, are interested in nothing. Ask them, for instance, what is cancer? What is it? Where does it come from?’’
And Panaurov began to explain what cancer was. He was a specialist in all the sciences and explained scientifically everything that happened to come up in conversation. But he explained it all somehow in his own way. He had his own theory of the circulation of the blood, his own chemistry, his own astronomy. He spoke slowly, quietly, persuasively, and uttered the words ‘‘you can’t imagine’’ in a pleading voice, narrowing his eyes, sighing languidly, and smiling benevolently, like a king, and it was obvious that he was very pleased with himself and never thought at all of the fact that he was already fifty years old.
‘‘I’d really like to have something to eat,’’ said Laptev. ‘‘It would be pleasant to eat something salty.’’
‘‘Well, why not? That can be arranged at once.’’
A little later, Laptev and his brother-in-law were sitting upstairs in the dining room, having supper. Laptev drank a glass of vodka and then began drinking wine, but Panaurov drank nothing. He never drank or played cards and, in spite of that, had all the same run through his own and his wife’s fortunes and acquired many debts. To run through so much in such a short time, one had to have not passion but something else, some special talent. Panaurov liked good food, fine place settings, music at the table, speeches, bowing foot-men, to whom he casually tossed tips of ten and even twentyfive roubles; he always took part in all the subscriptions and lotteries, sent birthday bouquets to ladies of his acquaintance, bought cups, tea-glass holders, shirt studs, neckties, canes, scent, cigarette holders, pipes, lapdogs, parrots, Japanese objects, antiques; his nightshirts were made of silk, his bed of ebony with mother-of-pearl, his dressing gown was genuine Bokhara, and so on, and all that required a daily outlay of, as he himself said, ‘‘no end of money.’’
Over supper he kept sighing and shaking his head.
‘‘Yes, everything in this world has an end,’’ he said quietly, narrowing his dark eyes. ‘‘You’ll fall in love, and you’ll suffer, fall out of love, be betrayed, because there’s no woman who doesn’t betray; you’ll suffer, become desperate, betray her yourself. But the time will come when it will all turn into a memory, and you’ll reason coldly and regard it as completely trifling...’
And Laptev, tired, slightly drunk, looked at his handsome head, his black, clipped beard, and it seemed he understood why women so loved this spoiled, self-confident, and physically charming man.
After supper Panaurov did not stay at home but went to his other apartment. Laptev went out to see him off. In the whole town, Panaurov was the only one who wore a top hat, and next to the gray fences, the pitiful three-windowed houses, and the clumps of nettles, his elegant, foppish figure, his top hat and orange gloves, produced each time a strange and sad impression.
After taking leave of him, Laptev returned home unhurriedly. The moon shone brightly, one could see every straw on the ground, and it seemed to Laptev as though the moonlight was caressing his uncovered head, as though someone was stroking his hair with down.
‘‘I’m in love!’’ he said aloud, and he suddenly wanted to run, overtake Panaurov, embrace him, forgive him, give him a lot of money, and then run off somewhere to the fields, the groves, and keep running without looking back.
At home he saw Yulia Sergeevna’s forgotten parasol on a chair, seized it, and greedily kissed it. The parasol was of silk, no longer new, held by an elastic band; the handle was of simple, cheap white bone. Laptev opened it and held it over him, and it seemed to him that there was even a smell of happiness around him.
He settled more comfortably and, without letting go of the parasol, began writing to one of his friends in Moscow:
‘‘My dear Kostya, here is news for you: I am in love again! I say again, because some six years ago I was in love with a Moscow actress with whom I never even managed to get acquainted, and for the last year and a half I have been living with the ‘individual’ known to you—a woman neither young nor beautiful. Ah, dear heart, how generally unlucky I have been in love! I have never had success with women, and if I say again, it is only because it is somehow sad and disappointing to confess to my own self that my youth has passed entirely without love, and that in a real way I am in love for the first time only now, when I am thirty-four. So let it be in love again.
‘‘If you only knew what a girl she is! She cannot be called a beauty—her face is broad, and she is very thin—but what a wonderful expression of kindness, what a smile! Her voice, when she speaks, sings and rings. She never gets into conversation with me, I do not know her, but when I am near her, I sense in her a rare, extraordinary being pervaded with intelligence and lofty aspirations. She is religious, and you cannot imagine how that touches me and elevates her in my eyes. On this point I am ready to argue endlessly with you. You are right, let it be your way, but even so, I like it when she prays in church. She is a provincial, but she studied in Moscow, loves our Moscow, dresses in Moscow fashion, and for that I love her, love her, love her... I can see you frowning and getting up to give me a long lecture on what love is, and who can and cannot be loved, and so on and so forth. But, dear Kostya, before I fell in love, I myself also knew perfectly well what love was.
‘‘My sister thanks you for your greetings. She often remembers how she once took Kostya Kochevoy to place him in the preparatory class, and to this day she calls you poor, because she’s kept a memory of you as an orphan boy. And so, poor orphan, I am in love. So far it is a secret, do not say anything there to the ‘individual’ known to you. That, I think, will get settled by itself, or ‘shape up,’ as the footman says in Tolstoy...’4
Having finished the letter, Laptev went to bed. His eyes closed of themselves from fatigue, but for some reason, he could not sleep; it seemed that the street noises interfered. The herd was driven past, and the horn was blown, then the bells soon rang for the early liturgy. Now a cart went creaking by, then came the voice of some peasant woman going to market. And the sparrows were chirping all the while.
II
IT WAS A gay, festive morning. At around ten o’clock, Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress, neatly combed, was brought out to the drawing room, supported under both arms, and there she promenaded a little and stood for a while at the open window, and her smile was broad, naïve, and looking at her reminded one of the local artist, a drunken fellow, who said hers was a face on an icon and wanted to paint her in a Russian Shrovetide scene. And to everybody— the children, the servants, even her brother Alexei Fyodorych and herself—it suddenly appeared a certainty that she would unfailingly recover. The girls chased their uncle with shrill laughter, trying to catch him, and the house became noisy.
Strangers came to ask after her health, bringing prosphoras, 5 saying that prayer services had been held for her that day in almost all the churches. She did charitable work in her town and was loved. She gave charity with extraordinary ease, just like her brother Alexei, who gave money very easily, without considering whether he should give or not. Nina Fyodorovna paid for poor pupils, gave money to old women for tea, sugar, preserves, fitted out needy brides, and if a newspaper happened into her hands, she first looked whether there was any appeal for help or notice of someone in distres
s.
In her hands now was a bundle of notes by means of which various poor people, her protégés, took goods from the grocery store, and which the merchant had sent her the day before with a request for the payment of eighty-two roubles.
‘‘Just look how much they’ve taken, shameless folk!’’ she said, barely making out her bad handwriting on the notes. ‘‘No joke! Eighty-two! I’m just not going to pay it!’’
‘‘I’ll pay it today,’’ said Laptev.
‘‘Why should you? Why?’’ Nina Fyodorovna became alarmed. ‘‘It’s enough that I get two hundred and fifty a month from you and our brother. Lord save you,’’ she added quietly, so that the servants would not hear.
‘‘Well, and I run through twenty-five hundred a month,’’ he said. ‘‘I repeat to you once more, my dear: you have as much right to spend money as Fyodor and I. Understand that once and for all. Father had the three of us, and of every three kopecks, one is yours.’’
But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand and had an expression as if she was mentally resolving some very difficult problem. And this obtuseness in money matters always disturbed and confused Laptev. Besides, he suspected that she had personal debts of which she was embarrassed to tell him, and which made her suffer.
Footsteps were heard, and heavy breathing: this was the doctor coming up the stairs, disheveled and uncombed, as usual.
‘‘Roo-roo-roo,’’ he hummed. ‘‘Roo-roo.’’
To avoid meeting him, Laptev went out to the dining room, then downstairs to his own rooms. It was clear to him that to become more intimate with the doctor and visit his house informally was an impossible thing; even to meet this ‘‘plug horse,’’ as Panaurov called him, was unpleasant. And that was why he so rarely saw Yulia Sergeevna. He now realized that her father was not at home, that if he brought Yulia Sergeevna her parasol now, then most likely he would find her at home alone, and his heart was wrung with joy. Quickly, quickly!
The Complete Short Novels Page 36