“Why,” he began, still looking far away into the distance, fidgeting his leg and yawning, “been here long?”
The girl could not answer him immediately.
“Yes, Viktor Alexandrich,” she said at last, in a hardly audible voice.
“Oh!” He took off his cap, passed his hand majestically over his thick, tightly-curled hair, which began practically at his eyebrows, and, looking round with dignity, scrupulously covered his precious head again. “I nearly forgot altogether. Besides, there was the rain, you see!” He yawned again. “Lots of work: you can’t keep your eye on everything, with him scolding you into the bargain. We leave to-morrow . . .”
“To-morrow?” the girl brought out, turning a frightened gaze upon him.
“To-morrow . . . There, there, there, for goodness’ sake!” he interjected hurriedly and with irritation, seeing that she had started to tremble all over and had quietly dropped her head. “For goodness’ sake, Akulina, don’t cry. You know I can’t bear it.” And he wrinkled his snub nose. “Or else I’ll go away at once. It’s too stupid—grizzling!”
“No, no, I won’t,” said Akulina hurriedly, swallowing her tears with an effort. “So you’re leaving to-morrow?” she added after a short silence. “When will God grant us to see each other again, Viktor Alexandrich?”
“We’ll see each other again all right. If not next year—then later. I think the master wants to go to Petersburg and get a Government job,” he went on, pronouncing the words negligently and slightly through his nose, “but it’s possible that we shall go abroad.”
“You’ll forget me, Viktor Alexandrich,” said Akulina sorrowfully.
“No, why should I? I won’t forget you: but just you be sensible; don’t do silly things, do what your father tells you . . . I won’t forget you—no-o.” And he stretched calmly and yawned again.
“Don’t forget me, Viktor Alexandrich,” she went on, in an imploring voice. “I do love you so much, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you . . . You tell me to obey my father . . . But how can I obey him? . . .”
“Well?” He pronounced the word as if from his stomach, lying on his back, with his hands folded beneath his head.
“But how can I, Viktor Alexandrich—you know very well . . .” She paused. Viktor played with his steel watch-chain.
“You’re no fool, Akulina,” he began at length, “so you mustn’t talk nonsense. I’ve got your interests at heart, d’you see? Of course, you’re no fool, you’re not just an ordinary peasant-girl, as it were; your mother wasn’t always a peasant, either. All the same, you’ve got no education—so you ought to do as you’re told.”
“But I’m scared, Viktor Alexandrich.”
“Pooh, what nonsense, my dear; what is there to be scared about? What have you got there?” he added, moving closer to her. “Flowers?”
“Yes,” answered Akulina sadly. “This I picked from a wild costmary,” she went on, with somewhat more animation, “it’s good for calves. This one’s marigold—good against the scrofula. Then look at this wonderful flower; such a wonderful flower as I’ve never seen in all my days. These are forget-me-nots, and this one’s called mother’s darling. And these are for you,” she added, taking out, from below the yellow costmary, a small bunch of blue cornflowers bound with a slender grass. “Would you like them?”
Viktor lazily stretched out a hand, took the flowers, smelt them indifferently, and began to turn them over between his fingers, looking up meanwhile, meditative and aloof. Akulina gazed at him. . . . In her sad glance there was so much tender devotion, reverent submissiveness, and love. She was afraid of him, she didn’t dare cry, she was saying good-bye to him, admiring him for the last time: while he lay, sprawling like a sultan, and suffered her adoration with magnanimous patience and condescension. I confess that I looked indignantly at his red face, in which, through the pretence of contemptuous indifference, a contented, surfeited egoism peeped out. Akulina was so lovely at that moment: her whole soul bared itself trustfully, passionately, to him, and strove in all humility to approach him, while he . . . he dropped the cornflowers in the grass, brought out from the side pocket of his coat a little round glass in a bronze frame, and proceeded to squeeze it into his eye; but, try as he might to hold it in, with screwed-up brow, raised cheek, even with his nose—the glass kept falling out and dropping into his hand.
“What’s that?” asked Akulina at length, in astonishment.
“A lorgnette,” he answered, with dignity.
“What for?”
“To see better with.”
“Let me look.”
Viktor scowled, but gave her the glass.
“Look out, don’t break it.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t break it.” She put it shyly up to her eye. “I can’t see anything,” she observed innocently.
“But your eye—you must screw up your eye,” he rejoined in the voice of a dissatisfied instructor. She screwed up the eye in front of which she was holding the glass. “Not that one, not that one, stupid! The other one!” exclaimed Viktor and, without allowing her to correct her mistake, took the lorgnette away from her.
Akulina flushed, laughed faintly, and turned away.
“It’s not meant for the likes of us, I can see,” she said.
“It certainly isn’t!”
The poor girl was silent and sighed deeply.
“Oh, Viktor Alexandrich, it’ll be so hard for us, without you,” she said suddenly.
Viktor wiped the lorgnette with his coat-tail and put it back in his pocket.
“Yes, yes,” he said at length; “it’ll be hard for you at first, certainly.” He patted her condescendingly on the shoulder; she gently took his hand from her shoulder and shyly kissed it. “Well, yes, you’re certainly a good girl,” he went on, smiling complacently; “but there’s nothing for it, is there now? The master and I can’t stay here; it’ll soon be winter now, and winter in the country—you know it yourself—is sheer misery. While, in Petersburg! There are such marvellous sights there, such as you could never imagine, you stupid, not even in a dream. The houses, the streets, the society, the education—simply amazing! . . .” Akulina listened to him with consuming attention, her lips slightly parted, like a child’s. “But anyway,” he added, turning over on the ground, “what’s the good of my telling you all this? It’s something that you can never understand.”
“Why not, Viktor Alexandrich? I’ve understood; I’ve understood it all.”
“There you go!”
Akulina lowered her head.
“There was a time once when you didn’t talk to me like this, Viktor Alexandrich,” she said, without looking up.
“Once? . . . once! There you are! . . . Once!” he observed, with a hint of indignation.
They were both silent.
“Well, it’s time I was going,” said Viktor, who had already propped himself up on his elbow. . . .
“Wait a little longer,” said Akulina imploringly.
“What for? . . . I’ve already said good-bye to you.”
“Wait,” repeated Akulina.
Viktor lay back again and started to whistle. Akulina still kept her eyes fixed on him. I could see that she was growing more and more agitated: her lips twitched, her pale cheeks were faintly flushed.
“Viktor Alexandrich,” she began, at length, chokingly. “It’s wrong of you . . . it’s wrong, before God, it is.”
“What’s wrong?” he rejoined, scowling, and he lifted himself slightly and turned his head towards her.
“It’s wrong, Viktor Alexandrich. You might at least have had a kind word for me when you’re saying good-bye; you might have had a word for me, poor little orphan that I am . . .”
“What can I say to you?”
“I don’t know; it’s you who should know, Viktor Alexandrich. Here you are, leaving, and not so much as a word. . . . What have I done to deserve it?”
“What a funny girl you are! What else can I do?”
“Only a word . . .”
“Always the same thing,” he said crossly, and got up.
“Don’t be angry, Viktor Alexandrich,” she added hastily, hardly holding in her tears.
“I’m not angry, you’re just such a fool . . . What d’you want? I can’t marry you—can I now? So what else d’you want? What is it?” He looked blank, as if waiting for an answer, and spread out his fingers.
“Nothing . . . I want nothing,” she answered, stammering, and only just daring to stretch her trembling hands out towards him: “Just a word, to say good-bye . . .”
And her tears started streaming down.
“There it is, she’s started to cry,” said Viktor coldly, tilting his cap forward over his eyes.
“I want nothing,” she went on, gulping and covering her face with both hands; “but what will it be like for me at home now, what’ll it be like? What will become of me, poor wretch that I am? They’ll marry me off to someone I don’t love . . . poor, wretched me.”
“Sing away, sing away,” muttered Viktor in a low voice, shifting his position.
“He might have said a word, just one even . . . ‘Akulina,’ he might have said, ‘I . . .’”
Sudden heart-rending sobs prevented her from finishing—she buried her face in the grass and burst into bitter, bitter tears . . . Her whole body shook spasmodically, she raised her head . . . Her long pent-up grief had at last found a way out. Viktor stood over her, stood, shrugged his shoulders, turned, and strode away.
A few moments passed . . . She grew quiet, lifted her head, jumped up, looked around, and threw up her arms: she made as if to run after him, but her legs failed her, and she fell on her knees . . . I could stand it no longer and rushed towards her—but the moment she saw me, goodness knows where she got the strength from, she rose with a faint cry and vanished behind the trees, leaving the flowers scattered on the ground.
I stopped, picked up the bunch of cornflowers and walked out of the wood into the field. The sun stood low in the pale, clear sky, and its rays seemed to have faded and grown cold: they had no radiance; it was an even, almost watery light they distilled. There was only half an hour to nightfall, but the sunset had hardly begun to glow. A gusty wind blew headlong towards me over the parched yellow stubble; tiny, shrivelled leaves, whirling swiftly up before it, flew past across the road, along the edge of the wood; the side of it that abutted like a wall on the field was all shivering and sparkling with a fine glitter that had clarity but no brilliance; on the reddish grass, on blades and straws, everywhere, in glittering festoons, lay countless autumn spiders’ webs. I stopped . . . sadness overcame me; behind the crisp yet cheerless smile of languishing nature, I thought I sensed the gloom and dread of approaching winter. High above me, cutting the air with sharp, heavy wing-strokes, flew a cautious raven: he looked at me with a sideways turn of his head, shot upwards and disappeared, croaking abruptly, behind the wood; a big flock of pigeons, flying gaily from the threshing-floor, suddenly formed up into a pillar and settled swiftly on the field—sure sign of autumn! On the other side of the bare hill, someone was driving by in a loud-rattling, empty cart.
I returned home; but it was some time before poor Akulina’s image went out of my head, and I still have her cornflowers, faded long since.
Prince Hamlet of Shchigrovo
ON ONE OF MY TRAVELS I RECEIVED AN INVITATION TO DINE with a rich landowner and sportsman named Alexander Mikhailich G——. His village lay about five versts away from a small one where I was staying at the time. I put on a tailcoat, without which I advise nobody to travel, even on a shooting trip, and set out for Alexander Mikhailich’s. Dinner was at six o’clock. I arrived at five and found a large number of gentlemen already there in uniform, civilian dress, and other less distinctive attire. My host received me amiably but then ran away at once to the pantry. He was expecting a great Personage and was a prey to a certain agitation, which suited oddly with his wealth and independent situation in the world.
Alexander Mikhailich had never married and disliked women; his parties were of the bachelor type. He lived in great style, had improved and decorated his ancestral halls with magnificence, ordered about 15,000 rubles’ worth of wine from Moscow every year, and in general stood in the highest esteem. He had been in retirement for some considerable time and was not interested in acquiring distinctions. What was it then that impelled him to force his invitation upon this Personage and to spend the day of the great dinner, from dawn onwards, in trepidation? That must remain shrouded in deepest mystery, as a pettifogging lawyer of my acquaintance used to say when asked whether he accepted bribes offered him by voluntary contributors.
After parting from my host, I began to stroll through the rooms. Almost all the guests were complete strangers to me; a score or so were already sitting around the card-tables. Among these amateurs of Preference were two military gentlemen with noble but somewhat worn features, a number of civilian characters with high, tight cravats and those pendulous dyed whiskers which are found only on men of determination but also of the best intentions (these well-intentioned ones picked up their cards with dignity and threw sidelong glances at the passersby without turning their heads); five or six district functionaries with pot-bellies, chubby, sweating hands, and modest, stuffed demeanors (these gentlemen spoke in soft voices, smiled timidly in all directions, held their cards right up against their shirt-fronts, and, when trumping, did not thump the table, but allowed their card to fall with a wavering motion on the green cloth, and collected the trick to the accompaniment of a faint, a very polite and respectful scraping sound). Other gentlemen were sitting on sofas, standing in groups in doorways and beside windows; one landowner, no longer young, but of feminine appearance, was standing in a corner, wincing, blushing, and awkwardly twisting his watch-fob on his stomach, although nobody was paying him any attention; some gentlemen in tail-coats of rounded cut and check trousers, from the hand of the Moscow tailor and master craftsman Firs Klyukhin, were conversing with remarkable briskness and abandon, freely turning the bare and fleshy napes of their necks this way and that; a blond, short-sighted young man of about twenty, in black from head to foot, was smiling sardonically despite his obvious shyness. . . .
I was beginning to get rather bored, when all of a sudden I was joined by one Voinitzin, a student who had never finished his studies and was living in the house of Alexander Mikhailich as . . . it is hard to say exactly what. He was a capital shot and knew how to train a dog. I had known him in Moscow. He was one of those young fellows who at every examination “get lockjaw,” that is, never answer a word when questioned by the indignant professors. Such gentlemen, from their elegance of style, were also known as “whisker-fanciers.” (It is a story of days long passed, as you may have been pleased to observe.) This is what would happen: they would call out, for instance, Voinitzin—Voinitzin, who up till then had been sitting motionless and upright on his bench, bathed from head to foot in warm sweat, and looking slowly but blankly around, would rise hurriedly, button up his tunic, and make his way sideways to the examiners’ table. “Please to take a ticket,” the professor would say to him agreeably. Voinitzin would stretch out a hand and touch the piles of tickets with trembling fingers. “Kindly do not choose,” would say the jarring voice of some strange but irritable old gentleman, a professor from another faculty who had taken a strong dislike to the unhappy whisker-fancier. Voinitzin would submit to his fate, take a ticket, show the number, and go and sit in the window while his predecessor answered his question. In the window Voinitzin would never take his eyes off the ticket, except just to look round slowly as before, but without the slightest movement of any other part of his body. Then they would finish with his predecessor and would be saying to him, “Very well, you can go,” or perhaps, “Good, very good,” according to his abilities. Now they are calling Voinitzin—Voinitzin stands up, and walks across to the table with a firm tread. “Read the ticket,” they tell him. Voinitzin takes the ticket in both hands, lif
ts it right up to his nose, slowly reads it, slowly lowers his hand. “Well, your answer, please,” pronounces the same professor lazily, folding his arms across his chest. A silence of the grave ensues. “Well?” Voinitzin says nothing. The old visiting professor begins to twitch. “Well, say something!” My friend Voinitzin preserves a frozen silence. The close-cropped back of his head sticks up, steep and motionless, under the curious gaze of all his comrades. The eyes of the old visiting professor are ready to pop out of his head: he loathes Voinitzin for good and all. “It’s strange, though,” observes another examiner. “Why stand there as if you were dumb? You don’t know, I suppose? Well say so, then.” “Let me take another ticket,” the poor wretch brings out dully. The professors exchange glances. “Very well,” answers the head examiner, with a movement of his hand. Again Voinitzin takes a ticket, again he goes over to the window, again he returns to the table, and is again smitten with the same silence. The old visiting gentleman is quite ready to eat him up alive. Finally they dismiss him and give him nought. You may think that now at last he will go away? What else could he do? No, he returns to his place, sits motionless until the end of the examination, and, as he leaves, exclaims: “Phew! What a question!” And he walks about Moscow for a whole day, now and then putting his hands to his head and railing bitterly against his ill-starred fate. Needless to say he doesn’t touch a book, and the next morning the same story happens all over again.
This was the Voinitzin who joined me. We talked about Moscow, about shooting.
“Wouldn’t you like me,” he whispered to me suddenly, “to introduce you to our leading local wit?”
“Yes, it would be a pleasure.”
Voinitzin led me up to a short man with a tall tuft of hair and side-whiskers, a brown tail-coat, and a gay cravat. His mobile, bilious-colored features certainly radiated wit and malice. A passing, mordant smile kept twisting his lips; his black, narrowed eyes looked insolently out from beneath straggling lashes. Beside him stood a broad, soft, sugary gentleman—a real Sakhar Medovich*—and one-eyed as well. He was laughing at the little fellow’s sallies in advance and fairly melting with delight. Voinitzin introduced me to the wit, whose name was Pyotr Petrovich Lupikhin. We made each other’s acquaintance and exchanged the opening civilities.
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