Katerina Nikolaevna was sitting by the window and “waiting for Tatyana Pavlovna.”
“She’s not here?” she suddenly asked me, as if with worry and vexation, the moment she saw me. Both her voice and her face corresponded so little with my expectations that I simply got mired on the threshold.
“Who’s not here?” I murmured.
“Tatyana Pavlovna! Didn’t I ask you yesterday to tell her I’d call on her at three o’clock?”
“I . . . I haven’t seen her at all.”
“You forgot?”
I sat down as if crushed. So that’s how it turned out! And, above all, everything was as clear as two times two, and I—I still stubbornly believed.
“I don’t even remember your asking me to tell her. And you didn’t; you simply said you’d be here at three o’clock,” I cut her short impatiently. I wasn’t looking at her.
“Ah!” she suddenly cried. “So, if you forgot to tell her, and yet knew yourself that I would be here, so then what did you come here for?”
I raised my head. There was neither mockery nor wrath in her face, there was only her bright, cheerful smile and some sort of additional mischievousness in her expression—her perpetual expression, however—an almost childlike mischievousness. “There, you see, I’ve caught you out. Well, what are you going to say now?” her whole face all but said.
I didn’t want to answer, and again looked down. The silence lasted for about half a minute.
“Are you just coming from papà?” she suddenly asked.
“I’m just coming from Anna Andreevna, and I wasn’t at Prince Nikolai Ivanovich’s at all . . . and you knew that,” I suddenly added.
“Did anything happen to you at Anna Andreevna’s?”
“That is, since I now have such a crazy look? No, I had a crazy look even before Anna Andreevna’s.”
“And you didn’t get smarter at her place?”
“No, I didn’t. Besides, I heard there that you were going to marry Baron Bjoring.”
“Did she tell you that?” she suddenly became interested.
“No, I told her that, and I heard Nashchokin say it to Prince Sergei Petrovich today when he came to visit.”
I still wouldn’t raise my eyes to her; to look at her meant to be showered with light, joy, happiness, and I didn’t want to be happy. The sting of indignation pierced my heart, and in a single instant I made a tremendous decision. Then I suddenly began to speak, I scarcely remember what about. I was breathless and mumbled somehow, but now I looked boldly at her. My heart was pounding. I began talking about something totally unrelated, though maybe it made sense. At first she listened with her steady, patient smile, which never left her face, but, little by little, astonishment and then even alarm flashed in her intent gaze. Her smile still didn’t leave her, but the smile, too, as if trembled at times.
“What’s the matter?” I suddenly asked, noticing that she was all atremble.
“I’m afraid of you,” she replied almost anxiously.
“Why don’t you leave? Look, since Tatyana Pavlovna isn’t here now, and you knew she wouldn’t be, doesn’t that mean you should get up and leave?”
“I wanted to wait, but now . . . in fact . . .”
She made as if to rise.
“No, no, sit down,” I stopped her. “There, you just trembled again, but you smile even when you’re afraid . . . You always have a smile. There, now you’re smiling completely . . .”
“Are you raving?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid . . .” she whispered again.
“Of what?”
“That you’ll . . . start breaking down the walls . . .” She smiled again, but this time indeed timidly.
“I can’t bear your smile! . . .”
And I started talking again. It was just as if I was flying. As if something was pushing me. I had never, never talked with her like that, but always timidly. I was terribly timid now, too, but I went on talking; I remember I began talking about her face.
“I can’t bear your smile anymore!” I suddenly cried. “Why did I imagine you as menacing, magnificent, and with sarcastic society phrases while I was in Moscow? Yes, in Moscow; I talked about you with Marya Ivanovna while I was still there, and we imagined you, how you must be . . . Do you remember Marya Ivanovna? You visited her. As I was coming here, I dreamed of you all night on the train. Before you arrived, I spent a whole month here looking at your portrait in your father’s study, and guessed nothing. The expression of your face is childlike mischievousness and infinite simpleheartedness—there! I’ve marveled at that terribly all the while I’ve been coming to see you. Oh, you know how to look proud and crush one with your gaze. I remember how you looked at me at your father’s when you came from Moscow then . . . I saw you then, and yet if I had been asked then, when I left, what you were like—I wouldn’t have been able to tell. I couldn’t even have said how tall you were. I saw you and just went blind. Your portrait doesn’t resemble you at all: your eyes aren’t dark, but light, and only seem dark because of your long lashes. You’re plump, of average height, but your plumpness is firm, light, the plumpness of a healthy young village girl. And you have a perfect village face, the face of a village beauty—don’t be offended, it’s good, it’s better—a round, ruddy, bright, bold, laughing, and . . . shy face! Really, it’s shy. The shy face of Katerina Nikolaevna Akhmakov! Shy and chaste, I swear! More than chaste—childlike!—that’s your face! I’ve been struck all this while, and all this while I’ve asked myself: is this that woman? I know now that you’re very intelligent, but in the beginning I thought you were a bit simple. Your mind is gay, but without any embellishments . . . Another thing I like is that the smile never leaves you; that’s my paradise! I also like your calmness, your quietness, and that you articulate your words smoothly, calmly, and almost lazily—I precisely like that laziness. It seems that if a bridge collapsed under you, even then you’d say something smooth and measured . . . I imagined you as the height of pride and passion, yet you’ve talked with me these two whole months like student to student . . . I never imagined your forehead was like that: it’s slightly low, as in statues, but it’s white and delicate as marble under your fluffy hair. You have a high bosom, a light step, you’re of extraordinary beauty, yet you have no pride at all. I’ve come to believe it only now, I didn’t believe it before!”
She listened wide-eyed to this whole wild tirade; she saw that I was trembling myself. She raised her gloved little hand several times in a sweet, cautious gesture, so as to stop me, but each time withdrew it in perplexity and fear. Now and then she even recoiled quickly with her whole body. Two or three times a smile glimmered again on her face; one time she blushed very much, but in the end she was decidedly frightened and began to turn pale. As soon as I paused, she reached out her hand and said in a sort of pleading but still smooth voice:
“You cannot speak like that . . . it’s impossible to speak like that . . .”
And she suddenly got up from her place, unhurriedly taking her scarf and sable muff.
“You’re going?” I cried.
“I’m decidedly afraid of you . . . you abuse . . .” she drew out as if with regret and reproach.
“Listen, by God, I won’t break down any walls.”
“But you’ve already started,” she couldn’t help herself and smiled. “I don’t even know if you’ll let me pass.” And it seemed she truly was afraid that I wouldn’t let her go.
“I’ll open the door for you myself, you can go, but know this: I’ve made a tremendous decision; and if you want to give light to my soul, come back, sit down, and listen to just two words. But if you don’t want to, then go, and I myself will open the door for you.”
She looked at me and sat down.
“With what indignation another woman would have left, but you sat down!” I cried in ecstasy.
“You never allowed yourself to talk like this before.”
“I was always timid before. Now, to
o, I walked in not knowing what to say. Do you think I don’t feel timid now? I do. But I suddenly made a tremendous decision, and I feel I’ll carry it out. And as soon as I made this decision, I lost my mind at once and began saying all that . . . Listen, here are my two words: am I your spy or not? Answer me—there’s the question!”
Color quickly poured over her face.
“Don’t answer yet, Katerina Nikolaevna, but listen to everything and then tell me the whole truth.”
I broke all the barriers at once and flew off into space.
II
“TWO MONTHS AGO I stood here behind the curtain . . . you know . . . and you were talking with Tatyana Pavlovna about the letter. I ran out, beside myself, and said too much. You knew at once that I knew something . . . you couldn’t help understanding . . . you were looking for an important document and were apprehensive about it . . . Wait, Katerina Nikolaevna, hold off from speaking yet. I declare to you that there were grounds for your suspicions: this document exists . . . that is, it did . . . I saw it; it’s your letter to Andronikov, right?”
“You saw that letter?” she asked quickly, embarrassed and agitated. “Where did you see it?”
“I saw it . . . I saw it at Kraft’s . . . the one who shot himself . . .”
“Really? You saw it yourself? What happened to it?”
“Kraft tore it up.”
“In your presence? You saw it?”
“In my presence. He tore it up, probably, before his death . . . I didn’t know then that he was going to shoot himself . . .”
“So it’s destroyed, thank God!” she said slowly, with a sigh, and crossed herself.
I didn’t lie to her. That is, I did lie, because the document was with me and had never been with Kraft, but that was merely a detail, while in the main thing I didn’t lie, because the moment I lied, I promised myself to burn the letter that very evening. I swear, if I’d had it in my pocket at that moment, I’d have taken it out and given it to her; but I didn’t have it with me, it was at home. However, maybe I wouldn’t have given it to her, because I would have been very ashamed to confess to her then that I had it and that I had been watching her for so long, waiting and not giving it to her. It’s all one: I’d have burned it at home in any case, and I wasn’t lying! I was pure at that moment, I swear.
“And if so,” I went on, almost beside myself, “then tell me, did you attract me, treat me nicely, receive me, because you suspected I had knowledge of the document? Wait, Katerina Nikolaevna, don’t speak for one more little minute, but let me finish everything. All the while I’ve been visiting you, all this time I’ve suspected that you were being nice to me only in order to coax this letter out of me, to drive me to a point where I’d confess . . . Wait one more minute: I suspected, but I suffered. Your duplicity was unbearable for me, because . . . because in you I found the noblest of beings! I’ll say it straight out, straight out: I was your enemy, but in you I found the noblest of beings! Everything was vanquished at once. But the duplicity, that is, the suspicion of duplicity, tormented me . . . Now everything must be resolved, must be explained, the time has come; but wait a little more, don’t speak, learn how I myself look at all this, precisely now, at the present moment. I’ll say it straight out: even if it was so, I won’t be angry . . . that is, I meant to say—won’t be offended, because it’s all so natural, I do understand. What could be unnatural and bad here? You’re suffering over a letter, you suspect that so-and-so knows everything, why, then you might very well wish that so-and-so would speak . . . There’s nothing bad in that, nothing at all. I say it sincerely. But all the same I need you to tell me something now . . . to confess (forgive me the word). I need the truth. For some reason I need it! And so, tell me, were you being nice to me just to coax the document out of me . . . Katerina Nikolaevna!”
I spoke as if I were plunging down, and my forehead was burning. She listened to me without alarm now; on the contrary, there was feeling in her face, but she looked somehow shy, as if ashamed.
“Just for that,” she said slowly and softly. “Forgive me, I was to blame,” she suddenly added, raising her hands towards me slightly. I had never expected that. I had expected anything but those words, even from her whom I already knew.
“And you say to me, ‘I’m to blame!’ Straight out like that: ‘I’m to blame!’” I cried.
“Oh, long ago I began to feel that I was to blame before you . . . and I’m even glad that it’s come out now . . .”
“Felt it long ago? Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“I didn’t know how to say it,” she smiled. “That is, I did know,” she smiled again, “but I somehow came to feel ashamed . . . because, actually, in the beginning I ‘attracted’ you, as you put it, only for that, but then very soon it became disgusting to me . . . and I was tired of all this pretending, I assure you!” she added with bitter feeling. “And of all this fuss as well!”
“And why, why wouldn’t you ask then in a direct way? You should have said, ‘You know about the letter, why are you pretending?’ And I’d have told you everything at once, I’d have confessed at once!”
“I was . . . a little afraid of you. I confess, I also didn’t trust you. And it’s true: if I was sly, you were, too,” she added with a smile.
“Yes, yes, I was unworthy!” I cried, astounded. “Oh, you don’t know yet all the abysses of my fall!”
“Well, now it’s abysses! I recognize your style.” She smiled quietly. “That letter,” she added sadly, “was the saddest and most thoughtless act of my life. The awareness of that act has always been a reproach to me. Under the influence of circumstances and apprehensions, I doubted my dear, magnanimous father. Knowing that this letter might fall . . . into the hands of wicked people . . . having all the grounds for thinking so,” she added hotly, “I trembled for fear they might make use of it, show it to papà . . . and it might make an extreme impression on him . . . in his state . . . on his health . . . and he would stop loving me . . . Yes,” she added, looking brightly into my eyes and probably catching something in my gaze, “yes, I also feared for my own lot: I feared that he . . . under the influence of his illness . . . might also deprive me of his favor . . . That feeling was also part of it, but here I’m probably to blame before him, too: he’s so kind and magnanimous that he would of course have forgiven me. That’s all there was. But the way I acted with you—that should not have happened,” she concluded, suddenly abashed again. “You make me feel ashamed.”
“No, you have nothing to be ashamed of !” I cried.
“I was actually counting . . . on your ardor . . . and I admit it,” she said, lowering her eyes.
“Katerina Nikolaevna! Who, tell me, who is forcing you to make such confessions to me aloud?” I cried as if drunk. “Well, what would it have cost you to stand up and prove to me, like two times two, in the choicest expressions and in the subtlest way, that while it did happen, all the same it didn’t happen—you understand, the way you people in high society know how to manage the truth? I’m crude and stupid, I’d have believed you at once, I’d have believed anything you said! It wouldn’t have cost you anything to do that, would it? You’re not really afraid of me! How could you have humiliated yourself so willingly before an upstart, before a pathetic adolescent?”
“In this at least I haven’t humiliated myself before you,” she uttered with extreme dignity, evidently not understanding my exclamation.
“Oh, on the contrary, on the contrary! That’s just what I’m shouting! . . .”
“Ah, it was so bad and so thoughtless on my part!” she exclaimed, raising her hand to her face and as if trying to cover herself with it. “I was already ashamed yesterday, that’s why I was so out of sorts when you were sitting with me . . . The whole truth is,” she added, “that my circumstances have now come together in such a way that I absolutely needed, finally, to know the whole truth about the fate of that unfortunate letter, otherwise I had already begun to forget about it . . . because
I didn’t receive you only on account of that,” she added suddenly.
My heart trembled.
“Of course not,” she smiled with a subtle smile, “of course not! I . . . You remarked on it very aptly earlier, Arkady Makarovich, that you and I often talked as student to student. I assure you that I’m sometimes very bored with people; it has become especially so after the trip abroad and all those family misfortunes . . . I even go out very little now, and not only from laziness. I often want to leave for the country. I could reread my favorite books there, which I set aside long ago, otherwise I can’t find time to read them. Remember, you laughed that I read Russian newspapers, two newspapers a day?”
“I didn’t laugh . . .”
“Of course, because it stirred you in the same way, but I confessed to you long ago: I’m Russian, and I love Russia. You remember, we kept reading the ‘facts,’ as you called them” (she smiled). “Though very often you’re somehow . . . strange, yet you sometimes became so animated that you were always able to say an apt word, and you were interested in precisely what interested me. When you’re a ‘student,’ you really are sweet and original. But other roles seem little suited to you,” she added with a lovely, sly smile. “You remember, we sometimes spent whole hours talking about nothing but figures, counting and estimating, concerned about the number of schools we have and where education is headed. We counted up the murders and criminal cases, made comparisons with the good news . . . wanted to know where it was all going and what, finally, would happen with us ourselves. I met with sincerity in you. In society they never talk with us women like that. Last week I tried to talk with Prince ——v about Bismarck, because it interested me very much, but I couldn’t make up my own mind, and, imagine, he sat down beside me and began telling me, even in great detail, but all of it with some sort of irony, and precisely with that condescension I find so unbearable, with which ‘great men’ usually speak to us women when we meddle in what is ‘not our business’ . . . And do you remember how you and I nearly quarreled over Bismarck? You were proving to me that you had an idea of your own that went ‘way beyond’ Bismarck’s,” she suddenly laughed. “I’ve met only two people in my life who have talked quite seriously with me: my late husband, a very, very intelligent and . . . noble man,” she said imposingly, “and then—you yourself know who . . .”
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