Olenka regarded him with a mixture of amusement and pique.
“Is that ox in love with me,” she wondered, “or does he just want my fifty souls? Doesn’t he have a tongue of his own, offering me his heart and hand through his gracious patroness? When will he speak for himself? Do you, perhaps, think I’m so meek you can get me to the altar just like that?”
“Excellent kvass,” remarked Katerina Petrovna, listening in on the conversation. Her ears picked up everything going on around her. The betrothed were sitting on either side of her. “And have you learned how to prepare it, Mademoiselle Olga?”
“No, I haven’t,” Olenka replied. In point of fact, her kvass was every bit as good as Aksinya Mikhailovna’s.
“That’s not good. You must learn. Simon loves kvass.”
“What’s that to me?” Olenka wanted to say, but kept quiet.
Another opportunity to “have it out” was missed that very afternoon. Katerina Petrovna was reading a book in her room. Through her open door, she could see Simon silently walking back and forth, smoking a cigarette. Olenka was in a hurry to go out into the garden.
“Where is my Garibaldi hat?” she said, searching in every corner of the room. The hat was nowhere to be seen. George had made off with it, putting it on his head and setting out into the fields.
“Oh, goodness. Where is it?” she repeated.
“What seems to be the trouble, Olga Nikolayevna?” Simon asked, approaching her.
“My hat. Look for it, please.”
“I saw Yegor Petrovich with it.”
“Oh, take it from him, take it from him,” Olenka exclaimed in horror. “Since morning he’s been threatening to catch frogs in it!”
Simon made his way down the steps with Olenka running behind him. Katerina Petrovna looked out the window.
“Simon,” she called out.
Olenka turned around.
“Just a moment,” she responded.
“Simon,” Katerina Petrovna repeated. Simon, however, was far away. Olenka, after taking a few hundred steps under the baking sun, was hurrying back to the shade, trying to shield her head with her hand. An angry Katerina Petrovna was by now standing on the terrace.
“Where did you send Simon off to?”
“One moment. He’s just getting my hat.”
“But I need him. I have been calling…”
“He’ll be back any moment.”
“But I have been calling him for a while now. I need him. Ce n’est pas du tout poli, mademoiselle.2 You are taking him away for your trifles, when the lady of the house…You’ll have your chance, ma chère, to send him after your hats.”
“What do I need him for? You can have him!” Olenka wanted to say. But the warning about politesse and the majesty with which Katerina Petrovna conducted herself in her own apartments robbed her of her courage.
That evening there was a thunderstorm and the family read Journal des Demoiselles out loud. That is to say, Annette read. George snored on the divan. Simon, not understanding French, left for the drawing room and read the 1849 edition of the provincial almanac.3
The next day even more opportunities presented themselves.
Toward evening, after spending the entire day sitting in her room with Simon, Katerina Petrovna was preparing to take a bath. Olenka encountered her hostess leaving her room with the maid and was overcome with the most ridiculous laughter. Katerina Petrovna was wearing a lace-trimmed, tight-fitting, yellowed housecoat and a round child’s mobcap, which was pulled tight over her ears. The distinguished noblewoman looked worse than Aksinya Mikhailovna. Olenka imagined how lovely Katerina Petrovna would look if her hair dye started to run. This was all so funny to her that she cheered up. In this cheerful mood, looking around and seeing that she was alone except for Simon, who was walking along the garden path, she called to him.
“Semyon Ivanich! Come here.”
It was not that she was after any sort of declaration of love or confession of his feelings. She also had no desire to quarrel with him. She simply wanted to finally take a closer look at this fellow and have herself a bit of fun.
“Come here. Let’s run a bit. Let’s chase each other and see who can catch whom.”
“As you wish,” Simon replied eagerly.
She started running. Simon set out after her, his legs all a tangle, diligently panting, earnest, and crimson in the face, his arms flailing in his vain attempts to catch hold of her dress. Olenka just glanced back from time to time. “I’ll keep running, even if it kills me,” she told herself, tears of laughter cascading down her scarlet cheeks. She ran for an entire hour.
Suddenly she let out a cry and stopped short. A piece of broken glass had cut through her shoe.
“Come here, give me your hand,” she called. “I’ve hurt my foot.”
Simon came running, sat her down on the lawn, and bent down to inspect her shoe.
“You’d better take it off, Olga Nikolayevna,” he said.
“Oh no, go away, leave me be,” she said, suddenly pushing him away. “Leave me be.”
She managed to remove the glass and, limping a little, made her way to the house. It had escaped her attention that for some time Katerina Petrovna had been observing her performance through the bedroom window, lifting a corner of the curtain that concealed her négligé bathing attire.
“Venez ici,4 Mademoiselle,” she said.
Olenka came.
“I want to give you a piece of advice,” Katerina Petrovna began, hiding the agitated expression on her face behind the mirror she was holding and a towel, which also served to muffle the irritation in her voice. “You are allowing Simon too early to…in a word, it simply isn’t done. Excessive tenderness, ma bien chère enfant5…excessive tenderness and flirtatiousness—this spoils them. Do not allow him to be so obliging yet. Later on it will lead to him becoming cold. Take a lesson in feminine wisdom from me.”
Katerina Petrovna started laughing.
“Allez,”6 she concluded, since she had dried herself with the towel all she could.
Olenka left the room. Katerina Petrovna put on her housedress. Shortly thereafter Olenka heard Simon being summoned.
The door shut behind him. It was growing dark in the house. Tired from running, Olenka sat down in an easy chair and started to doze. She woke to the sound of raised voices coming from behind the closed doors. Katerina Petrovna’s voice became increasingly distinct and louder, and her words came faster and faster. Olenka stood up and went to the window. The open bedroom window was next to her own. An argument was clearly in progress.
Olenka was curious. She would have given a great deal to know what Katerina Petrovna was scolding Simon about. While she had no qualms about listening in, the words that reached her were, unfortunately, indistinct. Only from Katerina Petrovna’s tone was Olenka able to conclude that she was both asking for something and venting her anger, while Simon was merely angry. At one point she clearly heard, “You yourself know that your only choice is for me to get married,” and then, “It won’t be the same…” spoken by Katerina Petrovna, and finally, “I give you my word, exactly the same, but give me a little freedom,” pronounced by Simon.
Olenka listened no further. But something had struck her. Something seemed particularly vile to her. “The two of you can hang yourselves for all I care; I won’t even look at you!” she said, walking away. The window closed.
That evening Katerina Petrovna came out into the parlor very late and was very gracious. Simon went upstairs, complaining about an aching tooth. The family gathered and read. The next day, early in the morning, Katerina Petrovna and Olenka set out for Snetki.
Sitting in the carriage and looking at her situation from all angles, Olenka pronounced herself “the stupidest of all stupid fools.”
“How could I let it go on like this, without saying a single word! But today I’ll put an end to it! Nothing will stop me!”
As to Ovcharov, she had not given him a moment’s thought the entire fou
r days.
1. French: English embroidery, a technique involving the use of eyelets to create elaborate, often floral, patterns, usually on white undergarments. It was extremely popular in mid-nineteenth-century Europe.
2. French: This is hardly polite; young lady.
3. Beginning in the mid-1830s, many provinces of the Russian Empire published Pamiatnye knizhki (Memorial Notebooks) as references containing practical information and statistics, including about the local government, economy, nobility, agriculture, and weather patterns.
4. French: Come here.
5. French: My very dear child.
6. French: Go.
Katerina Petrovna went straight to the church as soon as they arrived. The bells were already summoning the parishioners to mass. Olenka ran to the house to change her clothes. She came across her mother in the maid’s room. Dressed in colorful kanaous1 and surrounded by trays and plates with cheeses and sausages brought from town, Nastasya Ivanovna was putting on her cap. Aksinya Mikhailovna, in her holiday best, was fussing over some new teacups and spoons that had been unpacked from a chest for this occasion. In the kitchen, a giant meat pie was just about ready to come out of the oven.
“Greetings, my little friend,” Nastasya Ivanovna said as she kissed her daughter. “Say: praise the Lord!”
Nastasya Ivanovna relayed the news about Anna Ilinishna.
“It’s about time she came to her senses!” Olenka exclaimed.
“Now then, what about Katerina Petrovna? What about the young man? How have you settled the matter?”
Nastasya Ivanovna was a bit flustered. She was given the balyk2 to cut as Palashka walked up with a parasol. The church bells had already stopped ringing.
“It’s not settled. I couldn’t.”
“But how can that be? Katerina Petrovna will surely bring it up today…Listen…I’m not sure our coffee’s any good. And what if Erast Sergeyich stops by? He doesn’t eat sausage.”
“He won’t stop by!” Olenka said.
“Why’s that?”
Nastasya Ivanovna stopped what she was doing.
“No reason. After all, he never visits us.”
“No, he was here while you were gone. But I don’t think he’ll be coming anymore.”
Now it was Olenka’s turn to pause and look at her mother. In a state of confusion, Nastasya Ivanovna was untying and retying her cap.
“He came…Well, we had a little talk. I think he’s angry with me.”
“What for?” Olenka asked, burning with curiosity. “No need to hurry so, we still have time.”
“The very next morning after he got back from Katerina Petrovna’s he came to see me. He talked about the match and went on about what a fine young man he is and so forth. Well, and he was trying to talk me into marrying you off to the fellow. And I said: What? And force you, if you don’t want to? And we argued. And he lost his temper. And I’m so sad about it, Olya.”
Olenka was choking with anger. She had wanted to interrupt Nastasya Ivanovna several times, but held back.
“Fine,” was all she said. “Fine!”
Her face was scarlet.
“Fine, Erast Sergeyich! Invite him without fail, Mama. Do you hear? Without fail.”
“What’s wrong with you Olya?”
“There’s nothing wrong with me. Do you hear? Invite him. And don’t you dare not invite him…What are you standing there for? The service has already begun.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be right there. Let me change my dress. My clothes are a mess,” Olenka replied. She then burst out laughing at the sight of her stupefied mother. “What are you looking so frightened about? Invite Erast Sergeyich, I tell you. I’m not going to hit him.”
And, laughing heartily, she ran up to her room.
The church was full, but there was not much of what is commonly referred to as “genteel society.” Father Porphyry’s entire flock was there, as were many members of a nearby parish whose church was being refurbished. The “ungenteel” society was as colorful as a field of poppies. Red cotton dresses, blue printed fabrics, colorful scarves, and the old women’s white kerchiefs covered every inch from the entrance to the pulpit. The crowd was quite spruced up. Ever since last year, that is, since emancipation, our peasant men, especially those living near towns, have become quite the dandies. The smell of new, freshly blacked boots, in which even some of the younger lads were stamping about, overwhelmed the smell of incense. The incense was excellent, specially scented—that’s the way Father Porphyry liked it at his holiday celebrations. He and the deep-voiced deacon who had been brought in for the occasion both wore beautiful chasubles—not bright, but of an exquisite pale blue color like a summer sky. Boys trained in church singing were warbling like nightingales, albeit quite off key. The weather was magnificent, the sun was shimmering, the church looked both solemn and festive, and the congregation was praying with fervor. Nastasya Ivanovna’s servants were standing behind their mistress, but at a respectful distance. There, in all her splendor, stood Palashka, her hair smoothed with pomade and enclosed in a tasseled hairnet given to her for her efforts by Anna Ilinishna. She wore a new pink chintz dress, a present from her mistress, and Olenka’s old crinoline. Olenka was standing near her mother. She had dressed hastily but in a way that might be described as “to the nines.” Never before had she looked so pretty, or so angry. Ovcharov was not there. Across from Olenka, by the right-hand choir stall, Katerina Petrovna was kneeling on her own little rug and clutching a prayer book. Her footman stood behind his mistress holding her burnous. A newly arrived neighbor was also there, as were an elderly noblewoman, rather malicious looking, with her son, a retired officer who lost a leg in the Crimean campaign, her young daughter-in-law, and two unappealing grandchildren; a former district judge (who always spent the winter season in town among the female guardians of public morality), accompanied by his thirty-year-old daughter; a student with no family home to go to who was spending his vacation living with the area’s peasants to study their mores; and, finally, an impoverished landowner who held no government post (he had stayed sober for mass and was eagerly awaiting Nastasya Ivanovna’s pie). All of them were Nastasya Ivanovna’s acquaintances. She was pondering how she would invite them all, whether or not that was appropriate given Katerina Petrovna’s presence, whether or not anything would be said about the match, and then, whether Erast Sergeyevich…But all these ruminations vanished like wisps of smoke when she turned to look in the corner. There, almost at the very exit near the side-chapel that was heated all winter, stood Anna Ilinishna. The beating of Nastasya Ivanovna’s heart sounded an alarm. She was unable to pray. Her terror was such that she had not dared keep watch for the exact moment of Anna Ilinishna’s arrival, had not dared so as to maintain her dignity in public. Once or twice their eyes met. Olenka shook her head at her mother. There was something threatening and mysterious about Anna Ilinishna, or at least that’s how it appeared to Nastasya Ivanovna—God only knows. Anna Ilinishna was in a tight black dress, an old black mantilla fastened right under her chin, and a white traveling cap, into which all her hair had been haphazardly stuffed. She stood quietly and meekly, unseen by those around her, regarded only by a single pair of anxious eyes. Near her the bells were ringing for the collection. Anna Ilinishna mournfully bowed her cap, like someone who could not possibly have a kopek. Only once did she stir, allowing someone to pass, but with such servility that it looked as if she wanted to melt into the wall. That someone was Ovcharov.
He had heard the call to mass just as he was getting ready for his walk. The bells had been ringing so long and the sacristan had performed such odd trills that Ovcharov noticed in spite of himself.
“Is today a holiday by any chance?” he asked the servant.
“Indeed it is. Katerina Petrovna is here, and others have come for the holiday. Nastasya Ivanovna passed by, and Olga Nikolayevna, too.”
Ovcharov was putting on his coat, but threw it aside.
“Prepare my frock coat and hat,” he said, after a moment’s thought.
In the meantime he sat down to work on his article for the people. After an hour, having crossed out most of what he’d written, he got dressed.
The service was almost over when Ovcharov entered the church. The altar stand had been placed before the royal doors.3 Father Porphyry was preparing to deliver the sermon.
As already mentioned, Father Porphyry did not like delivering sermons, but on saints’ days he had no choice. He had put great effort into this sermon, motivated in part by a certain innocent design.
Out he stepped. Suddenly before him, among the shaggy beards of the peasantry, one European beard and a pair of squinting eyes caught his notice. Father Porphyry took a look and became happily embarrassed. Why not admit it? Father Porphyry had had Erast Sergeyevich in mind when he composed his sermon. He would hear it, have some things to say about it, and then they would become acquainted. He spoke with both fear and longing; he looked and thought and—poor sinner that he was!—toward the end, worked in a bit of modernity and enlightenment, something nobody expected.
Ovcharov listened to the entire sermon, but whether or not he approved was hard to tell. Mass and the following service were concluded; the crowd streamed toward the cross and then began to stream away. Ovcharov moved to the front of the church, searching for Olenka. The mistress of Snetki was there along with the visitors, waiting for the crowds to subside. He ran into Nastasya Ivanovna. She was as white as a sheet.
“Please come over for breakfast, Erast Sergeyich. Katerina Petrovna, please come for breakfast; Father Porphyry…” she said, her eyes searching in the corner near the side-chapel.
Olenka was taken aside by another young lady bearing news of some officers who had caused a scene in the town’s public gardens. The student left with a pair of peasants. The elderly landowner was making sure that her grandchildren took communion and bundling them into their little overcoats. Her daughter-in-law and son were discussing in whispers whether or not to linger a bit longer, as they were probably about to be invited. With the cross in one hand, Father Porphyry was giving communion with the other to the district judge over the head of Palashka, who was walking by. Ovcharov was standing right there.
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