City Folk and Country Folk
Page 21
“My respects, Erast Sergeyich,” Father Porphyry rushed to address him. “How is your health here? Are you healthy?”
“It’s hard to say,” Ovcharov replied.
“From what I hear, you’ve been working too hard.”
“Not very. Et votre santé,4 Madame?”
He squeezed Katerina Petrovna’s hand.
“I’m unspeakably tired,” she said. “Shall we breakfast together?”
“I don’t know.”
The crowd disappeared and the genteel society began moving away from the choir stall. Nastasya Ivanovna looked around. Father Porphyry wanted to put the cross away. But suddenly he stopped short. The visitors also stopped short and suddenly everything was quiet.
From the depths of her corner, stepping quietly and meekly, Anna Ilinishna was approaching. She was so solemn that everyone present was dumbstruck. Silently and with eyes downcast, they moved back to clear her path to Father Porphyry.
Anna Ilinishna approached the cross. Something was certainly about to happen.
Suddenly Anna Ilinishna turned to Nastasya Ivanovna.
“Nastasya Ivanovna,” she pronounced in a loud voice, “forgive me for having sinned against you.”
She then bowed deeply before her.
Nastasya Ivanovna winced and turned beet red. She was speechless.
“My dear, what are you doing? What are you doing, my precious?” she spoke, utterly stunned and bending down toward Anna Ilinishna, trembling from head to foot. “Anna Ilinishna…for heaven’s sake! Am I really worthy? This is beyond belief!”
Nastasya Ivanovna’s vision blurred, and everything—the church, the people—began to swim.
“My dear,” she repeated. Anna Ilinishna was still bowing.
“Get some water,” Katerina Petrovna commanded. “Isn’t there a chair?” Commotion set in. The visitors gathered around. Whispering and muffled laughter could be heard. Father Porphyry made the sign of the cross over the congregation and disappeared.
“Anna Ilinishna,” Nastasya Ivanovna repeated. “I, as God is my witness…Get up, please be so kind…”
“Ovcharov, soulevez donc cette pauvre femme,”5 Katerina Petrovna pronounced, also bending down.
“Let’s go, Mama,” Olenka urged. She was beside herself. “Let’s go,” she said, tugging at her mother’s mantilla. “Let’s go!” she repeated and finally, taking her by the arm, dragged her away from the cluster of people.
They walked through the church, Olenka hurrying her mother along. Nastasya Ivanovna was utterly perplexed. Comments were being made behind them and Katerina Petrovna was loudly calling after them. Despite having been invited for breakfast, Father Porphyry left for home. Those who had not been invited and were upset that they had not been invited were further chagrined at the thought that they might miss this spectacle’s conclusion. They continued standing around Anna Ilinishna, hoping to at least get something out of all this. Katerina Petrovna helped her up. Anna Ilinishna, robust, full of injured dignity, straightened her back, brought her handkerchief to her eyes and pronounced, speaking in the wake of the recently departed:
“Here you have my humility! Do you see how they reconcile? I thank you, Katerina Petrovna, and you, Erast Sergeyich. I was sure that such noble souls could never abandon me, and if my cousin saw fit to slander me…But as the Lord is my witness: it is not my fault that they have spurned me.”
“Vraiment cela n’a pas de nom, cette méchanceté,6 and what ignorance,” Katerina Petrovna pronounced. “Let us go, Anna Ilinishna. Calm yourself.”
Anna Ilinishna, still covering her eyes with her handkerchief, allowed herself to be led out of the church. Ovcharov put on his gloves.
“Goodbye, Katerina Petrovna,” he said. He wanted to go home.
“What! You’re not coming with us? Oh, no, no! Come along. I want to see you, come along.”
Ovcharov took her arm, at once eager and reluctant to join her. The picture of him with Katerina Petrovna on one arm and Anna Ilinishna on the other struck him as rather ridiculous. Furthermore, Anna Ilinishna was tearfully showering words of gratitude on Katerina Petrovna and himself, Ovcharov. But the delectability of this “incident” (he had long been deprived of such spectacles) proved irresistible. And most important, he wanted to see Olenka, perhaps explain to her…
Olenka was crossing the pasture with her mother about thirty steps ahead of him. She was furious, her eyes welling with tears, and she was choking with anger.
“This is simply incredible! She disgraced us!” she was saying. “Wherever you look, the whole world is laughing.”
“Olenka, I don’t understand any of it. Why did she do that? And I had no time to say anything to her before you dragged me away. She wanted to make peace. There she is walking with Katerina Petrovna. I will go to her…”
“Don’t you dare!” Olenka exclaimed. “Make peace! She disgraced you, disgraced you in front of everyone you know! Now they’ll call you a villainess! What an angel! Hypocrite! Who prevented her from making her peace at home? No, she’d rather fall to her knees for everyone’s entertainment! Lord, that’s…how can we show our face in public after that!”
“My goodness. You must be right, Olenka,” Nastasya Ivanovna replied, suddenly filled with vigor and indignation. She even came to a halt. Her own feelings, of which she had not been conscious at the time of the catastrophe, suddenly became clear to her and boiled to the surface. “I’m a fool! You’re right. If she had really wanted, truly from the heart…I would have, as God is my witness, embraced her, but this—I’m disgusted with myself, the way I kept fussing, trying to please her, almost as if—Lord forgive me—I’d been led astray by the devil himself.”
“I’ll say, I’m right. They’re all…I don’t even want to say it! Be so good as to look over there. They’re escorting her as if she’s some sort of holy person. And your Erast Sergeyich is supporting her with his goat legs.”
She seized her mother by the shoulders and turned her around.
Indeed, Anna Ilinishna and her assistants, having overtaken mother and daughter by means of a shortcut, were already approaching the steps to the house’s front entrance.
“You see! And that’s not all—there’ll be a scolding in store for you.”
“What for? No, I thank you humbly, I will not give in.”
“We’ll see…Such courage! What’s that? Erast Sergeyich is trying to sneak away!”
Indeed Ovcharov, having accompanied the ladies, was starting to retreat. He was again feeling it would be somehow awkward to go inside.
“No, I’m not letting you get away!” Olenka exclaimed and set off toward him at a run.
“Erast Sergeyich,” she said. “The meat pie is on the table. This is no way to respond to an invitation. Do come in.”
“Thank you,” Ovcharov replied before entering the house.
He was a bit confused. “Is she trying to make up?” he wondered. “Clearly, she didn’t tell either her mother or Katerina Petrovna. She must be trying to make up.” He smiled. “Oh, feminine virtue! That fuss was all for show!”
He entered the room silently, watching Olenka out of the corner of his eye. She was also silent. The look in her eye was terribly sly.
Nastasya Ivanovna soon caught up with them. The poor woman, completely out of breath, was angry that Katerina Petrovna and Anna Ilinishna had shut themselves in the latter’s room; happy that Erast Sergeyevich must not be angry, since he had come; and a bit taken aback by the fact that he wasn’t angry. Fortunately, the food was already on the table.
“Have something to eat, my dear man,” she said. Then, completely forgetting how well-mannered hostesses are supposed to behave and neglecting to offer her guest a seat, in a state of agitation and without uttering another word, she stuck a fork into the steaming pie and quickly began to hack at it.
“I’m not eating, thank you,” Ovcharov said, still standing and holding his hat.
“Ah, well, we should have tea first!”
It was quiet in the room and everything seemed awkward and out of place. Nastasya Ivanovna for some reason pushed back the decanter and moved the sausage to another table.
Finally noticing what she was doing, she pronounced, “Somehow we’re missing the holiday spirit. This isn’t what I expected. Lord only knows what’s going on here.”
“Idiocy, that’s what,” Ovcharov thought. “Our nation’s penance! Wonderful, just wonderful!”
“Olga Nikolayevna,” he said out loud, “How was your visit to Katerina Petrovna?”
“Excellent,” she replied, looking up from her plate, her face gleeful. “Is it really possible to be bored at Katerina Petrovna’s? In any event, I’m never bored.”
“So that’s how it is!” Ovcharov realized, becoming angry. Clearly, she was up to something.
Nastasya Ivanovna, cheered to see that at least the conversation was starting to flow, ran to arrange for tea. Aksinya Mikhailovna soon brought it.
Ovcharov took a cup.
“And Katerina Petrovna?” Nastasya Ivanovna inquired.
“Hasn’t come out yet,” Olenka replied, shrugging her shoulders.
“What on earth is going on in there?” Nastasya Ivanovna turned and looked at the closed door.
“I don’t know. She must like sitting in there, offering consolation. But I’m not going to invite her out, Mama.”
“Why should we?” Nastasya Ivanovna agreed, throwing off her cap in a fit of impatience, her face red. “I’m the hostess. A respectable woman like Katerina Petrovna must know who the hostess is here.”
“Must not be you.”
Just then, Katerina Petrovna entered the room. Someone firmly shut the door behind her.
“Vous êtes ici?”7 she politely addressed Ovcharov. “Nastasya Ivanovna, I must say that your behavior…You must immediately ask the forgiveness of that poor woman.”
“For what, Katerina Petrovna?” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, throwing up her hands.
She took a few aggressive steps toward Katerina Petrovna. With no mincing of words, her anger and the feelings of bitterness and insult she had been harboring burst forth in a flood.
“Ask forgiveness for what? For her having insulted me? No, you may think as you please, but I cannot tolerate that!”
“But she bowed down before you, Nastasya Ivanovna.”
“I don’t believe it. You could bow down yourself and I still wouldn’t believe it! She wanted to disgrace me! I took her in…Lord God above! No, you’d better stop trying to persuade me.”
Katerina Petrovna looked at her with stern contempt.
“Well,” she said, “now I can believe what kind of a life she had in your house, pardon me.”
“What kind of a life? Do you pretend to know my conscience, Katerina Petrovna?”
Tears came to Nastasya Ivanovna’s eyes.
Katerina Petrovna sat down. She bore the countenance of a judge. Ovcharov smiled and headed for the door.
“Oh, no you don’t, Erast Sergeyich,” Nastasya Ivanovna said, catching sight of that smile. “If I’m a fool, then so be it, but I’ll have my say in front of witnesses.”
“What say is it that you wish to have, Nastasya Ivanovna?” Katerina Petrovna asked.
“Despite all my respect for you, Katerina Petrovna, you’ve got me puzzled. You are reproaching me, but if Anna Ilinishna is angry, it’s thanks to you. Who was it that refused to see her and pretended not to know her? Wasn’t it you, Katerina Petrovna? Don’t you remember? It’s since then that everything’s gone to the devil.”
“I?” Katerina Petrovna replied with dignity. “But I have my reasons. And whatever I may know about her that is reprehensible should be no concern of yours…”
“And I had no desire to make it my concern, and see how she’s given her thanks.”
“You could not possibly understand,” insisted Katerina Petrovna. “You should look inward. First of all, you are not capable of understanding, and second, you have no right whatsoever to delve into our quarrels, into our circle.”
“What sort of a thing is that?” Nastasya Ivanovna, who had intently followed her every word, exclaimed. “That means, my dear Katerina Petrovna, that what’s bad for you should be just fine for us little people! What have I done to deserve such a lack of consideration?”
Katerina Petrovna stood up, a bit flustered.
“We are still very considerate,” she began.
“And as far as my feeble reasoning can figure,” Nastasya Ivanovna broke in with a bitter laugh, “you should help little people avoid what you consider bad rather than recommending it to us!”
“And I have been teaching you,” Katerina Petrovna replied, turning red, “but you have so much severity in you, such a stubbornness of the heart, I don’t know how, at your age, you can keep from blushing! And your daughter…It pleases you to smile, Mademoiselle Olga? Very good, good. Believe me: Princess Maria Sergeyevna, whatever falling out she may have had with your cousin, will not take this incident lightly.”
“How is that my concern?” Nastasya Ivanovna replied.
“It’s not your concern? Is it also not your concern that according to the rules of hospitality you are obligated to make allowances for…that Anna Ilinishna, in coming to visit you, was, in any event, doing you an honor, that she is nervous and sickly…”
“Heavens, she’s fit as a fiddle!”
“And finally,” Katerina Petrovna pronounced solemnly, “your stubborn behavior today, the scene you caused, sets a very dangerous example for others, even the peasants. I’ve never seen anything like it, Nastasya Ivanovna!”
“Well, what am I to do?” Nastasya Ivanovna exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “But I will not give in, as God is my witness, I won’t give in to Anna Ilinishna!”
Ovcharov looked at her. The poor gentry woman, with her round, red face and uncorseted figure, with her kanaous dress and mantilla, which had come untied in her agitation, was a hilarious sight, but at the same time she was steadfastly firm, just one step away from being capable of scorn. Ovcharov saw this and was suddenly overcome with rancor.
“If you would allow me a word, Nastasya Ivanovna,” he said. “You really must reconcile with Anna Ilinishna.”
“The peasants!” Nastasya Ivanovna continued, barely glancing at him. “They would never say what you’re saying, Katerina Petrovna. And I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
“Oh, what pride!” Ovcharov began.
She again glanced at him.
“Yes, pride!” Katerina Petrovna exclaimed. “And here Erast Sergeyich will agree with me. We cannot tolerate this. I’ll tell you one last time…”
“Reconcile, Nastasya Ivanovna. That’s my advice as well. It shows such a lack of humility and sets such a poor example.”
Nastasya Ivanovna looked at Ovcharov, and this time very intently.
“I thought you were joking, Erast Sergeyich,” she said.
“I beg your pardon?”
Ovcharov sat up straight in his chair.
“Are you really the one to talk?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Nastasya Ivanovna broke out laughing.
“Wasn’t it you who told me to ‘let the hypocrite suffer’? Oh, enough, my good man! Today you say one thing, tomorrow it’ll be something else! Leave us poor old women to our own affairs!”
Ovcharov reddened and took his hat. Katerina Petrovna shook her head at him slightly. He bowed to Olenka.
“What nonsense!” she whispered coyly. “To leave over such trifles! You should be ashamed of yourself. Everyone knows you’re a joker. Do, please, have a seat.”
She held him back by the sleeve.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Ovcharov began, furious at having lost his composure.
“Wait. I need you to wait. In a word, I’m asking you to stay.”
; “As you wish.”
Katerina Petrovna was walking toward the door.
“You know,” she said, “that I’m not a woman who takes no for an answer.”
“I cannot, Katerina Petrovna. It pains me that you are angry, but I cannot.”
Ovcharov became enraged.
“I’m surprised at Katerina Petrovna! What patience!” he thought. But he did not know that Katerina Petrovna was not in a position to carry her argument through to the end. Indeed, Katerina Petrovna seemed to be thinking better of it.
“You must come to your senses,” she said, walking away from the door. “That woman was kissing my hands just now!”
“Lord above! But they were your hands, not mine!”
“Yours? Nastasya Ivanovna!”
“But I don’t want, I don’t want her to kiss them: they’re no countess’s hands! If I could just be left in peace.”
“Please calm her down.”
“How?”
“Reconcile.”
Nastasya Ivanovna flew into a rage.
“Heavens! Take your Anna Ilinishna if she’s so dear to you!”
Katerina Petrovna opened the door.
“Katerina Petrovna,” Nastasya Ivanovna called out, almost grabbing her by the shoulders. “Forgive me. As God is my witness, I have always respected you. I may be an ignoramus, but this is not easy for me. I can’t part company like this…and Olenka…”
“Yes,” Katerina Petrovna replied, suddenly softening for some reason. “I barely recognize you, Nastasya Ivanovna. And this, after all the efforts I’ve made on your behalf!”
“I’d like to have a few words with you about those efforts, Katerina Petrovna,” Olenka spoke up, so unexpectedly that everyone turned to look at her.
For some time now her face had been burning with indignation. Her thoughts kept returning to what she had overheard at Katerina Petrovna’s. She felt both confusion and outrage. The revulsion she now felt toward Katerina Petrovna and Ovcharov gave her the courage to speak.
“Let’s leave Anna Ilinishna out of this,” she said. “You are leaving, Katerina Petrovna, but I have something to say to you and Erast Sergeyich. I thank you for your matchmaking. I will not marry Semyon Ivanich.”