No, he must brace himself! How much more noble it would be to tell her himself, straight out, and be rid of secrecy once and for all!
He remembered fleetingly the story he had heard on the train—how Zinaida, from Tambov, had made her engineer tell his wife everything at the very beginning. And how, there on the train, when it had no relevance at all to him, he had thought her behavior only right.
Right, yes. But was it the conventional thing? The conventional thing in such situations had always been to lie. But why? How much easier your conscience would be if you told the truth and stood up straight again. Surely one human being was capable of telling another the truth?
His feelings had brought him to the brink of confession, but he might not have gotten around to it. If they had left for the city perhaps nothing would have happened. But as it was, locked in by bad weather even more securely than yesterday, with Alina relentlessly questioning him, and realizing that any moment now they would be going to bed together …
His tongue could not utter it, he could not find words, and there was another stumbling block. What had she done to deserve all this? She was less to blame than anyone—yet she must bear the brunt.
But he had to tell her.
There was no change of expression in Alina’s eyes—neither “Go on, go on!” nor “Stop, I don’t want to know!” They only opened wider, and took it all in. Her quick, clever gray eyes, always so understanding.
He in turn directed his full gaze on his wife (he could still see his sword on the wall out of the corner of his eye).
She did not cry out. No emotion contorted her features. There was no puckering of the brow even.
She was smiling! Her lips were parted in a smile of incomprehension.
You mean you …? You mean she …?
That Alina did not jump up, did not cry out, did not rage at him, pierced Georgi to the quick. Suddenly she was so dear to him that the estrangement of the last twenty-four hours was forgotten. He moved to sit beside her, on her bed, and smoothed the ends of her hair on her temple.
“But it doesn’t mean that I have stopped loving you. It doesn’t mean that at all.”
Good God, could it really be over with so little fuss? Could sensible women really be made to understand things as simply as this?
Alina bent away from him, slowly, gently, until her head was resting on the pillow.
His hand could still reach her. He stroked her shoulder. Her hair was freshly curled. A new, quite new tenderness toward his wife flooded his being. And gratitude that she could understand. What a woman! What lofty feelings they could share!
A tender reconciliation seemed to steal over them, like a protective shadow.
She wept. But quietly, unprotestingly. No sobs, no reproaches.
“But did it have to be Petersburg?” Alina suddenly complained, in a thin, almost childlike voice. “The city where you and I were so happy together? Which has so many memories for us?”
In the soothing silence he felt all at once such relief, such relief, such an easing of body and soul—as if the woman lying beside him was one he had fought ten years to win, and now at last … How dearly he loved her again! The deadness he had felt last night, and today, might never have been.
“Was it… very nice for you being with her?” Alina asked, not even in a whisper, in a mere breath.
“Yes, very,” Georgi answered honestly, simply.
“Just—that way, or generally?”
“Well, yes, generally. She’s so lively.”
Alina lay there without speaking, eyes closed, for a long time. He moved even closer to her, tenderly stroked her temple, touched her delicately shaped ear, the youthfully smooth skin of her cheek.
She was exquisite.
It was so quiet in their room that they could hear every breath of wind outside, and the sloppy fumbling of the sleet at the windows.
“What do you mean by generally?” Alina whispered, without opening her eyes. “Does she play the piano?”
“No,” Georgi answered calmly, quietly. “But she talks very interestingly about music, she has a discerning taste. She’s generally clever, with a broad education.” He should not have gone on talking about Olda, but he was carried away. “She’s complicated. Highly charged. Doesn’t give way too easily to prevailing opinion. She has such deep-rooted, independent ideas about history, about society …”
He was praising her so freely to defend and justify himself. Alina liked clever people, and Olda was so brilliant! Even another woman could not help being enchanted by her. How easy, how loving life on earth would be if only people were a little more understanding, a little more tolerant, a little readier to make allowances for one another.
“Who is she?” Alina asked, in the same quiet, caressing voice, opening her eyes, but not seeing his.
That was something Georgi hadn’t thought of. He hadn’t expected to be asked straight out, and so soon, who she was. But then he hadn’t expected Alina to take it so meekly, to show such an honest desire to understand. Now that he’d started he would have to name her sooner or later. So why not now? When to speak her name aloud would be music to his ears.
But for some reason it stuck in his throat. Something prevented him from saying it.
From her pillow, Alina, now dry-eyed, turned a calm, deep, searching look on him.
He lowered his eyes.
She must have looked away. She lay there without a sound, her cheek against the pillow.
And, following his own train of thought, he said out loud, “Alochka! I’ve never for a moment thought of leaving you … I don’t … But I … I can’t really …”
He absentmindedly stroked the roll of hair at the back of her head.
She raised her head again. No trace of tears! Nothing could make her cry today! Her proud face was burning. Her half-closed eyes were tense.
“Tell me,” she said, “does Vera know?”
He suppressed a shudder. A completely unexpected question. Vera did know, of course, and understood, although it had never been mentioned directly. She knew! But—it cut him to the quick—this was something he could not tell Alina! Just when he had begun to revel in his truthfulness he suddenly had to renounce it, to start lying, start quickly, and make it sound convincing with that interrogating gaze upon him.
“No,” he said, boldly, firmly, “how could you think so? Of course she doesn’t!”
Well, if it had never been directly mentioned, she didn’t know, and he was right. He had told her a bigger truth—surely she could believe his half-truth?
Did she?
He broke into a sweat. He was trapped. This was where telling the truth got you.
She sat up slowly, and said austerely, “Well … it’s better that way. It’s better than the unfeelingness I thought I saw in you lately.”
Then, deliberately: “I’m glad for you.”
There was silence throughout the guesthouse. Profound silence. The fires had been banked, the pokers had rattled their last, the stove door had been slammed with one final cast-iron clang. There was no more shuffling in the corridor.
The steady stream of water drumming on the tin window ledge outside could be heard all the more clearly. The snow must be thawing as it fell.
In the same toneless voice she said, “Go outside while I get ready for bed.”
He showed his surprise.
With the look of a woman much older and wiser than he was, she explained, without anger, sounding almost friendly: “With you there I used to behave as if I was by myself. But it won’t be like that anymore.”
[53]
She felt like a small child. The disaster that had crashed down upon her was so huge, so merciless that her childish hands lacked strength to lift it off her or to claw out from under it: she had so longed for things to go well, for a nice smooth, comfortable sunlit life, and suddenly disaster had come crashing down on her and crushed everything.
Worst of all, this was the side of things which she never want
ed even to talk about, it would be shaming, demeaning, improper, and now it had so ruthlessly forced itself upon her. Making it impossible to exist only for the higher things in life.
Tears flowed gently, copiously.
What was she to do? How was she to behave? There is never anyone to ask: you cannot bring yourself to admit ignorance.
She had been deposed from her pedestal. She was no longer the Incomparable! No longer his One and Only!
Her tears were shed for the sweet life that was over, that could never be restored to its former self. Even the morsel of happiness left to her that morning, modest and subdued as it was, had gone, never to return.
The day had begun so well—and look how it had ended! The wreckage had been there to see yesterday but Alina had not realized it. Since morning she had tried so hard to be cheerful, to forgive him, to mend the broken cup with tiny patches, so that she could drink her birthday happiness from it. She had taken such pains all her life to create conditions for love, and it had been the same today. How eagerly she had hurried to the lake, into the woods, like a winged creature!
Who would have thought he had it in him? His feelings were so atrophied—was he actually capable of a Great Love?
The tears poured down—and outside the heavens too were weeping. Weeping inconsolably, lashing the windows with their tears.
She had ceased to be his Pearl, his Meadow Dewdrop!
Others would inevitably notice and understand—how could it possibly be concealed? His unfaithfulness would make it plain to all that she was no longer “the best of best wives.”
He did not even realize what it was that he had destroyed! How he would yet regret it! And that he would never find a replacement for what had been!
Vera did know, of course—Georgi had lied. Vera must have seen something, or made a very good guess—it was something she couldn’t help noticing.
It would creep all around Petersburg, find its way to Moscow, reach her own mother and the people at Borisoglebsk—that was a thought she couldn’t bear! To be seen as a deserted wife? How could she possibly survive such a humiliation?
And … on the other side … what did it amount to? A flare-up? A conflagration? There was nothing she could do against that. She would not have the strength to fight it.
All that was left to her was to withdraw.
Withdraw from … life?
Oh, how unbearably, how excruciatingly he would suffer! She could imagine exactly how he would feel! How remorseful he would be, how he would regret it!
He had not known how to value what he possessed.
Why had he told her? If it was just an unimportant, casual affair, why had he said anything? “Pious lies”—wasn’t that what they were called? He should have kept quiet, suffered in silence.
No, it was good that he had spoken. It meant that this was the first time. Other husbands deceived their wives lightheartedly, as a matter of course, but he never had, not once, in all those years.
After all, his Little Pearl was not just any woman!
But what if nothing could be saved from the wreck? What if he was lost to her forever?
He lay there on his bed, across the room, motionless, never once heaving one of those deep sighs she had heard so often in the last twenty-four hours. (Had he been sighing for that woman? Or at the thought of the explaining he had to do?) Surely he couldn’t be sleeping! How could he possibly sleep after all that!
He had become such a stranger—and all at once closer than he had ever been. She couldn’t live through the next hour, through this night, without him, she would die!
He was lying so near, showing not the slightest inclination to come and lie beside her, to stroke her forehead, ask what he could do to help her.
He had wounded her mortally and would not come to her aid.
He was lying so near—but was no longer hers. Close beside her, but she could not call him to her.
She was trembling violently.
She had never known any torment like this. This mixture of intimacy and inaccessibility, of repulsion and attraction, of hopeless loss and hope that all might yet be regained—this confused sensation seemed to become a crimson glow in the darkness, its incandescent rays filling the room, scorching her breast, drawing from her … one long wail!
Yes, he had done well to make a clean breast of it: he had earned the right to be open from then on. The numbness he had felt on the journey back to Moscow had vanished without a trace. His mind was perfectly at ease, indeed he was happy, as he stretched out in his bed and went to sleep.
It took him some time to wake up. He had heard it in his sleep, that loud, long-drawn-out moan that filled the whole room, and had known that it was Olda crying out—the ecstatic cry that filled his breast with such pride. What awakened him was a heartrending moan that must surely be heard out in the corridor. Though he could still see nothing in the gray half-light, he knew that this was Alina wailing, an agonized wail he had never heard before! Not a cry that prolonged the joy of realization.
He called out to her, but she went on moaning, just as loudly, not responding. He half rose in bed, called out to her again, more alarmed this time. Alina just went on moaning more and more pitifully.
Georgi swung his feet onto the floor. Went over to her bed. Bent over her. Asked what was wrong. The light from the window was faint, but the rain had died down, and there was a hint of moonlight from behind the clouds. He could see that Alina was lying on her back and trembling from head to foot.
Did she need medicine? Something to drink? Fear and pity clutched at his heart. Poor little girl! What have I done to you?!
Bending low, he asked her again and again, and through her despairing moans, her excruciating sobs, at last made out her whispered reply: “Come to me! Come!”
At first he could not believe that he had heard correctly. Was he not defiled?
But that was what she was asking, painfully pleading for.
He lay down beside her. Her face was very wet, and her whole body was like that of one snatched from a fire. He did not remember her ever being like this, in all their years together.
In a little while she was silent.
And, with his arms gently around her, she fell asleep.
[54]
And that was how they began the following day, treating each other with tender solicitude. As though what had happened between them yesterday was something very good, which had left them lovingly at one. They had always been at ease with one another, but on this dreamy, dawdling day they crossed over into a new stage of intimacy, of unconstraint such as they had never experienced before.
Somehow they knew at once that they would stay on, not go back to Moscow that day. Alina’s movements were so carefully controlled, her looks so faraway, it seemed that traveling by train, or horse-drawn carriage, might shatter her.
The rain had stopped, and at first there were even occasional glimpses of blue sky. Then it clouded over. Then there was a little sun again.
They wandered around for hours, slowly, cautiously, as if afraid that Alina might trip on a root. Wandered through the late autumn forest. The oaks were still shedding their last discolored leaves but underfoot was a dark brown, russet, and yellow carpet.
The expression on any woman’s face changes quickly, and Alina was no exception, but Georgi had never seen such a complete transformation, and could not believe his eyes. Alina had become younger, prettier, softer, and something more sublime than sadness shone in her gray eyes—a tender melancholy. She had become simply irresistible.
He told her so.
Enchanted by this sudden radiance, Georgi fussed over Alina, guiding her with tender care, wrapping her up carefully to shield her from the wind. There was no explosion, no quarrel, no reproach even in her looks! What a woman! How strong her love for him must be, and how little he had prized it! For this unexpected, otherworldly Alina he felt not just compassion, but gratitude, as if he was falling in love with her all over again, felt a tenderness
which had ebbed long ago but now flooded his being once more. It seemed natural now to find all the time for her he had never found before, to lead her with slow steps, walk with her, keep her warm.
Since she was capable of such suffering for his sake.
The whole world was hushed and still. Nothing was happening anywhere in the world, nothing could call Colonel Vorotyntsev away, nowhere under the sun was there room for anything but his wish that all this would end well. With no thought at all of giving up Olda, he must now do all he could to support Alina.
A smile so subtle that no earthly creature would have been thought capable of it. Eyes filled with tender renunciation, in a face suddenly thinner, suddenly younger, freed from the power of vain cares.
Georgi simply could not believe what he saw. Resignation? Was it possible? Georgi, surely, had always treated Alina with loving care, but never so much as today! She had lost none of her beauty over the years, but never had it been such a spiritual beauty.
“You are irresistible!” he repeated.
He spoke now and then, and she barely answered. She just shone with that strange light, and smiled dreamily. All day long she neither started nor kept up a conversation. He would begin and give up after a while.
They walked and walked. Lingered over dinner. And the day, a short one, was ending.
Would he please read aloud to her in the evening? From one of her favorite books. He borrowed Jane Eyre from the landlady. Alina was happy.
She lay still for three hours while he sat beside her on the bed and read to her.
It was a story about the loftiest of sentiments, written by a woman of noble sentiments, for other women of noble sentiments about yet another such woman, eager to do justice to the lofty sentiments of others and exhibit her own noble nature—and although Georgi found it pretty strange to be sitting there reading a sentimental story aloud, he felt that for all the dissimilarity of plot it was all relevant, that it was right for him to be reading it, and to affirm these noble and sacrificial sentiments.
But he suspected once or twice and finally saw for sure that Alina herself wasn’t hearing any of it.
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