‘I thought that, but I’m still alive. You can worry about anything if you want to.’
Barbara, who was pregnant for the fifth time and a woman of experience, was rather condescending to her mistress and seemed to be lecturing her as she spoke, and Olga could not help sensing her authoritarian tone. She wanted to talk about her fears, the child, her sensations, but she was scared Barbara might think this trivial and naïve. And so she remained silent, waiting for Barbara to say something.
‘Olga, let’s go back to the house!’ Pyotr shouted from the raspberry canes.
Olga liked waiting in silence and watching Barbara. She would have willingly stood there silently until night-time, although there was no need to. But she had to move on. The moment she left the cottage Lyubochka, Vata and Nata came running towards her. The two sisters stopped about two yards away, as if rooted to the spot, but Lyubochka ran and threw herself round Olga’s neck.
‘My dear, my darling, my precious!’ she said, kissing her face and neck. ‘Let’s go and have tea on the island.’
‘The island, the island!’ echoed the identical, unsmiling Vata and Nata simultaneously.
‘But it’s going to rain, my dears.’
‘It’s not, it’s not!’ Lyubochka shouted, making a tearful face. ‘Everyone wants to go, my dearest, my treasure!’
‘Everyone’s decided to have tea on the island,’ Pyotr said, coming up to them. ‘Now you make the arrangements… we’ll all go in the rowing-boats, and the samovars and everything else can follow with the servants in the carriage.’
He took his wife by the arm and walked along with her. Olga wanted to tell her husband something nasty, hurtful – about the dowry even – and the more bluntly the better, she thought. But she pondered for a moment and said, ‘Why hasn’t Count Aleksey come? What a shame.’
‘I’m only too pleased he hasn’t,’ Pyotr lied. ‘I’m sick and tired of that old fool.’
‘But before lunch you just couldn’t wait for him to come!’
III
Half an hour later the guests were crowding along the bank near the posts where the boats were moored. There was much talk and laughter and so much unnecessary fuss that all the seating went wrong. Three boats were full to overflowing, while two others stood empty. The keys for these boats had been mislaid and people ran incessantly from river to house in search of them. Some said that Grigory had them, others said that they were with the estate manager, others thought it would be a good idea to send for the blacksmith to break the locks. And everyone spoke at once, interrupting and drowning each others’ voices. Pyotr impatiently paced along the bank shouting, ‘what the hell’s going on here? The keys should always be kept on the windowsill in the hall. Who dared take them away? The manager can get his own boat if he likes.’
In the end the keys were found. Then they discovered that they were two oars short. Once again there was a loud commotion. Pyotr, tired of walking up and down, jumped into a kind of long, narrow canoe hollowed out from a poplar and pushed off so hard he nearly fell into the water. One after the other, the boats followed amid loud laughter and screams from the young ladies.
The white, cloudy sky, the trees along the bank, the reeds and the boats with people and oars were mirrored in the water; deep down under the boats, in that bottomless abyss, was a different sky, where birds flew. The bank where the estate was rose high and steep, and was densely wooded, while the other sloped gently, with green meadows and gleaming inlets. After the boats had travelled about a hundred yards, cottages and a herd of cows appeared from behind the willows which sadly leant over the gently sloping bank. Now they could hear songs, drunken shouts and the sound of an accordion.
Here and there along the river darted the boats of fishermen who were setting up their nets for the night. In one boat some tipsy amateur musicians were playing home-made fiddles and a cello.
Olga sat at the rudder, smiling warmly and talking non-stop to entertain her guests, at the same time giving her husband sideways glances. His boat was ahead of all the others as he stood up working away with one oar. That light, sharp-nosed boat, which all the guests called ‘an old dug-out’ – for some reason Pyotr called it Penderakliya – moved swiftly. It had a lively cunning look and seemed to bear a grudge against that clumsy Pyotr – it was only waiting for the right moment to slip away from under him. Olga watched her husband, and she was revolted by his good looks that were universally admired, by the back of his neck, by his posing, by his familiar manner with women. She hated all the women who were sitting in the boat, envied them, and at the same time was in fear and trembling lest disaster struck and the shaky boat capsized.
‘Don’t row so fast!’ she cried and her heart sank. ‘Sit down in the boat, we all know how brave you are!’
And the others in the boat worried her too. They were all ordinary, decent people, but now the lot of them struck her as peculiar, evil. She could see nothing but falsehood in each one. ‘Now,’ she thought, ‘that young man with the auburn hair and gold-rimmed spectacles and fine beard rowing away. He’s a rich, smug, perpetually fortunate mother’s little pet, everyone thinks he’s honest, free-thinking and progressive. It’s hardly a year since he took his degree and came to live in the country, but already he’s proclaiming “We community workers”. But before the year’s out he’ll be bored too, like so many others, he’ll depart for St Petersburg, and to justify his flight he’ll tell them everywhere that local councils are a waste of time, that he’s terribly disenchanted. His young wife in that other boat simply has her eyes glued on him and she’s convinced that he’s a “servant of the community”, but within one year she too will come to believe that local councils are useless. And that stout, immaculately shaven gentleman in the straw hat with the broad ribbon and with an expensive cigar between his teeth – he’s fond of saying, “It’s time we stopped daydreaming and got down to a real job of work!” He has Yorkshire pigs, Butlerov beehives,5 rape seed, pineapples, a creamery and a cheese dairy, and Italian double-entry book-keeping. But every summer he sells some of his forests for timber, mortgages parts of his land so that he can spend the autumn with his mistress in the Crimea. And there’s old Uncle Nikolay, who won’t go home, despite being angry with Pyotr!’
Olga looked at the other boats, where she could discover only boring cranks, hypocrites or idiots. She thought of everyone she knew in the district, but could not call to mind one person about whom she could say or think anything that was good. All of them seemed undistinguished, colourless, stupid, narrow-minded, shifty and heartless. Either they did not say what they meant or they did not do what they wanted to. She was stifled by boredom and feelings of despair. She wanted suddenly to stop smiling, leap up and shout, ‘I’m sick of the lot of you!’, jump out of the boat and swim ashore.
‘Come on, let’s all give Pyotr a tow,’ someone shouted.
‘Give him a tow! Give him a tow!’ the rest joined in. ‘Olga, give your husband a tow!’
While she sat at the rudder, Olga had to seize the right moment and deftly catch hold of the chain at Penderakliya’s bows. As she leant over, trying to grasp it, Pyotr frowned and gave her a frightened look.
‘Mind you don’t catch cold!’ he said.
‘If you’re scared on my account and the baby’s then why do you torment me?’ Olga thought.
Pyotr admitted defeat, but not wishing to be towed, he leapt from Penderakliya into a boat already bursting at the seams. He did this so clumsily that the boat listed sharply and everyone screamed with horror.
‘He only jumped like that to please the ladies,’ Olga thought. ‘He knows how impressive it looks…’
Her arms and legs began to tremble, for which the feeling of jadedness, irritation, the forced smiles and the discomfort that she felt all over her body were to blame, she thought. To hide this trembling from her guests she tried to raise her voice, laugh, keep moving. ‘If I suddenly burst into tears,’ she thought, ‘I’ll tell them I have toothache.’
/> Now the boats at last put in at the ‘Isle of Good Hope’ – this was the name of the peninsula formed by a sharp bend in the river; it was covered with a copse of ancient birches, oaks, willows and poplars. Tables with steaming samovars were already in position under the trees, and Vasily and Grigory, in tailcoats and white knitted gloves, were busy near the crockery. On the far bank, opposite the ‘Isle of Good Hope’, stood the carriages that had brought the provisions, and baskets and parcels of food were being ferried from them to the island in a boat very similar to Penderakliya. The expressions of the footmen, coachmen – even of the peasant sitting in the boat – were solemn, festive, the kind one usually finds only among children and servants.
While Olga was making the tea and pouring out the first glasses, the guests busied themselves with fruit liqueurs and sweetmeats. Then followed the usual tea-time chaos, so trying and exhausting for the hostess. Grigory and Vasily had hardly served the tea than hands holding empty glasses were reaching towards Olga. One guest asked for tea without sugar, another wanted it strong, a third weak, a fourth said ‘No more, thank you.’ And Olga had to commit all this to memory and then shout, ‘Ivan Petrovich, are you the one without sugar?’ or ‘Who asked for it weak?’ But the guest who had asked for weak tea without sugar simply forgot what he had asked for, being carried away with the pleasant conversation, and took the first glass that was offered. Dejected figures wandered like shadows not far from the table, pretending that they were looking for mushrooms in the grass, or reading labels on boxes – these were the ones for whom there weren’t enough glasses. ‘Have you had some tea?’ Olga would ask, and the guest in question would tell her not to worry and say, ‘I don’t mind waiting’, although the hostess would have preferred her guests to hurry up instead of being prepared to wait.
Some of them were deep in conversation and drank their tea slowly, holding on to their glasses for half an hour, while others, especially those who had drunk a great deal over dinner, did not leave the table but drank glass after glass, so that Olga had a job refilling them. One young humorist sipped his tea through a lump of sugar and kept saying, ‘Sinner that I am, I love to spoil myself with the Chinese Herb.’ Now and then he sighed deeply as he asked, ‘Please, just one more little dish-full.’ He drank a lot, noisily crunched his sugar, thinking this was all very funny and original, and that he was giving a superb imitation of a merchant. No one appreciated that all these little things were sheer torture for the hostess: in fact it would have been difficult for anyone to guess, since Olga managed to keep smiling amiably and engage in idle tittle-tattle.
She was not feeling well, though. The crowd, the laughter, the questions, the young humorist, the flustered servants who were run off their feet, the children running round the table – all this irritated her. And she was irritated by the fact that Vata looked like Nata, Kolya like Mitya, so that it was impossible to tell which of them had had tea. She felt that her strained, warm smile was turning into a nasty scowl and that she would burst into tears at any moment.
‘It’s raining!’ someone shouted.
Everyone looked up at the sky.
‘Yes, it really is,’ Pyotr confirmed, wiping his cheek. The sky let fall just a few drops – it wasn’t really raining yet, but the guests abandoned their tea and began to hurry. At first they all wanted to go back in the carriages, but then they changed their minds and went towards the boats. On the pretext that she urgently had to see to supper, Olga asked if they minded if she travelled back on her own, by carriage.
The first thing she did when seated was to give her face a rest from smiling. She drove scowling through the village and gave bowing peasants angry looks. When she arrived home she went to the bedroom by the back entrance and lay down on her husband’s bed.
‘Good heavens!’ she whispered, ‘what’s the use of all this hard labour? Why do these people hang around here pretending they’re having a good time? Why all these false smiles? I don’t understand, I just don’t understand!’
She heard footsteps and voices. The guests had returned.
‘They can do what they like,’ Olga thought. ‘I’m going to lie down a little longer.’ But the maid came into the bedroom and said, ‘Madam, Marya Grigoryevna’s leaving.’
Olga leapt up, tidied her hair and rushed out of the room.
‘Marya, what’s wrong?’ she asked in an offended voice, going up to Marya Grigoryevna. ‘Why the rush?’
‘I must go, my dear, I simply must! I’ve stayed too long already. The children are waiting for me at home.’
‘You’re so naughty! Why didn’t you bring them with you?’
‘My dear, I’ll bring them over one day in the week if you like, but as for today…’
‘Oh, yes!’ Olga interrupted, ‘I’d be delighted. Your children are so sweet. Give them all a kiss from me. But honestly, I’m quite offended. Why the hurry, I just don’t understand!’
‘I must be going, I really must… Goodbye, my dear, and look after yourself. In your condition…’
And they kissed. After seeing her guest to her carriage, Olga joined the ladies in the drawing-room. There the lamps had been lit and the men were just sitting down to cards.
IV
At a quarter past twelve, after supper, the guests began to leave. Olga stood at the porch to say goodbye.
‘Really, you should have brought a shawl,’ she said, ‘it’s getting rather chilly. I hope you won’t catch cold!’
‘Don’t worry, Olga,’ the guests replied as they climbed into their carriages. ‘Well, goodbye. Remember, we’re expecting you. Don’t let us down!’
‘Whoa!’ said the coachman, holding back the horses.
‘Let’s be going, Denis! Goodbye, Olga.’
‘Give the children a kiss from me!’
The carriage moved off and immediately vanished in the darkness. In the red circle cast by the lamp on the road, a new pair or team of three impatient horses would appear, their coachman silhouetted with hands stretched out in front of him. Once again there were kisses, reproaches and requests to come again or to take a shawl. Pyotr ran back and forwards from the hall, helping the ladies into carriages.
‘Drive straight to Yefremovshchina,’ he told the coachman. ‘It’s quicker if you go by way of Mankino, but that road isn’t so good. You might overturn… Goodbye, my dear! Mille compliments to your artist friend!’
‘Goodbye, darling Olga. Go inside now or you’ll catch cold. It’s damp.’
‘Whoa! Up to your tricks again, eh!’
‘Where did you get these horses from?’ Pyotr asked.
‘From Khaydarov, during Lent,’ the coachman answered.
‘They’re superb!’
Pyotr slapped the trace-horse on the croup. ‘Well, off with you! Safe journey!’
Finally the last guest departed. The red circle on the road flickered, drifted off to one side, dwindled and vanished – Vasily had taken the lamp away from the front door. Previously, when they saw their guests off, Pyotr and Olga usually performed a jig in front of each other in the ballroom, clapped their hands and sang ‘They’ve gone, they’ve gone, they’ve gone!’ But Olga did not feel up to that now. She went into the bedroom, undressed, and climbed into bed.
She thought that she would fall asleep immediately and that she would sleep soundly. Her legs and shoulders ached horribly, her head was reeling from all that talk and once again she felt strangely uncomfortable all over. Covering her head, she lay still for a little while, then stole a glance at the icon-lamp from under the blanket, listened to the silence and smiled.
‘Good, good,’ she whispered, tucking in her legs, which she felt had grown longer from all that walking. ‘I must sleep, sleep.’
Her legs would not stay under the blankets, her whole body felt uncomfortable and she turned over on the other side. A large fly flew around the bedroom, buzzing and restlessly beating against the ceiling. She could also hear Grigory and Vasily treading carefully as they cleared the tables in the
ballroom. Olga felt that only when those noises stopped would she feel comfortable and able to fall asleep. And once again she impatiently turned over.
She could hear her husband’s voice in the drawing-room. One of the guests was probably staying the night, because Pyotr was telling someone in a loud voice, ‘I wouldn’t say that Count Aleksey Petrovich is a trickster. But he can’t help giving that impression, since you all try to see him as other than he actually is. His eccentricity is misinterpreted as originality, his familiar manner as a sign of good-heartedness, and because of his complete lack of any views you take him for a conservative. Let’s even go so far as to admit that he’s a conservative of the purest stamp. But what is conservatism, all things considered?’
Furious with Count Aleksey Petrovich, with his guests and with himself, Pyotr unbosomed himself. He cursed the Count, his guests, and was so annoyed with himself he was prepared to hold forth or preach a sermon on any subject. After showing his guest to his room, he paced the drawing-room, walked around the dining-room, then up and down the corridor and around his study, then once more around the drawing-room, after which he went into the bedroom. Olga was lying on her back with the blanket only up to her waist (she was feeling hot now) and sullenly watching the fly banging against the ceiling.
‘Do we have someone staying overnight, then?’ she asked.
‘Yegorov.’
Pyotr undressed and lay down on his bed. He silently lit a cigarette and he too started watching the fly. His face was gloomy and uneasy. Olga looked at his handsome profile for about five minutes without saying a word. For some reason she felt that if he were suddenly to turn his face towards her and say ‘I feel so depressed, Olga’, then she would have burst into tears or laughed, and she would have felt better for it. Her legs ached and her whole body felt uncomfortable – from nervous tension, she thought.
‘Pyotr, what are you thinking about?’ she asked.
The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 Page 22