I did not speak, but looked out of window to the sea. My heart was beating terribly.
“Vladimir Ivanitch,” she said softly and breathlessly; it was hard for her to speak—“Vladimir Ivanitch, if you do not believe in the cause yourself, if you no longer think of going back to it, why . . . why did you drag me out of Petersburg? Why did you make me promises, why did you rouse mad hopes? Your convictions have changed; you have become a different man, and nobody blames you for it— our convictions are not always in our power. But . . . but, Vladimir Ivanitch, for God’s sake, why are you not sincere?” she went on softly, coming up to me. “All these months when I have been dreaming aloud, raving, going into raptures over my plans, remodelling my life on a new pattern, why didn’t you tell me the truth? Why were you silent or encouraged me by your stories, and behaved as though you were in complete sympathy with me? Why was it? Why was it necessary?”
“It’s difficult to acknowledge one’s bankruptcy,” I said, turning round, but not looking at her. “Yes, I have no faith; I am worn out. I have lost heart. . . . It is difficult to be truthful— very difficult, and I held my tongue. God forbid that any one should have to go through what I have been through.”
I felt that I was on the point of tears, and ceased speaking.
“Vladimir Ivanitch,” she said, and took me by both hands, “you have been through so much and seen so much of life, you know more than I do; think seriously, and tell me, what am I to do? Teach me! If you haven’t the strength to go forward yourself and take others with you, at least show me where to go. After all, I am a living, feeling, thinking being. To sink into a false position . . . to play an absurd part . . . is painful to me. I don’t reproach you, I don’t blame you; I only ask you.”
Tea was brought in.
“Well?” said Zinaida Fyodorovna, giving me a glass. “What do you say to me?”
“There is more light in the world than you see through your window,” I answered. “And there are other people besides me, Zinaida Fyodorovna.”
“Then tell me who they are,” she said eagerly. “That’s all I ask of you.”
“And I want to say, too,” I went on, “one can serve an idea in more than one calling. If one has made a mistake and lost faith in one, one may find another. The world of ideas is large and cannot be exhausted.”
“The world of ideas!” she said, and she looked into my face sarcastically. “Then we had better leave off talking. What’s the use? . . .”
She flushed.
“The world of ideas!” she repeated. She threw her dinner-napkin aside, and an expression of indignation and contempt came into her face. “All your fine ideas, I see, lead up to one inevitable, essential step: I ought to become your mistress. That’s what’s wanted. To be taken up with ideas without being the mistress of an honourable, progressive man, is as good as not understanding the ideas. One has to begin with that . . . that is, with being your mistress, and the rest will come of itself.”
“You are irritated, Zinaida Fyodorovna,” I said.
“No, I am sincere!” she cried, breathing hard. “I am sincere!”
“You are sincere, perhaps, but you are in error, and it hurts me to hear you.”
“I am in error?” she laughed. “Any one else might say that, but not you, my dear sir! I may seem to you indelicate, cruel, but I don’t care: you love me? You love me, don’t you?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Yes, shrug your shoulders!” she went on sarcastically. “When you were ill I heard you in your delirium, and ever since these adoring eyes, these sighs, and edifying conversations about friendship, about spiritual kinship. . . . But the point is, why haven’t you been sincere? Why have you concealed what is and talked about what isn’t? Had you said from the beginning what ideas exactly led you to drag me from Petersburg, I should have known. I should have poisoned myself then as I meant to, and there would have been none of this tedious farce. . . . But what’s the use of talking!”
With a wave of the hand she sat down.
“You speak to me as though you suspected me of dishonourable intentions,” I said, offended.
“Oh, very well. What’s the use of talking! I don’t suspect you of intentions, but of having no intentions. If you had any, I should have known them by now. You had nothing but ideas and love. For the present—ideas and love, and in prospect—me as your mistress. That’s in the order of things both in life and in novels. . . . Here you abused him,” she said, and she slapped the table with her hand, “but one can’t help agreeing with him. He has good reasons for despising these ideas.”
“He does not despise ideas; he is afraid of them,” I cried. “He is a coward and a liar.”
“Oh, very well. He is a coward and a liar, and deceived me. And you? Excuse my frankness; what are you? He deceived me and left me to take my chance in Petersburg, and you have deceived me and abandoned me here. But he did not mix up ideas with his deceit, and you . . .”
“For goodness’ sake, why are you saying this?” I cried in horror, wringing my hands and going up to her quickly. “No, Zinaida Fyodorovna, this is cynicism. You must not be so despairing; listen to me,” I went on, catching at a thought which flashed dimly upon me, and which seemed to me might still save us both. “Listen. I have passed through so many experiences in my time that my head goes round at the thought of them, and I have realised with my mind, with my racked soul, that man finds his true destiny in nothing if not in self-sacrificing love for his neighbour. It is towards that we must strive, and that is our destination! That is my faith!”
I wanted to go on to speak of mercy, of forgiveness, but there was an insincere note in my voice, and I was embarrassed.
“I want to live!” I said genuinely. “To live, to live! I want peace, tranquillity; I want warmth—this sea here—to have you near. Oh, how I wish I could rouse in you the same thirst for life! You spoke just now of love, but it would be enough for me to have you near, to hear your voice, to watch the look in your face . . . !”
She flushed crimson, and to hinder my speaking, said quickly:
“You love life, and I hate it. So our ways lie apart.”
She poured herself out some tea, but did not touch it, went into the bedroom, and lay down.
“I imagine it is better to cut short this conversation,” she said to me from within. “Everything is over for me, and I want nothing . . . . What more is there to say?”
“No, it’s not all over!”
“Oh, very well! . . . I know! I am sick of it. . . . That’s enough.”
I got up, took a turn from one end of the room to the other, and went out into the corridor. When late at night I went to her door and listened, I distinctly heard her crying.
Next morning the waiter, handing me my clothes, informed me, with a smile, that the lady in number thirteen was confined. I dressed somehow, and almost fainting with terror ran to Zinaida Fyodorovna. In her room I found a doctor, a midwife, and an elderly Russian lady from Harkov, called Darya Milhailovna. There was a smell of ether. I had scarcely crossed the threshold when from the room where she was lying I heard a low, plaintive moan, and, as though it had been wafted me by the wind from Russia, I thought of Orlov, his irony, Polya, the Neva, the drifting snow, then the cab without an apron, the prediction I had read in the cold morning sky, and the despairing cry “Nina! Nina!”
“Go in to her,” said the lady.
I went in to see Zinaida Fyodorovna, feeling as though I were the father of the child. She was lying with her eyes closed, looking thin and pale, wearing a white cap edged with lace. I remember there were two expressions on her face: one—cold, indifferent, apathetic; the other—a look of childish helplessness given her by the white cap. She did not hear me come in, or heard, perhaps, but did not pay attention. I stood, looked at her, and waited.
But her face was contorted with pain; she opened her eyes and gazed at the ceiling, as though wondering what was happening to her. . . . There was a look of loathi
ng on her face.
“It’s horrible . . .” she whispered.
“Zinaida Fyodorovna.” I spoke her name softly. She looked at me indifferently, listlessly, and closed her eyes. I stood there a little while, then went away.
At night, Darya Mihailovna informed me that the child, a girl, was born, but that the mother was in a dangerous condition. Then I heard noise and bustle in the passage. Darya Mihailovna came to me again and with a face of despair, wringing her hands, said:
“Oh, this is awful! The doctor suspects that she has taken poison! Oh, how badly Russians do behave here!”
And at twelve o’clock the next day Zinaida Fyodorovna died.
XVIII
Two years had passed. Circumstances had changed; I had come to Petersburg again and could live here openly. I was no longer afraid of being and seeming sentimental, and gave myself up entirely to the fatherly, or rather idolatrous feeling roused in me by Sonya, Zinaida Fyodorovna’s child. I fed her with my own hands, gave her her bath, put her to bed, never took my eyes off her for nights together, and screamed when it seemed to me that the nurse was just going to drop her. My thirst for normal ordinary life became stronger and more acute as time went on, but wider visions stopped short at Sonya, as though I had found in her at last just what I needed. I loved the child madly. In her I saw the continuation of my life, and it was not exactly that I fancied, but I felt, I almost believed, that when I had cast off at last my long, bony, bearded frame, I should go on living in those little blue eyes, that silky flaxen hair, those dimpled pink hands which stroked my face so lovingly and were clasped round my neck.
Sonya’s future made me anxious. Orlov was her father; in her birth certificate she was called Krasnovsky, and the only person who knew of her existence, and took interest in her—that is, I—was at death’s door. I had to think about her seriously.
The day after I arrived in Petersburg I went to see Orlov. The door was opened to me by a stout old fellow with red whiskers and no moustache, who looked like a German. Polya, who was tidying the drawing-room, did not recognise me, but Orlov knew me at once.
“Ah, Mr. Revolutionist!” he said, looking at me with curiosity, and laughing. “What fate has brought you?”
He was not changed in the least: the same well-groomed, unpleasant face, the same irony. And a new book was lying on the table just as of old, with an ivory paper-knife thrust in it. He had evidently been reading before I came in. He made me sit down, offered me a cigar, and with a delicacy only found in well-bred people, concealing the unpleasant feeling aroused by my face and my wasted figure, observed casually that I was not in the least changed, and that he would have known me anywhere in spite of my having grown a beard. We talked of the weather, of Paris. To dispose as quickly as possible of the oppressive, inevitable question, which weighed upon him and me, he asked:
“Zinaida Fyodorovna is dead?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“In childbirth?”
“Yes, in childbirth. The doctor suspected another cause of death, but . . . it is more comforting for you and for me to think that she died in childbirth.”
He sighed decorously and was silent. The angel of silence passed over us, as they say.
“Yes. And here everything is as it used to be—no changes,” he said briskly, seeing that I was looking about the room. “My father, as you know, has left the service and is living in retirement; I am still in the same department. Do you remember Pekarsky? He is just the same as ever. Gruzin died of diphtheria a year ago. . . . Kukushkin is alive, and often speaks of you. By the way,” said Orlov, dropping his eyes with an air of reserve, “when Kukushkin heard who you were, he began telling every one you had attacked him and tried to murder him . . . and that he only just escaped with his life.”
I did not speak.
“Old servants do not forget their masters. . . . It’s very nice of you,” said Orlov jocosely. “Will you have some wine and some coffee, though? I will tell them to make some.”
“No, thank you. I have come to see you about a very important matter, Georgy Ivanitch.”
“I am not very fond of important matters, but I shall be glad to be of service to you. What do you want?”
“You see,” I began, growing agitated, “I have here with me Zinaida Fyodorovna’s daughter. . . . Hitherto I have brought her up, but, as you see, before many days I shall be an empty sound. I should like to die with the thought that she is provided for.”
Orlov coloured a little, frowned a little, and took a cursory and sullen glance at me. He was unpleasantly affected, not so much by the “important matter” as by my words about death, about becoming an empty sound.
“Yes, it must be thought about,” he said, screening his eyes as though from the sun. “Thank you. You say it’s a girl?”
“Yes, a girl. A wonderful child!”
“Yes. Of course, it’s not a lap-dog, but a human being. I understand we must consider it seriously. I am prepared to do my part, and am very grateful to you.”
He got up, walked about, biting his nails, and stopped before a picture.
“We must think about it,” he said in a hollow voice, standing with his back to me. “I shall go to Pekarsky’s to-day and will ask him to go to Krasnovsky’s. I don’t think he will make much ado about consenting to take the child.”
“But, excuse me, I don’t see what Krasnovsky has got to do with it,” I said, also getting up and walking to a picture at the other end of the room.
“But she bears his name, of course!” said Orlov.
“Yes, he may be legally obliged to accept the child—I don’t know; but I came to you, Georgy Ivanitch, not to discuss the legal aspect.”
“Yes, yes, you are right,” he agreed briskly. “I believe I am talking nonsense. But don’t excite yourself. We will decide the matter to our mutual satisfaction. If one thing won’t do, we’ll try another; and if that won’t do, we’ll try a third—one way or another this delicate question shall be settled. Pekarsky will arrange it all. Be so good as to leave me your address and I will let you know at once what we decide. Where are you living?”
Orlov wrote down my address, sighed, and said with a smile:
“Oh, Lord, what a job it is to be the father of a little daughter! But Pekarsky will arrange it all. He is a sensible man. Did you stay long in Paris?”
“Two months.”
We were silent. Orlov was evidently afraid I should begin talking of the child again, and to turn my attention in another direction, said:
“You have probably forgotten your letter by now. But I have kept it. I understand your mood at the time, and, I must own, I respect that letter. ‘Damnable cold blood,’ ‘Asiatic,’ ‘coarse laugh’— that was charming and characteristic,” he went on with an ironical smile. “And the fundamental thought is perhaps near the truth, though one might dispute the question endlessly. That is,” he hesitated, “not dispute the thought itself, but your attitude to the question—your temperament, so to say. Yes, my life is abnormal, corrupted, of no use to any one, and what prevents me from beginning a new life is cowardice—there you are quite right. But that you take it so much to heart, are troubled, and reduced to despair by it—that’s irrational; there you are quite wrong.”
“A living man cannot help being troubled and reduced to despair when he sees that he himself is going to ruin and others are going to ruin round him.”
“Who doubts it! I am not advocating indifference; all I ask for is an objective attitude to life. The more objective, the less danger of falling into error. One must look into the root of things, and try to see in every phenomenon a cause of all the other causes. We have grown feeble, slack—degraded, in fact. Our generation is entirely composed of neurasthenics and whimperers; we do nothing but talk of fatigue and exhaustion. But the fault is neither yours nor mine; we are of too little consequence to affect the destiny of a whole generation. We must suppose for that larger, more general causes with a solid raison d‘être from the b
iological point of view. We are neurasthenics, flabby, renegades, but perhaps it’s necessary and of service for generations that will come after us. Not one hair falls from the head without the will of the Heavenly Father—in other words, nothing happens by chance in Nature and in human environment. Everything has its cause and is inevitable. And if so, why should we worry and write despairing letters?”
“That’s all very well,” I said, thinking a little. “I believe it will be easier and clearer for the generations to come; our experience will be at their service. But one wants to live apart from future generations and not only for their sake. Life is only given us once, and one wants to live it boldly, with full consciousness and beauty. One wants to play a striking, independent, noble part; one wants to make history so that those generations may not have the right to say of each of us that we were nonentities or worse. . . . I believe what is going on about us is inevitable and not without a purpose, but what have I to do with that inevitability? Why should my ego be lost?”
“Well, there’s no help for it,” sighed Orlov, getting up and, as it were, giving me to understand that our conversation was over.
I took my hat.
“We’ve only been sitting here half an hour, and how many questions we have settled, when you come to think of it!” said Orlov, seeing me into the hall. “So I will see to that matter. . . . I will see Pekarsky to-day. . . . Don’t be uneasy.”
He stood waiting while I put on my coat, and was obviously relieved at the feeling that I was going away.
“Georgy Ivanitch, give me back my letter,” I said.
“Certainly.”
He went to his study, and a minute later returned with the letter. I thanked him and went away.
The next day I got a letter from him. He congratulated me on the satisfactory settlement of the question. Pekarsky knew a lady, he wrote, who kept a school, something like a kindergarten, where she took quiet little children. The lady could be entirely depended upon, but before concluding anything with her it would be as well to discuss the matter with Krasnovsky—it was a matter of form. He advised me to see Pekarsky at once and to take the birth certificate with me, if I had it. “Rest assured of the sincere respect and devotion of your humble servant. . . .”
The Tales of Chekhov Page 64