Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (473 page)

Urbenin rose, wiped his face with his napkin, and sat down again. A minute later he gulped down another glass of sherry and looked at me for a long time with an imploring glance as if he were begging me for mercy, and suddenly his shoulders began to shake, and quite unexpectedly he burst into sobs like a boy.

‘It’s nothing... nothing!’ he mumbled, trying to master his sobs. ‘Don’t be uneasy. After your words my heart grew sick with a strange foreboding. But it is nothing.’

Urbenin’s foreboding was realized, realized so soon that I have not time to change my pen and begin a new page. From the next chapter my calm muse will change the expression of calmness on her face for one of passion and affliction. The introduction is finished and the drama begins.

The criminal will of man enters upon its rights.

CHAPTER XIII

I remember a fine Sunday morning. Through the windows of the Count’s church the diaphanous blue sky could be seen and the whole of the church, from its painted cupola to its floor, was flooded by soft sunrays in which little clouds of incense played about gaily... The songs of swallows and starlings were borne in through the open doors and windows... One sparrow, evidently a very bold little fellow, flew in at the door, and having circled, chirping, several times round and round above our heads, flew out again through one of the windows... In the church itself there was also singing... They sang sweetly, with feeling, and with the enthusiasm for which our Little Russian singers are so celebrated when they feel themselves the heroes of the moment, and that all eyes are bent upon them... The melodies were all gay and playful, like the soft, bright sunspots that played upon the walls and the clothes of the congregation... In the unschooled but soft and fresh notes of the tenor my ear seemed to catch, despite the gay wedding melodies, deep, melancholy chords. It appeared as if this tenor was sorry to see that next to young, pretty and poetical Olenka there stood Urbenin, heavy, bear-like, and getting on in years... And it was not only the tenor who was sorry to see this ill-assorted pair... On many of the faces that lay within my field of vision, notwithstanding all their efforts to appear gay and unconcerned, even an idiot could have read an expression of compassion.

Arrayed in a new dress suit, I stood behind Olenka, holding the crown over her head. I was pale and felt unwell... I had a racking headache, the result of the previous night’s carouse and a pleasure party on the lake, and the whole time I was looking to see if the hand that held the crown did not tremble... My soul felt the disagreeable presentiment of dread that is felt in a forest on a rainy autumn night. I was vexed, disgusted, sorry... Cats seemed to be scratching at my heart, somewhat resembling qualms of conscience... There in the depths, at the very bottom of my heart, a little devil was seated who obstinately, persistently whispered to me that if Olenka’s marriage with clumsy Urbenin was a sin, I was the cause of that sin... Where did such thoughts come from? How could I have saved this little fool from the unknown risks of her indubitable mistake?...

‘Who knows?’ whispered the little devil. ‘Who should know better than you?’

In my time I have known many ill-assorted marriages. I have often stood before Pukirev’s picture. I have read countless novels based on disagreements between husband and wife; besides, I have known the physical differences that inevitably punish ill-assorted marriages, but never once in my whole life had I experienced that terrible spiritual condition from which I was unable to escape all the time I was standing behind Olenka, executing the functions of best man.

‘If my soul is agitated only by commiseration, how is it that I never felt that compassion before when I assisted at other weddings?...’

‘There is no commiseration here,’ the little devil whispered, ‘but jealousy...’

One can only be jealous of those one loves, but do I love the girl in red? If I loved all the girls I met in the course of my life, my heart wouldn’t be able to stand it; besides, it would be too much of a good thing...

My friend Count Karnéev was standing right at the back near the door behind the churchwarden’s counter, selling wax tapers. He was well groomed, with well smoothed hair, and exhaled a narcotic, suffocating odour of scents. That day he looked such a darling that when I greeted him in the morning I could not refrain from saying:

‘Alexey, today you are looking like the perfect quadrille dancer!’

He greeted everybody who entered or left with the sweetest of smiles, and I heard the ponderous compliments with which he rewarded each lady who bought a candle from him. He, the spoilt child of Fortune, who never had copper coins, did not know how to handle them, and was constantly dropping on the floor five and three-kopeck pieces. Near him, leaning against the counter, Kalinin stood majestically with a Stanislav decoration on a ribbon round his neck. His countenance shone and beamed. He was pleased that his idea of ‘at homes’ had fallen on good soil, and was already beginning to bear fruit. In the depths of his soul he was showering on Urbenin a thousand thanks; his marriage was an absurdity, but it was a good opportunity to get the first ‘at home’ arranged.

Vain Olenka must have rejoiced... From the nuptial lectern to the doors of the high altar stretched out two rows of the most representative ladies of our district flower garden. The guests were decked out as smartly as they would have been if the Count himself was being married: more elegant toilettes could not have been desired The assembly consisted almost exclusively of aristocrats... Not a single priest’s wife, not a single tradesman’s wife... There were even among them ladies to whom Olenka would formerly never have considered herself entitled to bow... And Olenka’s bridegroom - a bailiff, a privileged retainer; but there was no threat to her vanity in this. He was a nobleman and the possessor of a mortgaged estate in the neighbouring district... His father had been marshal of the district and he himself had for more than nine years been a magistrate in his own native district... What more could have been desired by the ambitious daughter of a self-made nobleman? Even the fact that her best man was known throughout the province as a
bon vivant
and a Don Juan could tickle her pride... All the women were looking at him... He was as resplendent as forty thousand best men thrown into one, and what was not the least important, he had not refused to be her best man, she, a simple little girl, when, as everybody knew, he had even refused aristocrats when they had asked him to be their best man...

But vain Olenka did not rejoice... She was as pale as the linen she had lately brought home from the Tenevo market. The hand in which she held the candle shook slightly and her chin trembled from time to time. In her eyes there was a certain dullness, as if something had suddenly astonished or frightened her... There was not a sign of that gaiety which had shone in her eyes even the day before when she was running about the garden talking with enthusiasm of the sort of wallpaper she would have in her drawing-room, and saying on what day she would receive guests, and so on. Her face was now too serious, more serious than the solemn occasion demanded...

Urbenin was in a new dress-suit. He was respectably dressed, but his hair was arranged as the orthodox Russians wore their hair in the year ‘twelve. As usual, he was red in the face, and serious. His eyes prayed and the signs of the cross he made after every ‘Lord have mercy upon us’ were not made in a mechanical manner.

Urbenin’s children by his first marriage - the schoolboy Grisha and the little fair-haired girl Sasha - were standing just behind me. They gazed at the back of their father’s red head and his protruding ears, and their faces seemed to represent notes of interrogation. They could not understand why Aunt Olia had given herself to their father, and why he was taking her into his house. Sasha was only surprised, but the fourteen-year-old Grisha frowned and looked scowlingly at him. He would certainly have replied in the negative if his father had asked his permission to marry...

The marriage service was performed with special solemnity. Three priests and two deacons officiated. The service lasted long, so long, indeed, that my arm was quite tired of holding the crown, and the ladies who love to see a wedding ceased looking at the bridal pair. The chief priest read the prayers, with pauses, without leaving out a single one. The choir sang something very long and complicated; the cantor took advantage of the occasion to display the compass of his voice, reading the Gospels with extra slowness. But at last the chief priest took the crown out of my hands... the young couple kissed each other... The guests got excited, the straight lines were broken, congratulations, kisses and exclamations were heard. Urbenin, beaming and smiling, took his young wife on his arm, and we all went out into the air.

If anybody who was in the church with me finds this description incomplete and not quite accurate, let him set down these oversights to the headache from which I was suffering and the above-mentioned spiritual depression which prevented me from observing and noting... Certainly, if I had known at the time that I would have to write a novel, I would not have looked at the floor as I did on that day, and I would not have paid attention to my headache!

Fate sometimes allows itself bitter and malignant jokes! The couple had scarcely had time to leave the church when they were met by an unexpected and unwished for surprise. When the wedding procession, bright with many tints and colours in the sunlight, was proceeding from the church to the Count’s house, Olenka suddenly made a backward step, stopped, and gave her husband’s elbow such a violent pull that he staggered.

‘He’s been let out!’ she said aloud, looking at me with terror.

Poor little thing! Her insane father, the forester Skvortsov, was running down the avenue to meet the procession. Waving his hands and stumbling along with rolling, insane eyes, he presented a most unattractive picture. However, all this would possibly have looked less out of place if he had not been in his print dressing-gown and downtrodden slippers, the raggedness of which ill accorded with the elegant wedding finery of his daughter. His face looked sleepy, his dishevelled hair was blown about by the wind, his nightshirt was unbuttoned.

‘Olenka!’ he mumbled when he had come up to them. ‘Why have you left me?’

Olenka blushed scarlet and looked askance at the smiling ladies. The poor little thing was consumed by shame.

‘Mit’ka did not lock the door!’ the forester continued, turning to us. it would not be difficult for robbers to get in! The samovar was stolen out of the kitchen last summer, and now she wants us to be robbed again.’

‘I don’t know who can have let him out!’ Urbenin whispered to me. ‘I ordered him to be locked up... Sergey Petrovich, golubchek, have pity on us; get us out of this awkward position somehow! Anyhow!’

‘I know who stole your samovar,’ I said to the forester. ‘Come along, I’ll show you where it is.’

Taking Skvortsov round the waist, I led him towards the church. I took him into the churchyard and talked to him until, by my calculation, I thought the wedding procession ought to be in the house, then I left him without having told him where his stolen samovar was to be found.

Although this meeting with the madman was quite unexpected and extraordinary, it was soon forgotten... A further surprise that Fate had prepared for the newly-married pair was still more unusual.

CHAPTER XIV

An hour later we were all seated at long tables, dining.
 
To anybody who was accustomed to cobwebs, mildew and wild gipsy whoops in the Count’s apartments it must have seemed strange to look on the workaday, prosaical crowd that now, by their habitual chatter, broke the usual silence of the ancient and deserted halls. This varied and noisy throng looked like a flight of starlings which in flying past had alighted to rest in a neglected churchyard or - may the noble bird forgive me such a comparison! - a flight of storks that on one of their migrations had settled down on the ruins of a deserted castle.

I sat there hating that crowd which frivolously examined the decaying wealth of the Counts Karnéev. The mosaic walls, the carved ceilings, the rich Persian carpets and the rococo furniture excited enthusiasm and astonishment. A self-satisfied smile never left the Count’s moustachioed face. He received the enthusiastic flattery of his guests as something that he deserved, though in reality all the riches and luxuries of his deserted mansion were not acquired in any way thanks to him, but on the contrary, he merited the bitterest reproaches and contempt for the barbarously dull indifference with which he treated all the wealth that had been collected by his fathers and grandfathers, collected not in days, but in scores of years! It was only the mentally blind or the poor of spirit who could not see in every slab of damp marble, in every picture, in each dark corner of the Count’s garden, the sweat, the tears and the callouses on the hands of the people whose children now swarmed in the little log huts of the Count’s miserable villages... Among all those people seated at the wedding feast, rich, independent people, people who might easily have told him the plainest truths, there was not one who would have told the Count that his self-satisfied grin was stupid and out of place... Everybody found it necessary to smile flatteringly and to burn paltry incense before him. If this was ordinary politeness (with us, many love to attribute everything to politeness and propriety), I would prefer the churl who eats with his hands, who takes the bread from his neighbour’s plate, and blows his nose between two fingers, to these dandies.

Urbenin smiled, but he had his own reasons for this. He smiled flatteringly, respectfully, and in a childlike, happy manner. His broad smiles were the result of a sort of dog’s happiness. A devoted and loving dog, who had been fondled and petted, and now in sign of gratitude wagged its tail gaily and with sincerity.

Like Risler Père in Alphonse Daudet’s novel, beaming and rubbing his hands with delight, he gazed at his young wife, and from the superabundance of his feelings could not refrain from asking question after question:

‘Who could have thought that this young beauty would fall in love with an old man like myself? Is it possible she could not find anybody younger and more elegant? Women’s hearts are incomprehensible!’

He even had the courage to turn to me and blurt out: ‘When one looks around, what an age this is we live in! He, he! When an old man can carry off such a fairy from under the nose of youth! Where have you all had your eyes? He, he... Young men are not what they used to be!’

Not knowing what to do or how to express the feelings of gratitude that were overflowing in his broad breast, he was constantly jumping up, stretching out his glass towards the Count’s glass and saying in a voice that trembled with emotion: ‘Your Excellency, my feelings toward you are well known. This day you have done so much for me that my affection for you appears like nothing. How have I merited such a great favour, your Excellency, or that you should take such an interest in my joy? It is only Counts and bankers who celebrate their weddings in such a way! What luxury, what a bevy of distinguished guests! Oh what can I say! Believe me, your Excellency, I shall never forget you, as I shall never forget this best and happiest day of my life.’

And so on... Olenka was evidently not pleased with her husband’s florid respectfulness. One could see she was annoyed at his speeches, that raised smiles on the faces of the guests and even caused them to feel ashamed for him. Notwithstanding the champagne she had drunk, she was still not gay, and morose as before... She was as pale as she had been in church, and the same look of dread was in her eyes... She was silent, she answered indifferently all the questions that were asked, scarcely smiled at the Count’s witticisms, and she hardly touched the expensive dishes... The more Urbenin became slightly intoxicated and accounted himself the happiest of mortals, the more unhappy her pretty face appeared. It made me sad to look at her, and in order not to see her face I tried to keep my eyes on my plate.

How could her sadness be explained? Was not regret beginning to gnaw at the poor girl’s heart? Or perhaps her vanity had expected even greater pomp?

During the second course when I lifted my eyes and looked at her, I was painfully struck by her expression. The poor girl, in trying to answer some of the Count’s silly remarks, was making strenuous efforts to swallow something; sobs were welling up in her throat. She did not remove her handkerchief from her mouth, and looked at us timidly, like a frightened little animal, to see whether we had noticed that she wanted to cry.

‘Why are you looking so glum today?’ the Count asked. ‘Oh, ho! Pëtr Egorych, it’s your fault! Have the goodness to cheer your wife up! Ladies and gentlemen, I demand a kiss! Ha, ha! The kiss I demand is, of course, not for me, but only... that they should kiss each other!’

Urbenin, smiling all over his red face, rose and began to blink. Olenka, forced by the calls and the demands of the guests, rose slightly and offered her motionless, lifeless lips to Urbenin. He kissed her... Olenka pressed her lips together as if she feared they would be kissed another time, and glanced at me... Probably my look was an evil one. Catching my eye, she suddenly blushed, and taking up her handkerchief, she began to blow her nose, trying in that way to hide her terrible confusion... The thought entered my mind that she was ashamed before me, ashamed of that kiss, ashamed of her marriage.

‘What have I to do with you?’ I thought, but at the same time I did not remove my eyes from her face, trying to discover the cause of her confusion.

The poor little thing could not stand my gaze. It is true the blush of shame soon left her face, but in place of it tears began to rise up in her eyes, real tears such as I had never before seen on her face. Pressing her handkerchief to her face, she rose and rushed out of the dining-room.

‘Olga Nikolaevna has a bad headache,’ I hastened to say in order to explain her departure. ‘Already this morning she complained of her head...’

‘Not at all, brother,’ the Count said jokingly. ‘A headache has nothing to do with it. It’s all caused by the kiss, it has confused her. Ladies and gentlemen, I announce a severe reprimand for the bridegroom! He has not taught his bride how to kiss! Ha, ha, ha!’

The guests, delighted with the Count’s wit, began to laugh... But they ought not to have laughed...

Five minutes passed, ten minutes passed, and the bride did not return... A silence fell on the party... Even the Count ceased joking... Olenka’s absence was all the more striking as she had left suddenly without saying a word... To say nothing about the etiquette of the matter, Olenka had left the table immediately after the kiss, so it was evident she was cross at having been forced to kiss her husband... It was impossible to suppose she had gone away because she was confused... One can be confused for a minute, for two, but not for an eternity, as the first ten minutes of her absence appeared to us all. What a number of evil thoughts entered into the half tipsy minds of the men, what scandals were being prepared by the charming ladies! The bride had risen and left the table! What a picturesque scene for a drama in the provincial
beau mondé!

Urbenin began to be uneasy and looked around.

‘Nerves...’ he muttered. ‘Or perhaps something has gone wrong with her toilette... Who can account for anything with these women? She’ll come back directly - this very minute.’

But when another ten minutes had passed and she had not appeared, he looked at me with such unhappy, imploring eyes that I was sorry for him.

‘Would it matter if I went to look for her?’ his eyes asked. ‘Won’t you help me, golubchek, to get out of this horrible position? Of all here you are the cleverest, the boldest, the most ready-witted man. Do help me!’

I saw the entreaty in his unhappy eyes and decided to help him. How I helped him the reader will see farther on... I will only say that the bear who assisted the hermit in Krylov’s fable loses all its animal majesty, becomes pale, and turns into an innocent infusoria when I think of myself in the part of the ‘obliging fool’... The resemblance between me and the bear consists only in this that we both went to help quite sincerely without foreseeing any bad consequences from our help, but the difference between us is enormous... The stone with which I struck Urbenin’s forehead was many times more weighty...

‘Where is Olga Nikolaevna?’ I asked the lackey who had brought round the salad.

‘She went into the garden, sir,’ he replied.

‘This is becoming quite impossible, mesdames!’ I said in a jocular tone, addressing myself to the ladies. ‘The bride has gone away and my wine has become quite sour! I must go to look for her and bring her back, even if all her teeth were aching! The best man is an official personage, and he is going to show his authority!’

I rose, amid the loud applause of my friend the Count, left the dining-room and went into the garden. The hot rays of the midday sun poured straight upon my head, which was already excited by wine. Suffocating heat and sultriness seemed to strike me in the face. I went along one of the side avenues at a venture, and, whistling some sort of melody, I gave full scope to my capacities as an ordinary detective. I examined all the bushes, summer-houses and caves, and when I began to be tormented by the regret that I had turned to the right instead of the left, I suddenly heard a strange sound. Somebody was laughing or crying. The sounds issued from one of the grottoes that I had left to examine last of all. Quickly entering it, I found the object of my search enveloped in dampness, the smell of mildew, mushrooms, and lime.

She stood there leaning against a wooden column that was covered with black moss, and lifting her eyes full of horror and despair on me, she tore at her hair. Tears poured from her eyes as from a sponge that is pressed.

‘What have I done? What have I done?’ she muttered.

‘Yes, Olia, what have you done?’ I said, standing before her with folded arms.

‘Why did I marry him? Where were my eyes? Where was my sense?’

‘Yes, Olia... It is difficult to explain your action. To explain it by inexperience is too indulgent; to explain it by depravity — I would rather not...’

‘I only understood it today... only today! Why did I not understand it yesterday? Now all is irrevocable, all is lost! All, all! I might have married the man I love, the man who loves me!’

‘Who is that, Olia?’ I asked.

‘You!’ she said, looking me straight and openly in the eyes. ‘But I was too hasty! I was foolish! You are clever, noble, young... You are rich! You appeared to me unattainable!’

‘Well, that’s enough, Olia,’ I said, taking her by the hand. ‘Wipe your little eyes and come along... They are waiting for you there... Well, don’t cry any more, don’t cry...’ I kissed her hand... ‘That’s enough, little girl! You have done a foolish thing and are now paying for it... It was your fault... Well, that’s enough, be calm...’

‘But you love me? Yes? You are so big, so handsome! Don’t you love me?’

‘It’s time to go, my darling...’ I said, noticing to my great horror that I was kissing her forehead, taking her round the waist, that she was scorching me with her hot breath and that she was hanging round my neck.

‘Enough!’ I mumbled. ‘That must satisfy you!’

Five minutes later, when I carried her out of the grotto in my arms and troubled by new impressions put her on her feet, I saw Pshekhotsky standing almost at the entrance... He stood there, looking at me maliciously, and silently applauding... I measured him with my glance, and giving Olga my arm, walked off towards the house.

‘We’ll see the last of you here today,’ I said, looking back at Pshekhotsky. ‘You will have to pay for this, spying!’

My kisses had probably been ardent because Olga’s face was burning as if ablaze. There were no traces of the recently shed tears to be seen on it.