Delphi Complete Works of Anton Chekhov (Illustrated) (477 page)

A strong gust of wind blew off my hat and bore it into the surrounding darkness. In its flight my hat touched Zorka’s head. She took fright, reared on her hind legs and galloped off along the familiar road.

When I reached home I threw myself on the bed. Polycarp suggested that I should undress, and he got sworn at and called a ‘devil’ for no earthly reason.

‘Devil yourself!’ Polycarp grumbled as he went away from my bed.

‘What did you say? What did you say?’ I shouted.

‘None so deaf as those who will not hear!’

‘Oh, ho! You dare to be impudent!’ I thundered and poured out all my bile on my poor lackey. ‘Get out! Let me see no more of you, scoundrel! Out with you!’

And without waiting for my man to leave the room, I fell on the bed and began to sob like a boy. My overstrained nerves could bear no more. Powerless wrath, wounded feelings, jealousy — all found vent in one way or another.

‘The husband killed his wife!’ squalled my parrot, raising his yellow feathers.

Under the influence of this cry the thought entered my head that Urbenin might really kill his wife.

Falling asleep, I dreamed of murders. My nightmare was suffocating and painful... It appeared to me that my hands were stroking something cold, and I had only to open my eyes to see a corpse. I dreamed that Urbenin was standing at the head of my bed, looking at me with imploring eyes.

CHAPTER XIX

After the night that is described above a calm set in.
 
I remained at home, only allowing myself to leave the house or ride about on business. Heaps of work had accumulated, so it was impossible for me to be idle. From morning till night I sat at my writing-table scribbling, or examining people who had fallen into my magisterial claws. I was no longer drawn to Karnéevka, the Count’s estate.

I thought no more of Olga. That which falls from the load is lost; and she it was who had fallen from my load and was, as I thought, irrecoverably lost. I thought no more about her and did not want to think about her.

‘Silly, vicious trash!’ I said to myself whenever her memory arose in my mind in the midst of my strenuous labours.

Occasionally, however, when I lay down to sleep or when I awoke in the morning, I remembered various moments of our acquaintance, and the short connection I had had with Olga. I remembered the ‘Stone Grave’, the little house in the wood in which ‘the girl in red’ lived, the road to Tenevo, the meeting in the grotto... and my heart began to beat faster... I experienced bitter heartache... But it was not for long. The bright memories were soon obliterated under the weight of the gloomy ones. What poetry of the past could withstand the filth of the present? And now, when I had finished with Olga, I looked upon this ‘poetry’ quite differently... Now I looked upon it as an optical illusion, a lie, hypocrisy... and it lost half its charm in my eyes.

The Count had become quite repugnant to me. I was glad not to see him, and I was always angry when his moustachioed face returned vaguely to my mind. Every day he sent me letters in which he implored me not to sulk but to come to see the no longer ‘solitary hermit’. Had I listened to his letters, I would have been doing a displeasure to myself.

‘It’s finished!’ I thought. ‘Thank God! It bored me...’ I decided to break off all connection with the Count, and this decision did not cost me the slightest struggle. Now I was not at all the same man that I had been three weeks before, when after the quarrel about Pshekhotsky I could scarcely bring myself to stay at home. There was no attraction now.

Staying always at home at last seemed unendurable, and I wrote to Doctor Pavel Ivanovich, asking him to come and have a chat. For some reason I received no reply to this letter, so I wrote another. But the second received the same answer as the first. Evidently dear ‘Screw’ was pretending to be angry... The poor fellow, having received a refusal from Nadenka Kalinin, looked upon me as the cause of his misfortune. He had the right to be angry, and if he had never been angry before it was merely because he did not know how to.

‘When did he have time to learn?’ I thought, being perplexed at not receiving answers to my letters.

In the third week of obstinate seclusion in my own house the Count paid me a visit. Having scolded me for not riding over to see him nor sending him answers to his letters, he stretched himself out on the sofa and before he began to snore he spoke on his favourite theme - women.

I understand,’ he began languidly, screwing up his eyes and placing his hands under his head, ‘that you are delicate and susceptible. You don’t come to me from fear of breaking into our duet... interfering... An unwelcome guest is worse than a Tartar, a guest during the honeymoon is worse than a horned devil. I understand you. But, my dear friend, you forget that you are a friend and not a guest, that you are loved, esteemed. By your presence you would only complete the harmony... And what harmony, my dear brother! A harmony that I am unable to describe to you!’

The Count pulled his hands out from under his head and began to wave them about.

I myself am unable to understand if I am living happily or not. The devil himself wouldn’t be able to understand it. There are certainly moments when one would give half one’s life for an encore, but on the other hand there are days when one paces the rooms from corner to corner, as if beside oneself and ready to cry...

‘For what reason?’

‘Brother, I can’t understand that Olga. She’s like an ague not a woman. With the ague one has either fever or shivering fits. That’s how she is; five changes every day. She is either gay or so lifeless that she is choking back tears and praying... Sometimes she loves me, sometimes she doesn’t. There are moments when she caresses me as no woman has ever caressed me in my whole life. But sometimes it is like this: You awake unexpectedly, you open your eyes, and you see a face turned on you... such a terrible, such a savage face... a face that is all distorted with malignancy and aversion... When one sees such a thing all the enchantment vanishes... And she often looks at me in that way...’

‘With aversion?’

‘Well, yes! I can’t understand it... She swears that she came to me only for love, and still hardly a night passes that I do not see that face. How is it to be explained? I begin to think, though of course I don’t want to believe it, that she can’t bear me and has given herself to me for those rags which I buy for her now. She’s terribly fond of rags! She’s capable of standing before the mirror from morning to evening in a new frock; she is capable of crying for days and nights about a spoilt flounce... She’s terribly vain! What chiefly pleases her in me is that I’m a Count. She would never have loved me had I not been a Count. Never a dinner or supper passes that she does not reproach me with tears in her eyes, for not surrounding myself with aristocratic society. You see, she would like to reign in that society... A strange girl!’

The Count fixed his dim eyes on the ceiling and became pensive. I noticed, to my great astonishment, that this time, as an exception, he was sober. This struck and even touched me.

‘You are quite normal today,’ I said. ‘You are not drunk, and you don’t ask for vodka. What’s the meaning of this transformation?’

‘Yes, so it is! I had no time to drink, I’ve been thinking... I must tell you, Serezha, I’m seriously in love; it’s no joke. I am terribly fond of her. It’s quite natural, too... She’s a rare woman, not of the ordinary sort, to say nothing of her appearance. Not much intellect, to be sure, but what feeling, elegance, freshness! She can’t be compared with my former Amalias, Angelicas, and Grushas, whose love I have enjoyed till now. She’s something from another world, a world I do not know.’

‘Philosophizing!’ I laughed.

‘I’m captivated, I’ve almost fallen in love! But now I see the square of nought is nought. Her behaviour - she wore a mask that deceived me. The pink cheeks of innocence proved to be rouge, the kiss of love - the request to buy a new frock... I took her into my house like a wife, and she behaves like a mistress who is paid in cash. But it’s enough now. I am keeping a check on my soul’s aspirations, and beginning to see Olga as a mistress... Enough!’

‘Well, why not? How about the husband?’

‘The husband? Hm! What do you think he’s about?’

‘I think it is impossible to imagine a more unhappy man.’

‘You think that? Quite uselessly... He’s such a scoundrel, such a rascal, that I am not at all sorry for him... A rascal can never be unhappy, he’ll always find a way out.’

‘Why do you abuse him in that way?’

‘Because he’s a rogue. You know that I esteemed him, that I trusted him as a friend... I and you too - in general everybody considered him an honest, respectable man who was incapable of cheating. Meanwhile he has been robbing, plundering me! Taking advantage of his position of bailiff, he has dealt with my property as he liked. The only things he didn’t take were those that couldn’t be moved from their places.’

I, who knew Urbenin to be a man in the highest degree honest and disinterested, jumped up as if I had been stung when I heard these words spoken by the Count, and went up to him.

‘Have you caught him in the act of stealing?’ I asked.

‘No, but I know of his thievish tricks from trustworthy sources.’

‘May I ask from what sources?’

‘You needn’t be uneasy. I would not accuse a man without cause. Olga has told me all about him. Even before she became his wife she saw with her own eyes what loads of slaughtered fowls and geese he sent to town. She saw how my geese and fowls were sent as presents to a certain benefactor where his son, the schoolboy, lodged. More than that, she saw flour, millet and lard being dispatched there. Admitted that all these are trifles, but did these trifles belong to him? Here we have not a question of value but of principle. Principles were trespassed against. There’s more, sir! She saw in his cupboard a whole cache of money. When she asked him whose money it was and where he had got it, he begged her not to mention to anybody that he had money. My dear fellow, you know he’s as poor as a church mouse! His salary is scarcely sufficient for his board. Can you explain to me where this money came from?’

‘And you, stupid fool, believe this little vermin?’ I cried, stirred to the depths of my soul. ‘She is not satisfied with having run away from him and disgraced him in the eyes of the whole district. She must now betray him! What an amount of meanness is contained in that small and fragile body! Fowls, geese, millet... Master, master! You, with your political economy and your agricultural stupidity, are offended that he should have sent a present at holiday-time of a slaughtered bird which the foxes or polecats would have eaten, if it hadn’t been killed and given away, but have you once checked the huge accounts that Urbenin has handed in? Have you ever counted up the thousands and the tens of thousands? No? Then what is the use of talking to you? You are stupid and a beast. You would be glad to incriminate the husband of your mistress, but you don’t know how!’

‘My connection with Olga has nothing to do with the matter. Whether or not he’s her husband is all one, but since he has robbed me, I must be plain, and call him a thief. But let us leave this roguery alone. Tell me, is it honest or dishonest to receive a salary and for whole days to lie about dead drunk? He is drunk every day. There wasn’t a single day that I did not see him reeling about! Low and disgusting! Decent people don’t act in that way.’

‘It’s just because he’s decent that he gets drunk,’ I said.

‘You have a kind of passion for taking the part of such gentlemen. But I have decided to be unmerciful. I paid him off today and told him to clear out and make room for another. My patience is exhausted!’

I considered it unnecessary to try to convince the Count that he was unjust, impractical and stupid. It was not for me to defend Urbenin against the Count.

Five days later I heard that Urbenin with his schoolboy son and his little daughter had gone to live in the town. I was told that he drove to town drunk, half-dead, and that he had twice fallen out of the cart. The schoolboy and Sasha had cried all the way.

CHAPTER XX

Shortly after Urbenin had left, I was obliged to go to the Count’s estate, quite against my will. One of the Count’s stables had been broken into at night and several valuable saddles had been carried off by the thieves. The examining magistrate, that is I, had been informed and
nolens-volens,
I was obliged to go there.

I found the Count drunk and angry. He was wandering about the rooms seeking a refuge from his melancholy but could not find one.

I am worried by that Olga!’ he said waving his hand. ‘She got angry with me this morning and she left the house threatening to drown herself! And, as you see, there are no signs of her yet. I know she won’t drown herself. Still, it is very unpleasant of her. Yesterday, all day long, she was rubbing her eyes and breaking crockery; the day before she over-ate herself with chocolate. The devil only knows what such natures are!’

I comforted the Count as well as I could and sat down to dinner with him.

‘No, it’s time to give up such childishness,’ he kept mumbling during dinner, it’s high time, for it is all stupid and ridiculous. Besides, I must also confess she is beginning to bore me with her sudden changes and tantrums. I want something quiet, orderly, modest, you know — something like Nadenka Kalinin... a splendid girl!’

After dinner when I was walking in the garden I met the ‘drowned girl’. When she saw me she became very red and (strange woman) she began to laugh with joy. The shame on her face was mingled with pleasure, sorrow with happiness. For a moment she looked at me askance, then she rushed towards me and hung on my neck without saying a word.

‘I love you!’ she whispered, clinging to my neck. ‘I have been so sad without you. I should have died if you had not come.’

I embraced her and silently led her to one of the summer-houses.

Ten minutes later when parting from her, I took out of my pocket a twenty-five-rouble note and handed it to her. She opened her eyes wide.

‘What is that for?’

‘I am paying you for today’s love.’

Olga did not understand and continued to look at me with astonishment.

‘You see, there are women who make love for money,’ I explained. ‘They are venal. They must be paid for with money. Take it! If you take money from others, why don’t you want to take anything from me? I wish for no favours!’

Olga did not understand my cynicism in insulting her in this way. She did not know life as yet, and she did not understand the meaning of ‘venal women’.