Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog (14 page)

“How am I to understand you?”

“Let me explain. During the last few days I have come to understand you rather better than all these months that I have been turning up here because of your black eyes. I see now that I was mistaken. You are not suited to be my wife, and you yourself have no interest in that. I am not a man of idle words, I do not beat around the bush. I have not made any secret of my feelings for you, but neither have I tried to impose myself on you. I have given you enough time to realize that other than me there is no suitable match for you here. Stepan Trofimovich is a dreamer, and he is boring, too; with your character, after six months with him you would either put a noose around your neck or launch into a life of debauchery. Poggio—well, he’s really only good for amusement. You didn’t really take him seriously, did you? A petty little man, shallow. And now there is this new infatuation of yours. I don’t really have any objections. Have your fling; I can wait until your whimsy passes. Only this time you are playing with fire; this gentleman has great big teeth. And he really has no need of you—his interests lie elsewhere. Just at the moment you are not yourself, my words are no more than an annoyance to you, but even so, listen to what Donat Sytnikov has to say. I am like a stone wall, you can lean against me, and you can hide behind me. There is only one thing I ask, when this project of yours collapses—do not throw yourself headfirst into the millpond. Such a shame to waste beauty like that. Come see me instead. I will not take you as my wife now, there would not be any point, but as a mistress—with great willingness. Stop flashing your eyes at me and listen; I am talking sense. As a mistress you would enjoy yourself more and feel more at ease—no domestic cares, no childbearing, and you will not be afraid of gossip. And what gossip could there be, in God’s name? I have just made plans to move my head office to Odessa. The River is too limited for me; I’m moving out into the sea lanes. Odessa is a jolly southern city where the morals are freer. You will be whoever you want to be. Paint pictures if you like—I’ll find you the finest teachers, ones your Arkasha could never match. If you want, I’ll give you a theater. You’ll decide for yourself which plays to put on, hire any actors you like, even from St. Petersburg, and all the finest roles will be yours. I have enough money for all that. And I’m a good man, reliable and not dissipated, like your chosen favorite. That is all I have to say.”

Naina Georgievna listened through to the very end of this incredible speech without interrupting even once. Of course, few would have dared to interrupt someone like Sytnikov—he was such an imposing man.

When he stopped speaking, however, the young woman laughed. Not loudly, but so strangely that Pelagia felt the frost creep across her skin.

“You know, Donat Abramovich, if my ‘project,’ as you call it, really does fail, I would sooner throw myself in the millpond than come to you. Only it will not fail. I hold a winning ticket. There are abysses here so deep that they take your breath away. I have had enough of being a rag doll that you all fight over and tear to shreds. I am going to grasp my own fate by the tail! And not only my own. I want to live life to the full. Not as its slave, but as its mistress!”

There was another creak of leather—Sytnikov had stood up.

“What you mean by this, I do not understand. I can only see that you are beside yourself. Therefore, I am leaving now, but you think about what I said. My word can be trusted.”

The door opened and closed, but Naina Georgievna did not leave immediately. For another five minutes, or even longer, Pelagia heard inconsolable sobbing filled with bitter despair and a determined sniffing. Then there was whispering in a tone of mixed spite and passion. Listening closely, the nun heard the same thing repeated over and over:

“Well, let him be the fiend incarnate, let him, let him, let him. I don’t care…”

When the way was clear, Pelagia went out into the corridor and set out for her room. As she walked along, she shook her head anxiously. That whisper was still echoing inside it.

THE NUN NEVER reached her room, however, for she met Tanya on her way there. The maid was carrying a bundle in one hand and dragging Zakusai along on his leash with the other. He was resisting stubbornly with all four paws.

“Mother,” she said joyfully, “wouldn’t you like to come with me? Marya Afanasievna has fallen asleep, so I’m on my way to the bathhouse; it’s been heated since this morning. You can have a wash while I stay with the little dog. And then you can keep an eye on him. It would be a great help to me. I can’t get into the suds with him, can I? The slobbery pest gives me no peace as it is.”

Pelagia smiled amiably at the girl and agreed. At least in the bathhouse there was no one to eavesdrop or spy on.

The little bathhouse stood behind the house—a squat hut of amber-yellow pine logs with tiny windows right up under the eaves. A trickle of white smoke was rising from the pot-bellied chimney.

“You get washed; I’ll sit here,” the nun said in the small, clean changing room, lowering herself onto the bench and picking up the puppy.

“Oh, thank you, you’ve really saved me, you have, I’ve been running around all the time and I’m all sweaty, and I couldn’t get a wash or run down to the River,” Tanya jabbered, hastily undressing and unloosing her light brown hair from its tight bun.

Pelagia admired her finely molded, swarthy figure. A genuine Artemis, goddess of the forest; all that was lacking was a quiver of arrows over her shoulder.

No sooner had Tanya disappeared behind the rough wooden door than there was a gentle knock from the outside.

“Tanechka, my little Tanya,” a man’s voice whispered through the crack of the door. “Open up, sweetheart. I know you’re in there. I saw you carrying your little bundle.”

Was that really Krasnov? Pelagia jumped to her feet in consternation, and her habit made a rustling sound.

“I hear your dress rustling. Don’t put it on, stay just the way you are. Let me in, no one will see. Come on—what have you got to lose? I’ve written a little poem in your honor:

Like to a little, rain-filled cloud,

Longing to pour its droplets down,

Like to the bright moon’s yellow face,

E’er yearning for the earth’s embrace,

So I, consumed by passion’s flame,

Have breathed my darling Tanya’s name

And ached to have my love away

Since chill December’s seventh day.

“See, I even remembered the date when we went sleigh riding together. I’ve loved you ever since that day. Stop running away from me, my little Tanyushenka. Pyotr Georgievich won’t write any poems about you, will he? Open up, eh?”

Tanya’s admirer froze, listening, then half a minute later continued with a threat:

“Come on, open up, you little flirt, or I’ll tell Pyotr Georgievich what you were up to with the Circassian the other day. I saw! He’ll soon stop being so polite to you then. And I’ll tell Marya Afanasievna, and she’ll send you packing, you wanton. Open up, I say!”

Pelagia opened the door with a sudden jerk and folded her arms across her chest.

Kirill Nifontovich froze on the threshold just as he was, in his long white blouse and straw hat with his arms flung out wide and his lips pursed into a heart shape in anticipation of a kiss. His little blue eyes gaped in blank bewilderment.

“Oh, holy mother, it’s you…. Why didn’t you say so straightaway? Did you want to have a laugh at me?”

“To laugh at some people is no sin,” Pelagia replied severely.

Krasnov’s eyes flashed with a glitter in which there was not a trace of his usual childish naïveté. He swung around, darted around the corner of the bathhouse, and was gone.

This really is a nest of vipers, thought Sister Pelagia.

AFTER THE BATHHOUSE, they strolled unhurriedly through the cool of the evening, pacified by their steaming, their wet hair tightly bound up in kerchiefs (Tanya’s white and the nun’s black). They had given Zakusai a wash too, despite all the yelping and squealing. Now he was whiter than ever and his short coat was sticking out like the down on a duckling.

There was a black carriage covered in dust standing by the stable. A sullen, black-bearded man in a dirty Circassian coat and a round felt cap was unharnessing the black horses.

Tanya seized hold of Pelagia’s elbow and sighed in a swooning voice.

“He’s here…. Mr. Bubentsov is here.”

But she gazed as if spellbound at the Asiatic leading a horse into the stable.

Pelagia remembered Kirill Nifontovich’s threat and looked at her companion more closely. Her face was quite still, with a strange dreamy expression; her pupils were dilated and her full pink lips slightly parted.

The Circassian cast a brief glance at the women. He did not greet them or even nod as he led the second horse in by the bridle.

Tanya walked over to him slowly, bowed, and said in a quiet voice: “Good day, Murad Djuraevich. Back to see us again?”

He did not answer. He stood there, looking gloomily off to one side, winding the patterned bridle around his broad, hairy wrist.

Then he went back to the carriage and began brushing off the dust.

Tanya trailed after him.

“Are you tired after the journey? Would you like some cold milk? Or some kvass?”

The Circassian did not turn around; he did not even shrug his shoulders.

Pelagia merely sighed, shook her head, and continued on her way.

“Your clothes are all dirty,” she heard Tanya’s voice say behind her. “Why not take them off, and I’ll wash them? They’ll be dry by tomorrow. Are you staying the night?”

Silence.

At the door of the house Pelagia glanced back and saw Bubentsov’s driver, as gloomy as ever, walking toward the open gates of the stable, leading Tanya by the hand—exactly as he had just led the horse. The girl was moving her feet obediently in quick little steps, and Zakusai was trailing along behind her just as submissively on his lead.

STANDING MEEKLY OUTSIDE the widow’s bedroom was a man who had gray hair but was not yet old, with a very creased, smiling face, a black frock coat buttoned all the way up, and equally black trousers of fine wool worn to a shine at the knees. The hands at the end of his long arms were clasped almost halfway down his thighs and in them he was holding a plump prayer book.

“Give me your blessing, holy mother!” he exclaimed in a thin voice the moment he spied Pelagia, blocking her way. “I am Tikhon Ieremeevich Spasyonny, a most unworthy worm. Allow me to kiss your blessed hand.” He reached out with a grasping, long-fingered hand, but Pelagia hid her own hands behind her back.

“We are not allowed,” she said, examining the humble supplicant. “The statute forbids it.”

“Well then, without the hand, simply make the sign of the cross over me,” said Spasyonny, readily consenting. “I shall be blessed in any case. Do not refuse me, for it is written: ‘Despise not my sinful sores, but soothe them with the unction of thy grace.’”

Having received his blessing, he bowed from the waist, but still did not clear the way.

“You must surely be Sister Pelagia, the envoy of His Grace, the most honorable and greatly hallowed Mitrofanii? I am informed that you have been accommodated in the chamber formerly occupied by myself, and am extremely glad of it, for I see you are a most worthy lady. I myself have been quartered in the other wing, among the slaves and the servants, as if it had been said unto me: Get thee hence from this place, for unworthy art thou to be here. I do not complain and I submit, recalling the words of the prophet: ‘Should they persecute you in one city, hie thee to another.’”

“Why do you not go in to Marya Afanasievna?” the nun asked, confused by what she had heard.

“I do not dare,” Spasyonny said briefly. “I know that the sight of me is repulsive to that noble lady, and my venerable superior, Vladimir Lvovich Bubentsov, has ordered me to wait here at the gates of the chamber. Permit me to open the door before you.”

He finally stepped aside, opening one side of the door for Pelagia, and nonetheless somehow managed to press his wet lips against her hand.

In the room a slim, elegant gentleman was sitting beside the bed with one leg crossed over the other, swaying the small, narrow foot at the end of it to and fro. He glanced around at the sound but, seeing that it was a nun, immediately turned back to the woman lying in the bed and continued speaking where he had left off.