A Russian Affair

About Love

They had delicious pies, crayfish and mutton chops for lunch, and during the meal Nikanor, the cook, came upstairs to inquire what the guests would like for dinner. He was a man of medium height, puffy-faced and with small eyes. He was so close-shaven his whiskers seemed to have been plucked out and not cut off with a razor.

Alyokhin told his guests that the beautiful Pelageya was in love with the cook. However, since he was a drunkard and a brawler, she didn’t want to marry him; but she did not object to ‘living’ with him, as they say. He was a very devout Christian, however, and his religious convictions would not allow him to ‘set up house’ with her. So he insisted on marriage and would not hear of anything else. He cursed her when he was drunk and even beat her. When he was like this, she would hide upstairs and sob, and then Alyokhin and his servants would not leave the house in case she needed protecting. They began to talk about love.

Alyokhin started: ‘What makes people fall in love and why couldn’t Pelageya fall for someone else, someone more suited to her mentally and physically, instead of that ugly-mug Nikanor (everyone round here calls him ugly-mug), since personal happiness is so important in love? It’s a mystery, and you can interpret it which way you like. Only one indisputable truth has been said about love up to now, that it’s a “tremendous mystery”, and everything else that’s been written or said about it has never provided an answer and is just a reformulation of problems that have always remained unsolved. One theory that might, on the face of it, explain one case, won’t explain a dozen others. Therefore, in my opinion, the best way is to treat each case individually, without making generalizations. In doctors’ jargon, you have to “isolate” each case.’

‘Absolutely true,’ Burkin said.

‘Decent Russians like ourselves have a passion for problems that have never been solved. Usually, love is poeticized, beautified with roses and nightingales, but we Russians have to flavour it with the “eternal problems” – and we choose the most boring ones at that.

‘When I was still studying in Moscow I had a “friend”, a dear lady who’d be wondering how much I’d allow her every month and how much a pound of beef was while I held her close. And we never stop asking ourselves questions when we love: is it honourable or dishonourable, clever or stupid, how will it all end, and so on. Whether that’s a good thing or not, I don’t know, but I do know that it cramps your style, doesn’t provide any satisfaction and gets on your nerves.’

It looked as if he wanted to tell us a story. It’s always the same with people living on their own – they have something that they are only too pleased to get off their chests. Bachelors living in town go to the public baths and restaurants just to talk to someone, and sometimes they tell the bath attendants or waiters some very interesting stories. Out in the country they normally pour out their hearts to their guests. Through the windows we could only see grey skies now and trees dripping with rain – in this kind of weather there was really nowhere to go and nothing else to do except listen to stories.

‘I’ve been living and farming in Sofino for quite a long time now – since I left university, in fact,’ Alyokhin began. ‘I was never brought up to do physical work and I’m an “armchair” type by inclination. When I first came to this estate they were up to their eyes in debts. But since my father had run up these debts partly through spending so much on my education, I decided to stay and work on the estate until the debts were paid off. That was my decision and I started working here – not without a certain degree of aversion, I must confess. The soil’s not very fertile round here, and to avoid farming at a loss you have to rely on serfs or hire farm labourers, which more or less comes to the same thing. Or else you have to run your own estate peasant-style, which means you yourself and all your family have to slave away in the fields. There’s no two ways about it. But then I didn’t have time for subtleties: I didn’t leave a square inch of soil unturned, I rounded up all the peasants and their wives from neighbouring villages and we all worked like mad. I did the ploughing, sowing and reaping myself, which was a terrible bore and it made me screw my face up in disgust, like the starving village cat forced to eat cucumbers in some kitchen garden. I was all aches and pains and I’d fall asleep standing up. From the very beginning I thought that I’d have no trouble at all combining this life of slavery with my cultural activities. All I had to do, so I thought, was keep to some settled routine. So I installed myself in the best rooms up here, had coffee and liqueurs after lunch and dinner, and took the European Herald with me to bed. But our parish priest, Father Ivan, turned up and polished off all my liqueurs at one sitting. And the European Herald ended up with his daughters, since during the summer, especially when we were harvesting, I never made it to my own bed but had to sleep in a barn, on a sledge, or in a woodman’s hut somewhere, so what time was there for reading? Gradually I moved downstairs, had meals with the servants – they were all that was left of my earlier life of luxury – the same servants who had waited on my father and whom I did not have the heart to dismiss.

‘In my early years here I was made honorary justice of the peace. This meant occasional trips into town, taking my seat at the sessions and local assizes, and this made a break for me. When you’re stuck in a place like this for two or three months at a stretch – especially in the winter – you end up pining for your black frockcoat. I saw frock-coats – and uniforms and tailcoats as well – at the assizes. They were all lawyers, educated men there, people I could talk to. After sleeping on a sledge or eating with the servants it was the height of luxury sitting in an armchair, with clean underwear, light boots, and a watch-chain on your chest!

‘They gave me a warm welcome in town and I eagerly made friends. The most significant, and frankly, the most pleasant, of these friendships was with Luganovich, vice-president of the assizes. Both of you know him, he’s a most delightful man. Now, all this was about the time of that famous arson case. The questioning went on for two days and we were exhausted. Luganovich took a look at me and said, “Do you know what? Come and have dinner at my place.”

‘This was right out of the blue, as I didn’t know him at all well, only through official business, and I’d never been to his house. I went to my hotel room for a quick change and went off to dinner. Now I had the chance to meet Luganovich’s wife, Anna Alekseyevna. She was still very young then, not more than twenty-two, and her first child had been born six months before. It’s all finished now and it’s hard for me to say exactly what it was I found so unusual about her, what attracted me so much, but at the time, over dinner, it was all so clear, without a shadow of doubt: here was a young, beautiful, kind, intelligent, enchanting woman, unlike any I’d met before. Immediately I sensed that she was a kindred spirit, someone I knew already, and that her face, with its warm clever eyes, was just like one I had seen before when I was a little boy, in an album lying on my mother’s chest of drawers.

‘At the trial four Jews had been convicted of arson and conspiracy – in my opinion, on no reasonable grounds at all. I became very heated over dinner, felt bad and I can’t remember even now what I said, only that Anna Alekseyevna kept shaking her head and telling her husband, “Dmitry, how can they do this?”

‘Luganovich was a good man, one of those simple, open-hearted people who are firmly convinced that once you have a man in the dock he must be guilty, and that a verdict can only be challenged in writing, according to the correct legal procedure, and never during dinner or private conversation. “We haven’t set anything alight,” he said softly, “so we won’t have to stand trial or go to prison.”

‘Both husband and wife plied me with food and drink. Judging from little details – the way they made coffee together and their mutual understanding that needed no words – I concluded that they were living peacefully and happily, and that they were glad to have a guest. After dinner there were piano duets. When it grew dark I went back to the hotel. All of this was at the beginning of spring. I spent the whole of the following summer in Sofino without emerging once and I was too busy even to think of going into town. But I could not forget that slender, fair-haired woman for one moment. Although I made no conscious effort to think about her, she seemed to cast a faint shadow over me.

‘In late autumn there was a charity show in town. I took my seat in the governor’s box, where I’d been invited during the interval, and there was Anna Alekseyevna sitting next to the governor’s wife. Once again I was struck by that irresistible, radiant beauty, by those tender, loving eyes, and once again I felt very close to her.

‘We sat side by side, then we went into the foyer where she told me, “You’ve lost weight. Have you been ill?”

‘ “Yes, I’ve rheumatism in my shoulder and I sleep badly when it rains.”

‘ “You look quite exhausted. When you came to dinner in the spring you seemed younger, more cheerful. You were very lively then and said some most interesting things. I was even a little taken with you, I must confess. For some reason I often thought about you during the summer and when I was getting ready for the theatre I had a feeling I might see you today.” And she burst out laughing.

‘ “But now you seem to have no energy,” she repeated. “It ages you.”

‘Next day I had lunch with the Luganoviches. Afterwards they drove out to their country villa to make arrangements for the winter, and I went with them. I came back to town with them and at midnight I was having tea in those peaceful domestic surroundings, in front of a roaring fire, while the young mother kept slipping out to see if her little girl was sleeping. Afterwards I made a point of visiting the Luganoviches whenever I came to town. We grew used to one another and I usually dropped in unannounced, like one of the family.

‘That soft drawling voice I found so attractive would come echoing from one of the far rooms: “Who’s there?”

‘ “It’s Pavel Konstantinych,” the maid or nanny would reply.

‘Then Anna Alekseyevna would appear with a worried look and every time she’d ask me the same question, “Why haven’t you been to see us? Is anything wrong?”

‘The way she looked at me, the delicate, noble hand she offered me, the clothes she wore in the house, her hairstyle, her voice and footsteps always made me feel that something new, out of the ordinary and important had happened in my life. We’d have long conversations – and long silences – immersed in our own thoughts. Or she would play the piano for me. If she was out, I’d stay and wait, talk to the nanny, play with the baby, or lie on the sofa in the study and read the papers. When Anna Alekseyevna came back I’d meet her in the hall, take her shopping and for some reason I’d always carry it so devotedly and exultantly you’d have thought I was a little boy.

‘You know the story about the farmer’s wife who had no worries until she went and bought a pig. The Luganoviches had no worries, so they made friends with me. If I was away from town for long, they thought I must be ill or that something had happened to me and they would get terribly worked up. And they were concerned that an educated man like myself, speaking several languages, didn’t use his time studying or doing literary work and could live out in the wilds, forever turning round like a squirrel on a wheel and slaving away without a penny to show for it. They sensed that I was deeply unhappy and that if I spoke, laughed or ate, it was only to hide my suffering. Even at cheerful times, when I was in good spirits, I knew they were giving me searching looks. They were particularly touching when I really was in trouble, when some creditor was chasing me, or when I couldn’t pay some bill on time. Both of them would stay by the window whispering, and then the husband would come over to me, looking serious, and say, “Pavel Konstantinych, if you’re a bit short, my wife and I beg you not to think twice about asking us!”

‘And his ears would turn red with excitement. Often, after a whispering session at the window, he would come over to me, ears flushed, and say, “My wife and I beg you to accept this little gift.”

‘And he’d give me cufflinks, a cigarette case or a table-lamp. In return, I’d send them some poultry, butter or flowers from the country. They were quite well-off, by the way, both of them. In my younger days I was always borrowing and wasn’t too fussy where the money came from, taking it wherever I could get it. But for nothing in the world would I have borrowed from the Luganoviches. The very idea!

‘I was unhappy. Whether I was at home, out in the fields, in the barn, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and I tried to unravel the mystery of that young, beautiful, clever woman who had married an uninteresting man, who could almost be called old (he was over forty) and had borne his children. And I tried to solve the enigma of that boring, good-natured, simple-minded fellow, with his insufferable common sense, always crawling up to the local stuffed shirts at balls and soirées, a lifeless, useless man whose submissive, indifferent expression made you think he’d been brought along as an object for sale, a man who believed, however, that he had the right to be happy and to be the father of her children. I never gave up trying to understand why she was fated to meet him, and not me, why such a horrible mistake should have to occur in our lives.

‘Every time I went into town I could tell from her eyes that she had been waiting for me, and she would admit that from the moment she’d got up she’d had some kind of premonition that I would be coming. We had long talks and there were long silences, and we didn’t declare our love, but concealed it jealously, timidly, fearing anything that might betray our secret to each other. Although I loved her tenderly, deeply, I reasoned with myself and tried to guess what the consequences would be if we had no strength to combat it. It seemed incredible that my gentle, cheerless love could suddenly rudely disrupt the happy lives of her husband and children – of that whole household in fact, where I was so loved and trusted. Was I acting honourably? She would have gone away with me, but where could I take her? It would have been another matter if my life had been wonderful and eventful – if, for example, I’d been fighting to liberate my country, or if I’d been a famous scholar, actor or artist. But I’d only be taking her away from an ordinary, pedestrian life into one that was just the same, just as prosaic, even more so, perhaps. And just how long would we stay happy? What would become of her if I was taken ill, or died? Or if we simply stopped loving each other?

‘And she seemed to have come to the same conclusion. She had been thinking about her husband, her children, and her mother, who loved her husband like a son. If she were to let her feelings get the better of her, then she would have to lie or tell the whole truth, but either alternative would have been equally terrible and distressing for someone in her position. And she was tormented by the question: would her love make me happy, wouldn’t she be complicating a life which was difficult enough already, brimful of all kinds of unhappiness? She thought that she was no longer young enough for me and that she wasn’t hard-working or energetic enough to start a new life with me. Often she told her husband that I should marry some nice clever girl who would make a good housewife and be a help to me. But immediately she would add that it would be a hard job finding someone answering to that description in that town.

‘Meanwhile the years passed. Anna Alekseyevna already had two children. Whenever I called on the Luganoviches the servants welcomed me with smiles, the children shouted that Uncle Pavel Konstantinych had arrived and clung to my neck. Everyone was glad. They didn’t understand what was going on deep down inside me and they thought that I too shared their joy. All of them considered me a most noble person, and both parents and children felt that the very personification of nobility was walking around the house, and this lent a very special charm to their attitude towards me, as if my being there made their lives purer and finer. I would go to the theatre with Anna Alekseyevna – we always used to walk. We would sit side by side in the stalls, shoulders touching, and as I took the opera glasses from her I felt that she was near and dear to me, that she belonged to me, that we couldn’t live without each other. But through some strange lack of mutual understanding we would always say goodbye and part like strangers when we left the theatre. In that town they were already saying God knows what about us, but there wasn’t one word of truth in it.

‘Later on, Anna Alekseyevna visited her mother and sister more often. She started to have fits of depression when she realized her life was unfulfilled, ruined, and she had no desire to see either her husband or the children. She was already having treatment for a nervous disorder.

‘We didn’t say one word to each other and she seemed strangely irritated with me when other people were around. She’d quarrel with everything I said, and if I was having an argument she would always take the other person’s side. If I dropped something she would coldly say, “Congratulations.” If I left my opera glasses behind when we went to the theatre she’d say afterwards, “I knew that you’d forget them.”

‘Whether for better or for worse, there’s nothing in this life that doesn’t come to an end sooner or later. The time to part finally came when Luganovich was made a judge in one of the western provinces. They had to sell the furniture, horses and the villa. When we drove out to the villa and turned round for a last glimpse of the garden and the green roof, everyone felt sad and it was then I realized the time had come to say farewell – and not only to a simple villa. On the advice of her doctor they decided to send Anna Alekseyevna to the Crimea, while soon afterwards Luganovich would take the children with him to the western province.

‘A large crowd of us went to see Anna Alekseyevna off. She had already said goodbye to her husband and children, and the train was about to leave at any moment. I rushed to her compartment to put a basket that she’d almost forgotten onto the luggage-rack. Now it was time to say farewell. When our eyes met we could hold ourselves back no longer. I embraced her and she pressed her face to my chest and the tears just flowed. As I kissed her face, shoulders and hands that were wet with tears – oh, how miserable we both were! – I declared my love and realized, with a searing pain in my heart, how unnecessary, trivial and illusory everything that had stood in the way of our love had been. I understood that with love, if you start theorizing about it, you must have a nobler, more meaningful starting-point than mere happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue, as they are commonly understood. Otherwise it’s best not to theorize at all.

‘I kissed her for the last time, pressed her hand and we parted for ever. The train was already moving. I took a seat in the next compartment, which was empty, and cried until the first stop, where I got out and walked back to Sofino.’

While Alyokhin was telling his story the rain had stopped and the sun had come out. Burkin and Ivan Ivanych went onto the balcony, from which there was a wonderful view of the garden and the river, gleaming like a mirror now in the sunlight. As they admired the view they felt sorry that this man, with those kind, clever eyes, who had just told his story so frankly, was really turning round and round in his huge estate like a squirrel in a cage, showing no interest in academic work or indeed anything that could have made his life more agreeable. And they wondered how sad that woman’s face must have been when he said goodbye on the train and kissed her face and shoulders. Both of them had met her in town and in fact Burkin had even known her and thought she was beautiful.