Selected Stories

The Kiss

ON THE TWENTIETH OF MAY, at eight o’clock in the evening, all six batteries of the N—— Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night on their way to camp in the village of Mestechki. In the thick of the commotion, while some of the officers were bustling about the guns, and others, gathered in the square near the church enclosure, were hearing the quartermasters’ reports, a civilian riding a strange horse appeared from behind the church. The horse, a small bay with a fine neck and short tail, did not step straight forward but, as it were, sideways, with little dance movements, as though it were being whipped about the legs. Riding up to the officer the man on the horse raised his hat and said, “His Excellency Lieutenant General Von Rabbek, the local landowner, requests the pleasure of the officers’ company presently for tea. …”

The horse bowed, began to dance, and retired sideways; the rider again raised his hat, and in a flash he and his strange horse disappeared behind the church.

“What the devil does that mean?” muttered several of the officers as they dispersed to the quarters. “You want to sleep, and along comes this Von Rabbek with his tea! We know what tea means!”

The officers of all six batteries vividly recalled an incident that had occurred the preceding year during maneuvers, when they, together with the officers of one of the Cossack regiments, had been invited to tea in the same way by a count, a retired army officer, who had an estate in the neighborhood; the hospitable and genial count gave them a hearty welcome, stuffed them with food and drink, and then refused to let them return to their quarters in the village, but made them stay the night. All this, of course, was very pleasant; they could have wished for nothing better. The trouble was the retired officer carried his enjoyment of his young guests to excess. He kept them up till dawn recounting anecdotes of his glorious past, led them from one room to another showing them valuable paintings, old engravings, rare arms, and reading them the original letters of celebrated men, and the weary, jaded officers who were longing for their beds, looked and listened, discreetly yawning into their sleeves. When at last their host released them, it was too late for sleep.

Might not this Von Rabbek be another such one? Whether he was or not, there was no help for it. The officers, brushed and in fresh uniforms, trooped off in search of the manor house. In the church square they were told that they could get to His Excellency’s by the lower road—descending to the river behind the church and walking along the bank till they reached the garden, where they would find an avenue leading to the house; or they could go straight from the church by the upper road, which, half a verst from the village, would bring them to His Excellency’s barns. The officers decided to take the upper road.

“But what Von Rabbek is this?” they wondered, as they walked along. “Surely not the one that commanded the N—— cavalry division at Plevna?”

“No, that was not Von Rabbek, but simply Rabbe—without the von.”

“What glorious weather!”

At the first of the manorial barns the road divided; one fork went straight on and vanished into the evening dusk, the other, going off to the right, led to the manor house. The officers turned right and began to speak more quietly. On both sides of the road stood red-roofed barns built of stone, massive and austere, like barracks in a provincial town. Ahead of them gleamed the windows of the manor house.

“Gentlemen, a good omen!” said one of the officers. “Our setter has taken the lead; that means he scents game ahead!”

Lieutenant Lobytko, walking at their head, a tall, robust man with no mustache whatsoever (he was over twenty-five, but for some reason there was still not a sign of hair on his round, well-fed face), was famous throughout the brigade for his unerring instinct for divining the presence of women at a distance.

“Yes, there must be women here,” he said, turning round. “I can feel it.”

They were met at the portal by Von Rabbek himself, a handsome old man of sixty, in civilian dress. Shaking hands with his guests, he said he was happy and delighted to see them, but entreated them, for God’s sake, to forgive him for not inviting them to spend the night: two sisters with their children, his brothers, and several neighbors, had all come to visit him, and there was not a single spare room left.

Though the general shook hands with everyone, made his apologies and smiled, one could see from his face that he was by no means so delighted as last year’s count, and had invited the officers only because, in his opinion, good manners required it. And the officers, listening to him as they climbed the carpeted staircase, felt that they had been invited simply because it would have been awkward not to invite them, and at the sight of footmen hastening to light lamps in the entrance below and the anteroom above, they began to feel that by coming here they had introduced an atmosphere of confusion and annoyance. How could the presence of nineteen officers whom they had never seen before be welcome in a house where brothers, two sisters with their children, and neighbors had gathered, probably on the occasion of some family celebration or event?

Upstairs, near the entrance to the drawing room, the guests were met by a tall, graceful, elderly lady with a long face and black eyebrows, very like the Empress Eugénie. With a gracious and majestic smile, she said she was happy and delighted to see her guests, and only regretted that on this occasion she and her husband had been deprived of the opportunity of inviting the gentlemen to spend the night. From her beautiful, majestic smile, which instantly vanished from her face each time she turned away from a guest, it was apparent that in her day she had met countless officers, that she was in no mood for them now, and that if she invited them to her house and proffered her apologies, it was only because her breeding and position in society required it of her.

The officers went into a large dining room where, at one end of a long table, about a dozen men and women, both old and young, sat at tea. Behind them a group of men wrapped in a haze of cigar smoke was dimly visible; in their midst, speaking English in a loud voice and with a burr, stood a slender young man with red whiskers. Beyond this group, a brightly lighted room with pale blue furniture could be seen through a doorway.

“Gentlemen, there are so many of you that it is impossible to introduce you all!” The general spoke loudly, trying to sound very jovial. “Make one another’s acquaintance, gentlemen, without formalities!”

The officers, some with very serious, even stern expressions, others with constrained smiles, and all of them feeling very awkward, bowed perfunctorily and sat down to tea.

The most ill at ease of them all was Second Captain Ryabovich, a short, stooped officer with spectacles and whiskers like a lynx. While some of his comrades assumed serious expressions and others forced smiles, his face, his lynxlike whiskers, and his spectacles all seemed to say: “I am the most shy, the most modest, and most colorless officer in the whole brigade!” On first entering the room, and later, when he sat down to tea, he was unable to fix his attention on any one face or object. The faces, dresses, cut-glass decanters of cognac, the steaming glasses, the molded cornices—all merged into a single, overwhelming impression which inspired in him a feeling of alarm and a desire to hide his head. Like a lecturer appearing before the public for the first time, he saw everything that was before his eyes, but seemed to have only a vague conception of it (physiologists call such a condition, in which the subject sees but does not understand, “psychic blindness”). After a little while Ryabovich grew accustomed to his surroundings, recovered his sight, and began to observe. As a shy man, unused to society, what first struck him was that which he himself had always lacked—namely, the marked temerity of his new acquaintances. Von Rabbek, his wife, two elderly ladies, a young lady in a lilac dress, the young man with red whiskers, who, it appeared, was Von Rabbek’s youngest son, very adroitly, as though they had rehearsed it beforehand, took seats among the officers; and immediately started a heated debate in which the guests could not avoid taking part. The lilac young lady fervently argued that the artillery had a much easier time of it than the cavalry and the infantry, while Von Rabbek and the elderly ladies maintained the opposite. A lively exchange followed. Ryabovich looked at the lilac young lady who argued so heatedly about something that was unfamiliar and utterly uninteresting to her, and he watched the insincere smile come and go on her face.

Von Rabbek and his family skillfully drew the officers into the discussion while keeping a vigilant eye on their glasses and their mouths to see whether all of them were drinking, or had sugar, or why someone was not eating biscuits, or drinking cognac. And the longer Ryabovich watched and listened, the more fascinated he was by this insincere but beautifully disciplined family.

After tea the officers went into the music room. Lieutenant Lobytko’s instinct had not deceived him: there were many young matrons and girls in the room. The setter-lieutenant was soon standing beside a very young blonde in a black dress, and, bending over her with a dashing air, as though leaning on an unseen sword, he smiled and flirtatiously twitched his shoulders. He must have been talking some very interesting nonsense, for the blonde gazed condescendingly at his well-fed face and coolly remarked, “Indeed!” Had he been clever, the setter might have concluded from this unimpassioned “indeed” that he was on the wrong scent.

Someone began to play the piano; the melancholy strains of a waltz floated out through the wide-open windows, and suddenly, for some reason, everyone remembered that outside it was spring—a May evening. They all became aware of the fragrance of young poplar leaves, of roses, and lilacs. Under the influence of the music, Ryabovich began to feel the brandy he had drunk; he stole a glance at the window, then began to follow the movements of the women; and it seemed to him that the scent of roses, poplars, and lilacs, came not from the garden, but from the faces and the dresses of these women.

Young Von Rabbek invited an emaciated-looking girl to dance, and waltzed her twice around the room. Lobytko glided across the parquet floor to the lilac young lady and flew off with her. And the dancing commenced. … Ryabovich stood near the door among those who were not dancing and looked on. In all his life he had never once danced, never once put his arm around the waist of a respectable woman. He was enormously delighted to see a man, in plain sight of everyone, take by the waist a girl with whom he was not acquainted and offer her his shoulder for her hand, but he could in no way imagine himself in the position of such a man. There was a time when he had envied the valor and daring of his comrades, and was miserable at heart; the consciousness of being timid, uninteresting, round-shouldered, of having a long waist and lynxlike whiskers, deeply mortified him; but with the years he had grown used to this feeling, and now, watching the dancers or those who were talking loudly, he no longer envied them, but felt sadly moved.

When a quadrille was begun, young Von Rabbek approached those who were not dancing and proposed a game of billiards to two of the officers. They accepted and left the room with him. Having nothing to do, and wishing to take some part in the general activity, Ryabovich trailed after them. From the music room they passed through a drawing room, then along a narrow glassed-in corridor, and thence into a room where three sleepy footmen quickly jumped up from the divans. Finally, after traversing a long succession of rooms, Von Rabbek and the officers went into a small room where there was a billiard table. They started a game.

Ryabovich, never having played anything but cards, stood near the billiard table and indifferently watched the players as they walked about, coats unbuttoned, cues in hand, making puns and shouting words that were unintelligible to him. The players took no notice of him, and only now and then one of them, knocking against him with an elbow or accidentally catching him with a cue, would turn round and say, “Pardon!” Before even the first game was over he was bored, and it seemed to him that he was in the way. … He felt drawn back to the music room and went out.

On his way back he met with a little adventure. Before he had gone half way he realized that he was not going in the right direction. He distinctly recalled that he had met three sleepy footmen on his way to the billiard room, but he had already gone through five or six rooms, and they seemed to have vanished into the earth. When he became aware of his mistake he walked a little way back, turned to the right, and found himself in the semi-darkness of a small room he had not seen before. He stood there for a moment, then resolutely opened the first door that met his eye and walked into a completely dark room. Directly before him a strip of bright light made the chink of a doorway plainly visible; from beyond it came the muffled sound of a melancholy mazurka. Here, as in the music room the windows stood wide open, there was the fragrance of poplars, lilac, and roses. …

Ryabovich hesitated, in doubt. … At that moment he was surprised by the sound of hasty footsteps and the rustle of a dress; a breathless, feminine voice whispered, “At last!” and two soft, perfumed, unmistakably feminine arms were thrown around his neck, a warm cheek was pressed to his, and there was the sound of a kiss. Immediately the bestower of the kiss uttered a faint scream and sprang away, as it seemed to Ryabovich, in disgust. He very nearly screamed himself, and rushed headlong toward the strip of light in the door. …

When he returned to the music room his heart was throbbing and his hands were trembling so perceptibly that he quickly clasped them behind his back. At first he was tormented by shame and the fear that everyone in the room knew he had just been embraced and kissed by a woman. He shrank into himself and looked about uneasily, but after convincing himself that everyone in the room was dancing and chatting quite as calmly as before, he gave himself up to his new and never-before-experienced sensation. Something strange was happening to him. … His neck, round which the soft, perfumed arms had so lately been clasped, felt as though it had been anointed with oil; on his left cheek near his mustache, where the unknown lady had kissed him, there was a slight tingling, a delightful chill, as from peppermint drops, and the more he rubbed it the stronger the sensation became; from head to foot he was filled with a strange new feeling which continued to grow and grow. … He wanted to dance, to talk, to run into the garden, to laugh aloud. … He completely forgot that he was round-shouldered and colorless, that he had lynxlike whiskers and a “nondescript appearance” (as he had once been described by some ladies whose conversation he had accidentally overheard). When Von Rabbek’s wife walked by he gave her such a broad and tender smile that she stopped and looked at him questioningly.

“I like your house—enormously!” he said, adjusting his spectacles.

The general’s wife smiled and said that the house still belonged to her father; then she asked him whether his parents were living, whether he had been long in the service, why he was so thin, and so on. … When her questions had been answered she walked away, and after his conversation with her Ryabovich began to smile even more tenderly, and to think that he was surrounded by splendid people. …

At supper he automatically ate everything that was offered him, drank, and, deaf to what went on around him, tried to find an explanation for his recent adventure. This adventure was of a mysterious and romantic nature, but it was not difficult to explain. Probably one of the young ladies had arranged a tryst with someone in the dark room, had waited a long time, and in her nervous excitement had taken Ryabovich for her hero; this was the more probable as he had hesitated uncertainly upon entering the room, as though he, too, were expecting someone. … This was the explanation he gave himself of the kiss he had received.

“But who is she?” he wondered, looking around at the faces of the women. “She must be young, because an old woman doesn’t make a rendezvous. And that she was cultivated one could sense by the rustle of her dress, her perfume, her voice. …”

His gaze rested on the girl in lilac, and he found her charming; she had beautiful arms and shoulders, a clever face and lovely voice. Looking at her, Ryabovich wished that she and no one else were his unknown. … But suddenly she gave an artificial laugh, wrinkling up her long nose, and she looked old to him. He then turned his gaze to the blonde in the black dress. She was younger, simpler, and more sincere; she had a lovely brow, and a charming way of drinking from her wineglass. Now he wished that it were she. But soon he found her face flat, and turned his eyes to her neighbor. …

“It’s difficult to guess,” he thought dreamily. “If you could take only the shoulders and arms of the lilac one, and the forehead of the blonde, and the eyes of the one on Lobytko’s left, then…”

He effected the combination in his mind and formed an image of the girl who had kissed him—the image he desired, but which was nowhere to be seen at the table. …

After supper, replete and somewhat intoxicated, the guests expressed their thanks and said good-bye. Their host and hostess again apologized for not inviting them to spend the night.

“Delighted, delighted to have met you, gentlemen!” said the general, this time speaking sincerely (probably because people are always more sincere when speeding the parting guest than when greeting him). “Delighted! Come again on your way back! Don’t stand on ceremony! Which way are you going? Up the hill? No, go through the garden below—it’s shorter.”

The officers went out into the garden. After the bright light and the noise it seemed very dark and still. They walked in silence all the way to the gate. Half drunk, they were feeling cheerful and content, but the darkness and the silence made them momentarily pensive. Probably the same thought had occurred to each of them as to Ryabovich: would the time ever come when they too would have a large house, a family, a garden; when they too would have the possibility—even if insincerely—of being gracious to people, feeding them, making them feel replete, intoxicated, and content?

Once they had gone through the gate they all began talking at once and loudly laughing for no reason. The path they followed led down to the river and ran along the water’s edge, winding around bushes and gullies along the bank and the willows that overhung the water. The path and bank were barely visible, and the opposite shore was plunged in darkness. Here and there the stars were reflected in the dark water; they quivered and broke—and from this alone one could surmise that the river was flowing rapidly. It was quiet. On the other shore drowsy woodcocks plaintively cried, and nearby, heedless of the crowd of men, a nightingale trilled loudly in a bush. The officers stopped, lightly touched the bush, but the nightingale sang on.

“Look at that!” they exclaimed approvingly. “We stand right by him and he doesn’t take the least notice! What a rascal!”

At the end the path ran uphill, and, near the church enclosure, led into the road. Here the officers, tired from their uphill walk, sat down and smoked. Across the river a dim red light appeared, and, having nothing better to do, they spent a long time trying to decide whether it was a campfire, a light in a window, or something else. … Ryabovich too peered at the light, and it seemed to him that it smiled and winked at him, as if it knew about the kiss.

On reaching his quarters, Ryabovich undressed as quickly as possible and went to bed. He shared a cabin with Lobytko and Lieutenant Merzlyakov, a mild, silent fellow, who in his own circle was considered a highly educated officer, and who always carried a copy of The Messenger of Europe with him, reading it whenever possible.

Lobytko undressed, paced the room for a long time with the air of a man who is dissatisfied, then sent an orderly for beer. Merzlyakov lay down, after placing a candle at the head of his bed, and plunged into The Messenger of Europe.

“Who could she have been?” Ryabovich wondered, as he gazed at the sooty ceiling.

His neck still seemed to him to have been anointed with oil, and near his mouth he felt the chilly sensation of peppermint drops. Into his imagination there flashed the shoulders and arms of the lilac young lady, the brow and candid eyes of the blonde in black, waists, dresses, brooches. … He tried to fix his attention on these images, but they danced, flickered, and dissolved. When they finally faded into the vast black background that every man sees when he closes his eyes, he began to hear hurried footsteps, the rustle of a dress, the sound of kiss, and—an intense, groundless joy took possession of him. … As he was surrendering himself to it he heard the orderly return and report that there was no beer. Lobytko was terribly indignant and began pacing the room again.

“Now, isn’t he an idiot?” he said, stopping first before Ryabovich and then before Merzlyakov. “What a blockhead and a fool a man must be not to find any beer! Eh? Canaille—isn’t he?”

“Of course you can’t get any beer here!” said Merzlyakov without raising his eyes from The Messenger of Europe.

“No? Is that what you think?” Lobytko badgered him. “Good God in heaven, if you dropped me on the moon, I could find beer and women in no time! I’ll go right now, and I’ll find it—and you can call me a scoundrel if I don’t!”

He spent a long time dressing and pulling on his long boots, finished smoking a cigarette in silence, and then went out.

“Rabbek, Grabbek, Labbek,” he muttered, stopping in the entry. “I don’t feel like going alone, damn it all! Ryabovich, how about a promenade? Eh?”

Receiving no reply he came back, slowly undressed, and got into bed. Merzlyakov sighed, put The Messenger of Europe aside, and blew out the candle.

“Hm—yes-s,” mumbled Lobytko, lighting a cigarette in the dark.

Ryabovich pulled the bedclothes over his head, curled up in a ball, and tried to assemble into a whole the images flashing through his mind. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy, that something extraordinary, ridiculous, but extremely lovely and delightful, had happened to him. And this thought remained with him even in sleep.

When he awoke, the sensation of oil on his neck and the peppermint chill near his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart as it had the day before. He looked with rapture at the window frames gilded by the rising sun, and listened to the sounds of activity in the street. There was a loud conversation right under the window. Lebedetsky, the battery commander, had just overtaken the brigade, and, having lost the habit of speaking quietly, was talking to his sergeant at the top of his voice.

“What else?” he shouted.

“When they were shoeing the horses yesterday, Your Honor, Golubchik’s hoof was pricked. The feldscher applied clay and vinegar. They are leading him to the side now. And also, Your Honor, Artemyev was drunk yesterday and the lieutenant ordered him put into the limber of the reserve gun carriage.”

The sergeant also reported that Karpov had forgotten the tent pegs and the new cords for the trumpets, and that their honors, the officers, had spent the previous evening at General von Rabbek’s. In the course of this talk Lebedetsky’s red-bearded face appeared in the window. Squinting shortsightedly at the sleepy officers, he greeted them.

“Everything all right?” he inquired.

“The wheel horse has galled his withers with the new yoke,” said Lobytko, yawning.

The commander sighed, thought a moment, and in a loud voice said, “I’m still thinking of going to see Alexandra Yevgrafovna. I ought to call on her. Well, good-bye. I’ll catch up with you by evening.”

A quarter of an hour later the brigade was on its way. As it moved along the road past the barns, Ryabovich turned and glanced at the manor house on the right. The blinds were down in all the windows. Evidently the household was still asleep. And she who had kissed him yesterday was sleeping too. He tried to picture her asleep. The open window of the bedroom, green branches peeping in, the freshness of the morning air fragrant with the scent of poplars, lilac, roses; the bed, a chair, and on it the dress he had heard rustling, little slippers, a tiny watch on the table—all this he clearly pictured, but the features of the face, the sweet, sleepy smile, just what was distinctive and important, slipped through his imagination like quicksilver through the fingers. When he had gone half a verst he looked back: the yellow church, the house, the river, and the garden, were all bathed in light; the river, with its bright green banks, its blue reflection of the sky, with here and there a glint of silver from the sun, was very beautiful. Ryabovich looked for the last time at Mestechki, and he felt as sad as if he were parting from something very near and dear to him.

On the road before him lay nothing but long familiar and uninteresting scenes. … To the right and left stretched fields of young rye and buckwheat in which rooks were hopping about; looking ahead there was nothing to be seen but dust and the backs of men’s necks; looking back, dust and men’s faces. … At the head of the column marched four men with sabers—this was the vanguard. Next came a crowd of choristers, and behind them the trumpeters on horseback. The vanguard and the singers, like torchbearers in a funeral procession, occasionally forgot to keep the regulation distance and marched far ahead. Ryabovich was with the first gun of the fifth battery. He could see all four batteries marching ahead of him.

To a civilian, the long, tedious procession of a brigade on the march appears to be a complicated, unintelligible muddle; he cannot understand why there are so many men around one gun, and why so many strangely harnessed horses are needed to draw it, as if it really were so terrible and heavy. To Ryabovich, however, it was all clear, and therefore extremely uninteresting. He had long known why at the head of each battery a stalwart sergeant major rode beside the officer, and why he was called the fore rider; directly behind this sergeant major were the riders of the next two pairs; he knew that the near horses on which they rode were called saddle horses and the off horses were called lead horses—all very uninteresting. Behind the riders came two wheel horses; on one of them rode a soldier still covered with yesterday’s dust, and with a cumbersome, ridiculous-looking wooden guard on his right leg. But Ryabovich, knowing the purpose of the guard, did not find it ridiculous. The riders, every one of them, automatically flourished their whips and shouted from time to time. The gun itself was unsightly. On the limber lay sacks of oats covered with a tarpaulin, and the gun was hung with teapots, soldiers’ knapsacks, bags, and looked like a harmless little animal which, for some unknown reason, was surrounded by men and horses. In its lee marched six gunners, swinging their arms. Behind the gun came more fore riders and wheelers, then another gun, as ugly and unimposing as the first. And after the second came a third, and a fourth, with an officer by it, and so on. In all, there were six batteries in the brigade, and four guns to each battery. The column covered half a verst. It terminated in a wagon train near which trotted the ass Magar, his long-eared head bent in thought—a most appealing creature that had been brought from Turkey by one of the battery commanders.

Ryabovich indifferently glanced ahead and behind, at the backs of necks, then at faces; another time he would have been dozing, but now he was completely absorbed in his pleasant new thoughts. In the beginning, when the brigade set out on the march, he tried to persuade himself that the incident of the kiss could be interesting only as a mysterious little adventure, that actually it was trivial, and to think seriously of it was, to say the least, foolish; but he soon dismissed logic and gave himself up to dreams. … At one moment he imagined himself in Von Rabbek’s drawing room at the side of a girl who resembled the lilac young lady and the blonde in black; then he closed his eyes and saw himself with another, entirely unknown girl whose features were quite vague; in his imagination he talked to her, caressed her, leaned over her shoulders; he pictured a war, separation, and reunion, a supper with his wife and children. …

“Brakes!” rang out the command each time they descended a hill.

He too shouted “Brakes!” but he was afraid this cry might shatter his dream and call him back to reality.

As they passed a large estate Ryabovich looked over the fence into a garden and saw a long avenue, straight as a ruler, strewn with yellow sand and bordered with young birch trees. … With the avidity of a man who daydreams, he was beginning to see little feminine feet walking in the yellow sand, when, quite unexpectedly, he had a clear vision of the woman who had kissed him—the one he had succeeded in visualizing the evening before at supper. This image remained in his mind and did not leave him.

At midday there was a shout from the rear near the wagon train.

“Attention! Eyes left! Officers!”

The general of the brigade drove by in a carriage drawn by a pair of white horses. He stopped near the second battery and shouted something that no one understood. Several officers, Ryabovich among them, galloped up to him.

“Well, how goes it?” the general asked, blinking his red eyes. “Are there any sick?”

Having received an answer, the general, a skinny little man, chewed, pondered, then turned to one of the officers and said, “The rider of your third gun wheeler took off his leg-guard and hung it on the limber. Canaille! Punish him!” He raised his eyes to Ryabovich and added, “It seems to me your breeching is too long.”

After a few more tedious remarks the general looked at Lobytko and laughed. “You look very gloomy today, Lieutenant Lobytko,” he said. “Are you pining for Madame Lopukhova?”

Madame Lopukhova was a very tall, stout lady, long past forty. The general, who had a weakness for large women, regardless of age, suspected similar tastes in his subordinates. The officers smiled respectfully. The general, delighted with himself for having said something both caustic and funny, laughed loudly, tapped his coachman on the back, and saluted. The carriage rolled on.

“All that I am dreaming of, and which now seems to me impossible and unearthly, is actually quite ordinary,” thought Ryabovich, as he gazed at the clouds of dust that followed the general’s carriage. “It’s all very ordinary and everyone goes through it. That general, for instance, must have been in love in his day, now he’s married and has children. Captain Wachter is also married and loved, though the back of his neck is very red and ugly and he has no waist. Salmanov is coarse, and too much the Tartar, but he had a love affair that ended in marriage. … I’m just like everyone else, and sooner or later I’ll go through it, too. …”

The thought of being an ordinary man with an ordinary life delighted and heartened him. He pictured her and his happiness, boldly, at will, and nothing inhibited his imagination now. …

In the evening, when the brigade reached its bivouac, while the officers were resting in their tents, Ryabovich, Merzlyakov, and Lobytko sat around a chest and ate supper. Merzlyakov ate deliberately, slowly munching as he read The Messenger of Europe, which he held on his knees. Lobytko talked incessantly and kept filling his glass with beer, but Ryabovich, whose head was in a fog from dreaming the whole day, remained silent and drank. After three glasses he felt relaxed, slightly drunk, and was moved by an irrepressible impulse to share his new sensations with his comrades.

“A strange thing happened to me at those Von Rabbeks’,” he began, trying to speak in a casual, ironical tone. “You know, I went to the billiard room…”

He described the adventure of the kiss in exact detail; after a minute he fell silent. In that minute he had told everything, and he was shocked to find that the story required so little time. He had thought it would take him till morning to tell about the kiss. Lobytko, who was a great liar and consequently never believed anyone, looked at him skeptically and laughed. Merzlyakov raised his eyebrows and spoke without taking his eyes from The Messenger of Europe.

“Queer! She throws herself on your neck without addressing you by name. Probably a psychotic of some sort.”

“Yes. … Probably. …” Ryabovich agreed.

“A similar thing once happened to me,” said Lobytko with a look of awe. “Last year I was on my way to Kovno; I took a second-class ticket—the coach is packed, impossible to sleep. So I give the conductor a half ruble, he picks up my luggage, and leads me to a compartment. I lie down, cover myself with a blanket—it’s dark, you understand—and suddenly I feel someone touching my shoulder, breathing on my face. I put out my hand and feel an elbow. I open my eyes and, can you imagine—a woman! Black eyes, lips the color of prime salmon, nostrils breathing passion, and the bosom—a buffer!”

“Excuse me,” Merzlyakov placidly interrupted, “I understand about the bosom, but how could you see her lips if it was dark?”

Lobytko tried to extricate himself by making fun of Merzlyakov’s obtuseness. All this jarred on Ryabovich. He left them and went to bed, vowing never again to take anyone into his confidence. …

Camp life set in. … The days flowed by, one very much like another. On all those days Ryabovich felt, thought, and acted like a man in love. Every morning when the orderly brought him water for washing, he drenched his head in the cold water, each time remembering that there was something warm and lovely in his life.

In the evenings when his comrades talked of love and women, he would listen intently, draw up closer, and his face took on the expression of an old soldier listening to the story of a battle in which he himself had taken part. And on those evenings when the officers, drunk, and with setter-Lobytko at their head, made Don-Juanesque raids on the “suburbs” of the town, though he took part, he was always sorry afterwards, felt deeply guilty, and mentally begged her forgiveness. … In idle hours or on sleepless nights, when he felt inclined to recall his childhood, his father, mother, and all that was dear and familiar, he always thought of Mestechki, the strange horse, Von Rabbek, his wife who resembled the Empress Eugénie, the dark room, the bright chink in the doorway. …

On the thirty-first of August he returned from camp, but this time with only two batteries instead of the whole brigade. He was dreamy and excited all the way, as if he were coming home. He had a fervent desire to see the strange horse, the church, the insincere Von Rabbek family, the dark room; that “inner voice” which so often deceives lovers whispered to him that he would surely see her. And he was tortured by questions: how would he meet her? what would he talk about? might she not have forgotten the kiss? If it came to the worst, he thought, even if he did not meet her, it would be a pleasure just to walk through the dark room and remember. …

Toward evening the familiar church and the white barns appeared on the horizon. His heart beat wildly. The officer riding beside him said something which he did not hear; he was oblivious to everything, and gazed eagerly at the river gleaming in the distance, the roof of the house, the dovecote, above which the pigeons were circling in the light of the setting sun.

When he reached the church, as he listened to the quartermaster’s report, every minute he expected the messenger on horseback to appear from behind the church enclosure and invite the officers to tea; but… the report came to an end, the men dismounted and strolled off to the village, and the man on horseback did not appear.

“Von Rabbek will immediately learn from the peasants that we are back, and he will send for us,” thought Ryabovich as he entered the hut; and he could not understand why one of his comrades was lighting a candle and why the orderlies were hurrying to start the samovars.

A painful anxiety took possession of him. He lay down, then got up and looked out the window to see if the messenger was coming. But there was no messenger to be seen. He lay down again, but half an hour later, unable to control his restlessness, he got up, went out into the street and walked toward the church. It was dark and deserted in the square near the church enclosure. Three soldiers were standing in silence at the top of the hill. Seeing Ryabovich they jumped to attention and saluted. He returned the salute and started down the well-remembered path.

On the other side of the river, in a sky washed with crimson, the moon was rising, and in a kitchen garden two peasant women were talking in loud voices as they pulled cabbage leaves; beyond the garden several huts loomed dark against the sky. But the river bank was the same as it had been in May: the path, the bushes, the willows overhanging the water; only the song of the stout-hearted nightingale was missing, and the scent of poplars and young grass.

When he reached the garden, Ryabovich looked in at the gate. In the garden it was dark and still. He could see only the white trunks of the nearest birch trees and a small patch of the avenue, all the rest merged into a black mass. He peered into the garden, listening intently; but after standing there a quarter of an hour without hearing a sound or seeing so much as a light, he slowly walked back.

As he drew near the river, the general’s bathhouse, with white bath sheets hanging on the rails of the little bridge, rose before him. He ascended the bridge, stood there a moment, and without knowing why, touched one of the bath sheets. It felt rough and cold. He looked down at the water. The river was flowing rapidly, purling almost inaudibly around the piles of the bathhouse. The red moon was reflected in the water near the left bank; little ripples ran across the reflection, expanding it, then breaking it into bits, as though wishing to carry it off. …

“How foolish! How foolish!” he thought, gazing at the flowing water. “How stupid it all is!”

Now that he expected nothing, the incident of the kiss, his impatience, his vague hopes and disappointment, presented themselves to him in a clear light. It no longer seemed strange that he had waited in vain for the general’s messenger, or that he would never see the one who had accidentally kissed him instead of someone else; on the contrary, it would have been strange if he had seen her. …

The river ran on, no one knew where or why, just as it had in May; from a small stream it flowed into a large river, from the river to the sea, then rose in vapor and returned in rain; and perhaps the very same water he had seen in May was again flowing before his eyes. … For what purpose? Why?

And the whole world, all of life, seemed to Ryabovich to be an incomprehensible, aimless jest. … Raising his eyes from the water and gazing at the sky, he again recalled how fate in the guise of an unknown woman had by chance caressed him; and remembering his summer dreams and fantasies, his life now seemed singularly meager, wretched, and drab.

When he returned to the hut he found not one of his comrades. The orderly informed him that they had all gone “to General Fontriabkin’s, who sent a messenger on horseback to invite them.” …. For an instant joy flamed in his breast, but he immediately stifled it and went to bed, and in his wrath with his fate, as though wishing to spite it, did not go to the general’s.

—1887