The Shooting Party

‘Sergey Petrovich,’ she said in an unnaturally low voice as I passed her and slightly raised my hat. ‘Stop!’

‘What do you want?’ I asked, going up to her.

‘I don’t want anything… you’re not my lackey,’ she said, staring at me and turning terribly pale. ‘You’re in a hurry to get somewhere. However, if you’re not too rushed, may I detain you for a moment?’

‘Of course… you don’t have to ask!’

‘In that case let’s sit down. You, Sergey Petrovich,’ she continued after we had sat down, ‘constantly ignored me all day long, you avoided me like the plague. So, just today I decided to have things out with you. I’m proud and selfish… I don’t want to thrust a meeting like this on you, but for once in my life I can sacrifice my pride.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Today I decided to ask you… it’s such a difficult, humiliating question for me… I don’t know how to put it. You don’t even look at me when you reply! Don’t you feel sorry for me, Sergey Petrovich?’

Nadya looked at me and feebly shook her head. Her face turned even paler, her upper lip trembled and twisted.

‘Sergey Petrovich! It seems that a certain misunderstanding, some kind of idle whim has put a distance between us. I think that if we were to have things out everything would be as it used to be. If I didn’t think this I wouldn’t have the determination to ask the question you’re about to hear. I’m unhappy, Sergey Petrovich. You must be able to see that. My life is no life at all… Everything has dried up. But the main thing is… there’s a kind of uncertainty, when one doesn’t know whether to hope or not. Your behaviour towards me is so hard to understand that it’s impossible to draw any firm conclusions from it. Tell me – and then I’ll know what to do. Then my life will at least have some direction. Then I can decide accordingly.’

‘There’s something you want to ask me, Nadezhda Nikolayevna,’ I said, mentally preparing an answer to the question I felt was coming.

‘Yes, I want to ask… it’s a humiliating question… if anyone should overhear he’d think I’m imposing myself on you, like Pushkin’s Tatyana.⁴⁴ But it’s a question I’m forcing myself to ask.’

The question was in fact forced. When Nadya turned her face to me to ask it I took fright: she was trembling, convulsively pressing her fingers together as she squeezed out the fateful words depressingly slowly. She was terribly pale.

‘Dare I hope?’ she finally whispered. ‘Don’t be afraid, you can be quite frank with me. Whatever the answer, it’s better than this uncertainty. Well, dare I hope?’

She waited for an answer, but at that moment my mood was such that I felt incapable of any reasonable answer. Drunk, excited by the incident in the grotto, infuriated at Pshekhotsky’s spying and Olga’s indecision, having endured that stupid conversation with the Count, I could barely listen to Nadya.

‘Dare I hope?’ she repeated. ‘Please give me an answer!’

‘Well, I’m not up to giving any replies just now, Nadezhda Nikolayevna!’ I said dismissively as I stood up. ‘I’m incapable of giving any sort of answer at the moment… I’m sorry, but I neither heard nor understood you. I’m stupid and in a raging temper. But you’re upsetting yourself for nothing, really.’

I waved my arm again and left Nadya. It was only later, when I came to my senses, that I realized how stupid and cruel I had been for not giving that girl an answer to her simple, straightforward question. Why hadn’t I answered her?

Now, when I can view the past dispassionately, I cannot explain away my cruelty by my state of mind at the time. I feel that by not answering her I was flirting, play-acting. The hearts of other human beings are hard to comprehend, but it’s even harder to fathom one’s own. If in fact I was putting on an act, may God forgive me! However, mocking another’s suffering is unforgivable.

XIII

For three days I paced my room like a wolf in a cage, trying with all the strength of my exceptional will-power to stop myself leaving the house. I didn’t lay a finger on the piles of documents lying on the table and impatiently awaiting my attention. I received no one, argued with Polikarp, became irritable. I didn’t venture onto the Count’s estate and my obstinacy cost me enormous mental effort. A thousand times I must have picked up my hat – and thrown it down just as often. At times I decided to defy the whole world and go and see Olga, come what may, at others I would cold-bloodedly decide to stay at home.

My reason argued against riding over to the Count’s estate. Once I had vowed to the Count never to set foot in his house again how could I sacrifice my self-esteem, my pride? What would that mustachioed fop have thought if, after our inane conversation, I’d gone up to him as if nothing had happened? Wouldn’t that have been an admission of guilt?

Furthermore, as an honest man, I should have broken off all relations with Olga. Any future liaison could only bring about her ruin. She had blundered in marrying Urbenin and by having an affair with me she had blundered yet again. Wouldn’t living with that elderly husband and simultaneously having a secret lover make her resemble a depraved doll? Not to mention how loathsome such a life would be in principle – one also had to think of the consequences.

What a coward I was! I feared the consequences, I feared the present and I feared the past. Any ordinary man would have laughed at my line of reasoning – he wouldn’t have paced from corner to corner, clutched his head and drawn up all kinds of plans, but would have let life, which grinds even millstones into flour, take control. Life would have digested everything, without asking either for his help or permission. But I’m cautious to the point of cowardice. I paced from corner to corner, sick with pity for Olga and at the same time I was horrified at the thought that she might agree to the suggestion I had made in a moment of passion and come and stay with me – as I had promised her – for ever! What would have happened if she had done what I wanted and married me? How long would that ‘for ever’ have lasted and what would life with me have given poor Olga? I wouldn’t have given her a family, therefore I wouldn’t have given her happiness. No, it wasn’t right to ride over to Olga!

But meanwhile my heart yearned passionately for her. I pined like a young boy, in love for the first time and not allowed out for a rendezvous. Tempted by the incident in the garden, I thirsted for a new meeting – and the seductive image of Olga, who, as I knew very well, was also waiting and pining for me, never left my head for one moment.

The Count sent me letter after letter, each more woeful and self-degrading than the last. He implored me to forgive that ‘kind, simple, but rather limited man’ and he was amazed that I had decided to break off a long-standing friendship for some mere trifle. In one of his last letters he promised to come in person and if I so desired would bring along Pshekhot-sky to apologize – although ‘he didn’t feel that he was in the least to blame’. I read the letters and replied by asking each messenger to leave me in peace. I was very good at putting on an act!

When my nervous agitation was at its peak, when I stood by the window and decided to go anywhere except the Count’s estate, when I was tormenting myself with arguments, self-reproach and visions of the love-making that awaited me at Olga’s, my door softly opened, I heard light footsteps behind me and my neck was immediately encircled by two pretty little arms.

‘Is that you, Olga?’ I asked, turning round.

I recognized her from her hot breath, from the way she clung to my neck and even from her smell. Pressing her small head against my cheek she struck me as extraordinarily happy. She couldn’t speak for happiness – not one word. I pressed her to my breast – and then what became of all the anguish, of all those questions that had been tormenting me for three days on end? I laughed and skipped for joy, just like a schoolboy.

Olga was wearing a blue silk dress that beautifully suited her pale complexion and her magnificent flaxen hair. This dress was in the latest fashion and looked terribly expensive. Most probably it had cost Urbenin about a quarter of his salary.

‘You do look pretty today!’ I said, lifting Olga and kissing her neck. ‘Well now, how are you? Are you well?’

‘It’s not very nice here, is it?’ she replied, glancing around my study. ‘You’re a wealthy man, you get a large salary, yet how simply you live!’

‘Not everyone can live in the lap of luxury like the Count,’ I said. ‘But enough said about my “wealth”. What good genius has brought you to my lair?’

‘Stop it, Seryozha, you’re crumpling my dress… put me down! I’ve only dropped in for a moment, darling. I told everyone at home I was going to see Akatikha, the Count’s laundrywoman – she doesn’t live very far from here, about three houses away. Put me down, darling, it’s embarrassing! Why haven’t you been to see me for so long?’

I made some sort of reply, sat her down opposite me and began to contemplate her beauty. For a minute we looked at each other in silence.

‘You’re very pretty, Olga,’ I sighed. ‘It’s even a pity and rather insulting that you’re so pretty!’

‘Why is it a pity?’

‘Because the devil only knows who’s got you in his clutches.’

‘But what more do you want? Aren’t I yours? I’m here, aren’t I?… Now listen, Seryozha. Will you tell me the truth if I ask you?’

‘Of course I’ll tell you the truth.’

‘Would you have married me if I hadn’t married Pyotr Yegorych?’

‘Probably not’ was what I wanted to say, but why pick at a wound which was painful enough and which was tormenting poor Olga’s heart?

‘Of course I would,’ I said in the tone of one speaking the truth. Olya sighed and looked down.

‘What a mistake I made, what a terrible mistake! And what’s worst of all, it can’t be rectified! I can’t divorce him, can I?’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘I don’t understand why I was in such a hurry! We girls are so stupid and empty-headed. There’s no one around to give us a good thrashing! But there’s no going back now and there’s no point in arguing. Neither arguments nor tears will help. Yesterday I cried all night long, Seryozha. There he was… lying next to me… but I was thinking of you and I couldn’t sleep. I even wanted to run away that night – even into the forest and back to Father. Better to live with an insane father than with this… what’s his name?’

‘Having second thoughts about it won’t help, Olya. You should have thought about it then, when you drove with me from Tenevo and were so delighted to be marrying a rich man. But it’s too late now to be practising eloquence…’

‘Too late… then there’s nothing I can do about it!’ Olya said, decisively waving her arm. ‘As long as it gets no worse I can go on living. Goodbye… I must go now.’

I drew Olya to me and showered her face with kisses, as if trying to reward myself for those three lost days. She snuggled up to me like a lamb, warming my face with her hot breath. There was silence.

‘A husband murdered his wife,’ screeched my parrot.

Olya shuddered, freed herself from my embrace and looked at me questioningly.

‘It’s only the parrot, darling,’ I said. ‘Now relax…’

‘A husband murdered his wife!’ Ivan Demyanych repeated.

Olya stood up, silently put on her hat and gave me her hand. Fear was written all over her face.

‘And what if Urbenin finds out?’ she asked, looking at me with wide-open eyes. ‘He’ll kill me!’

‘Rubbish!’ I laughed. ‘I’d be a fine person if I let him kill you! But he’s hardly capable of such an unusual act as murder. You’re leaving? Well, goodbye my child… I shall wait… Tomorrow I’ll be in the forest, near the cottage where you used to live. We’ll meet there.’

After I had seen Olya out and returned to my study I found Polikarp there. He was standing in the middle of the room sternly eyeing me and contemptuously shaking his head.

‘Mind that doesn’t happen here again, Sergey Petrovich,’ he said in the tone of a strict parent. ‘I won’t stand for it!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just what I say. Do you think I didn’t see? I saw everything. She’d better not dare come here! I don’t want any carryings-on here! There’s other places for that.’

I was in the most splendid mood and therefore Polikarp’s spying, his didactic tone, didn’t make me angry. I laughed and dispatched him to the kitchen.

Barely giving me time to collect myself after Olya’s visit, a new visitor arrived. A carriage rattled up to the door of my flat and Polikarp – spitting to each side and muttering oaths – announced the arrival of ‘that damned fellow… may he go to hell!’ – that is, the Count, whom he hated from the bottom of his heart. The Count entered, eyed me tearfully and shook his head.

‘You keep turning your back on me, you don’t want to talk.’

‘I don’t keep turning my back,’ I replied.

‘I was so fond of you, Seryozha, and you… just for some trifle… Why do you have to insult me? Why?’

The Count sat down, sighed and shook his head.

‘Come on, stop playing the fool!’ I said. ‘It’s all right.’

My influence over that weak, frail little man was strong – as strong as my contempt for him. My contemptuous tone didn’t offend him – on the contrary. On hearing my ‘It’s all right’, he leapt up and began embracing me.

‘I’ve brought him with me… he’s waiting in the carriage… do you want him to apologize in person?’

‘Do you know what he’s done wrong?’

‘No.’

‘That’s fine. He can forget the apology, but you must warn him that if anything of the sort happens once again I shan’t merely get mad – I shall take steps!’

‘So, it’s peace then, Seryozha? Excellent! You should have done this ages ago – the devil only knows what you were quarrelling about! Just like two schoolgirls! Oh, by the way, dear chap, I wonder if you’ve… half a glass of vodka? I’m absolutely parched.’

I ordered some vodka. The Count drank two glasses, sprawled out on the sofa and chattered away.

‘I just bumped into Olga, dear chap. Splendid girl! I must tell you – I’m beginning to detest that Urbenin. Which means I’m beginning to fancy Olya. Devilishly pretty! I’m thinking of having a little flirtation with her.’

‘You should keep away from married women!’ I sighed.

‘Come off it, he’s an old man! There’s no harm in pinching Pyotr Yegorych’s wife. She’s too good for him. He’s just like a dog – can’t guzzle himself, so he stops everyone else. Today I shall start my assault and go about it systematically. Such a sweetie! What style, old man! Simply makes you smack your lips!’

The Count drank a third glass and continued:

‘Do you know who else I fancy here? Nadenka, that idiot Kalinin’s daughter. A fiery brunette, pale complexion, with gorgeous eyes – you know the type! I must also cast my line there… I’m giving a party at Whitsun – a musical-vocal-literary party – just so that I can invite her. So, my friend, life’s not too bad here – quite jolly in fact! There’s the social life, women… and… mind if I have a little nap… just a few minutes?’

‘You may. But what about Pshekhotsky in the carriage?’

‘He can wait, damn him! I myself don’t care for him, dear chap.’ The Count raised himself on his elbow and said in a mysterious voice: ‘I’m keeping him only out of necessity… I need him… Well, to hell with him!’

The Count’s elbow gave way and his head flopped onto the cushion. A minute later I could hear snoring.

After the Count left that evening a third visitor arrived – Dr Pavel Ivanovich. He had come to tell me that Nadezhda Nikolayevna wasn’t very well and that she had finally refused him. The poor devil was miserable and resembled a wet hen.

XIV

The poetic month of May went by… lilacs and tulips finished flowering – and with them fate had ordained that the joys of love should also shed their blossoms (despite its sinfulness and pain, love still occasionally afforded sweet minutes that can never be erased from the memory). But there are moments for which one would sacrifice months and years.

One evening in June, after the sun had set but when its broad trail – a crimson and golden strip – still glowed in the distant west, heralding a calm, bright day, I rode Zorka up to the outbuilding where Urbenin lived. That evening a musical soirée was to be held at the Count’s. The guests had already started arriving, but the Count wasn’t at home: he had gone for a ride and had promised to be back very soon. Shortly afterwards, holding my horse by the bridle, I stood at the porch and chatted with Sasha, Urbenin’s little daughter. Urbenin himself was sitting on the steps with his head propped on his fists, peering at the distant prospect through the gates. He was gloomy and answered my questions reluctantly. I left him in peace and turned to Sasha.

‘Where’s your new mama?’ I asked her.

‘She’s gone riding with the Count. She goes riding with him every day.’

‘Every day,’ muttered Urbenin with a sigh.

Much could be heard in that sigh. In it I could hear exactly what was troubling my heart too, what I was endeavouring to explain to myself but was unable to – and I became lost in speculation.

So, Olga went riding with the Count every day. But that didn’t mean a thing. Olga could never have fallen in love with the Count, and Urbenin’s jealousy was totally unfounded. It wasn’t the Count of whom we should have been jealous, but something else, which had taken me so long to understand. This ‘something else’ stood like a solid wall between myself and Olga. She still loved me, but after the visit described in the previous chapter, she hadn’t come to see me more than twice and when she met me somewhere outside my flat she would flush mysteriously and stubbornly evade my questions. She reciprocated my caresses passionately, but her responses were so abrupt, so nervous, that all I could remember of our brief trysts was an agonizing perplexity. Her conscience wasn’t clear – that was obvious – but it was impossible to read the precise reason for this on Olga’s guilty face.

‘I hope your new mama is well?’ I asked Sasha.

‘Yes, she is. But last night she had toosache. She was kwying.’

‘Crying?’ Urbenin asked, turning his face to Sasha. ‘Did you see her? You must have dreamt it, darling.’

Olga did not have toothache. If she had been crying, it was from something other than physical pain. I wanted to continue my conversation with Sasha, but this I didn’t manage, since at that moment I heard the sound of horses’ hoofs and soon we saw the riders – a gentleman awkwardly bouncing about in the saddle and a graceful horsewoman. To conceal my joy from Olga I lifted Sasha in my arms and kissed her forehead as I ran my fingers through her fair hair.

‘What a pretty girl you are, Sasha!’ I said. ‘Such beautiful curls!’

Olga gave me a fleeting glance, replied to my bow in complete silence and went into the outbuilding, leaning on the Count’s arm. Urbenin got up and followed her.

Five minutes later the Count emerged from the outbuilding. He was cheerful as never before, his face even seemed to have a fresher look.

‘Congratulate me!’ he said, taking my hand and giggling.

‘On what?’

‘On my conquest… Just one more of these rides and I swear by the ashes of my noble ancestors I’ll pluck the petals from this flower.’

‘So you haven’t plucked them yet?’

‘Yet?… Well, almost! During ten minutes of “your hand in mine”⁴⁵ not once did she take it away. I smothered it with kisses! But let’s wait until tomorrow, we must be on our way now. They’re expecting me. Oh yes! I need to talk to you about something, dear chap. Tell me, is it true what people are saying… that you have evil designs on Nadezhda Nikolayevna?’

‘What of it?’

‘If it’s true, I won’t stand in your way. It’s not my policy to trip people up. But if you have no designs on her, then of course…’

‘I have no designs.’

‘Merci, my dear chap!’

The Count had visions of killing two hares at once and he was fully convinced that he would succeed. And on that evening I observed his pursuit of these hares. It was all as stupid and comical as a fine caricature. As I watched I could only laugh or be repelled by the Count’s vulgarity; but no one could have thought that this puerile pursuit would end with the moral fall of a few, the ruin of some – and the crimes of others!

The Count did not kill two hares, but more! Yes, he killed them, but the skins and flesh went to someone else.

I saw him furtively squeeze the hand of Olga, who invariably greeted him with a friendly smile, but who watched him leave with a disdainful grin. Once, eager to show that there were no secrets between us, he even kissed her hand in my presence.

‘What an idiot!’ she whispered in my ear as she wiped her hand.

‘Listen, Olga,’ I said when the Count had left. ‘I feel there’s something you want to tell me. Yes?’

I looked searchingly into her face. She blushed crimson and blinked timorously, like a cat caught stealing.

‘Olga,’ I said sternly. ‘You’ve got to tell me! I insist!’

‘Yes, there is something I want to tell you,’ she whispered, pressing my hands. ‘I love you, I can’t live without you, but don’t come here to see me, my darling! Don’t love me any more, don’t call me Olya. I can’t go on like this, it’s impossible. And don’t even let anyone see that you love me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s what I want. You don’t need to know the reason and I’m not going to tell you. Now leave me, they’re coming.’

I didn’t leave her and she herself had to bring our conversation to an end. Taking the arm of her husband, who just happened to be passing, she nodded at me with a hypocritical smile and left.

The Count’s other ‘hare’ – Nadezhda Nikolayevna – enjoyed his undivided attention that evening. The whole time he buzzed around her, telling her anecdotes, joking and flirting, while she, pale and exhausted, twisted her mouth into an artificial smile. Kalinin the JP constantly watched them, stroked his beard and coughed meaningfully. The Count’s flirtation with his daughter was very much to his liking: a Count as son-in-law! What dream could be sweeter for a provincial bon vivant? From the moment the Count started courting his daughter, he had grown two feet in his own estimation. And with what imperious glances he sized me up, how spitefully he coughed when he talked to me! ‘You stood on ceremony and you deserted us,’ he said, ‘but we don’t give a damn! Now we have a Count!’

The following evening I was once again at the Count’s estate. On this occasion I didn’t chat with Sasha, but with her schoolboy brother, who led me into the garden and poured out his soul to me. These outpourings were provoked by my questions about life with his ‘new mama’.

‘She’s a very good friend of yours,’ he said, nervously unbuttoning his uniform. ‘I know you’ll go and tell her, but I’m not afraid. Go ahead, tell her whatever you like. She’s wicked, vile!’

And he told me that Olga had taken his room from him, had dismissed the old nanny who had been with the Urbenins for ten years and that she was constantly in a bad temper, always shouting.

‘Yesterday you praised my sister Sasha’s hair. Yes, it’s really beautiful! Just like flax! But this morning Olga went and cut it all off!’

It’s sheer jealousy! I explained to myself Olga’s excursion into the unfamiliar realm of hairdressing.

‘It seems she was jealous because you praised Sasha’s hair and not hers,’ the boy said, confirming my thoughts. ‘And she’s tormented the life out of Papa. He keeps spending an awful lot on her, he’s neglecting his work and he’s started drinking again. Again! She’s a stupid woman… all day long she cries because she has to live in poor surroundings, in such a small house. Is it Papa’s fault that he doesn’t have much money?’

The boy related many sad things. He could see what his blinded father could not or did not want to see. That poor boy’s father had been wronged – and his sister and his old nanny too. He had been robbed of his little sanctuary, where he was accustomed to busy himself keeping his books in order and feeding the goldfinches he’d caught. Everyone had been wronged and that stupid and omnipotent stepmother was making a mockery of everything! But the poor boy could never have dreamt of the terrible insult that was inflicted on his family by that young stepmother and which I witnessed that very same evening after my conversation with him. Everything paled into insignificance before that outrage and Sasha’s cropped hair seemed a mere trifle by comparison.

XV

Late that evening I was sitting at the Count’s. As usual, we were drinking. The Count was completely drunk, myself only slightly.

‘This morning Olga let me touch her waist “accidentally”,’ he muttered. ‘That means we can take things a bit further tomorrow.’

‘Well, what about Nadya? How’s things with her?’

‘I’m making progress! With her it’s only just the start! So far it’s only a period of eye contact. I love reading her mournful black eyes, old chap. Something that words cannot convey is written in them, something only the soul can understand… Another drink?’

‘So, she must like you if she has the patience to talk to you for hours on end. Her Papa likes you too.’

‘Her Papa? You mean that blockhead! Ha ha! That moron suspects I have honourable intentions!’

The Count had a coughing fit and took a drink.

‘He thinks I’m going to marry her! Apart from the fact that I can’t get married, it would be more honourable on my part – looking at things from an honourable viewpoint – to seduce the girl rather than marry her… Stuck for life with a drunken middle-aged sot who’s always coughing?! Brrr! Any wife would wither away or clear out the next day. What’s that noise?’

The Count and I leapt up. Several doors slammed almost simultaneously and Olga ran into the room. She was as white as a sheet and trembling like a violently plucked violin string. Her hair was dishevelled, the pupils of her eyes dilated. She was gasping for breath and kept crumpling the front of her nightdress with her fingers.

‘Olga, what’s wrong, dear?’ I asked, grasping her arm and turning pale.

The Count ought to have been startled by my accidental use of ‘dear’, but he didn’t hear. Transformed into one huge question mark, his mouth wide open and his eyes goggling, he stared at Olga as if she were a ghost.

‘What’s happened?’ I asked.

‘He keeps beating me,’ Olga said and slumped sobbing into an armchair. ‘He keeps beating me!’

‘Who’s he?’

‘My husband, of course! I just cannot live with him. I’ve left him!’

‘That’s outrageous!’ the Count exclaimed, banging his fist on the table. ‘What right does he have? This is sheer tyranny… it’s… it’s the devil only knows what! Beating his wife! Beating her! Why does he do that to you?’

‘For no reason at all,’ Olga replied, wiping away the tears. ‘I simply took my handkerchief from my pocket and out fell the letter you sent me yesterday. He leapt up, read it and started hitting me. He grabbed my hand and crushed it – just look, there’s still red blotches on it – and he demanded an explanation. Instead of giving him an explanation I rushed over here… If only you would take my side! He has no right to treat his wife so roughly. I’m not a cook, I’m a gentlewoman!’

The Count paced from corner to corner and with his drunken, muddled tongue started jabbering some nonsense which, when translated into sober language, must have meant: ‘On the position of women in Russia.’

‘This is sheer barbarity! This is New Zealand! Does that peasant also think that his wife will have her throat cut at his funeral? As you know, when savages go to the next world they take their wives with them!’

I just couldn’t come to my senses. How was I to interpret Olga’s sudden visit in her nightdress? What should I think, what should I decide to do? If she had been beaten, if her dignity had been insulted, then why hadn’t she run to her father or the housekeeper? Finally, why not to me, who despite everything, was still close to her? And had she really been insulted? My heart spoke to me of that simple-minded Urbenin’s innocence: sensing the truth, it was afflicted with the same pain that the stunned husband must have been feeling now. Without asking questions and without knowing where to begin, I started calming Olga down and offered her some wine.

‘What a mistake I made! What an awful mistake!’ she sighed through her tears, raising the wine glass to her lips. ‘And the look on his face when he was courting me – it was as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. I thought that this was no man, but an angel!’

‘Did you expect him to be pleased about that letter which fell from your pocket?’ I asked. ‘Did you want him to have a good laugh about it?’

‘Let’s not talk about it,’ the Count interrupted. ‘Whatever happened, he behaved like a cad! That’s no way to treat a woman! I shall challenge him to a duel. I’ll show him! Believe me, Olga Nikolayevna, he won’t get away with it!’

The Count puffed himself out like a young turkey, although no one had authorized him to come between husband and wife. I said nothing and didn’t contradict him, because I knew that his taking revenge on behalf of someone else’s wife would be limited to a drunken torrent of words within those four walls and that the duel would be completely forgotten by the morning. But why did Olga remain silent? I was reluctant to think that she wouldn’t object to any services that the Count might offer her, I didn’t want to believe that this silly, beautiful cat had so little pride that she would willingly agree for the drunken Count to be judge of man and wife…

‘I’ll rub his nose in the mud!’ screeched this newly fledged knight in shining armour. ‘And to finish with – a slap in the face! Yes, tomorrow!’

And she didn’t succeed in silencing that scoundrel who in a drunken fit had insulted a man guilty only of making a mistake and being deceived himself. Urbenin had violently squeezed her hand – this was the reason for that scandalous flight to the Count’s house. But now, right in front of her, that drunken reprobate was trampling a good name and emptying filthy slops over a man who must now be eating his heart out with anguish and uncertainty, who must have now come to realize that he had been deceived. But she didn’t turn a hair!

While the Count was venting his anger and Olga was wiping away the tears, a manservant served some roast partridge. The Count offered his lady guest half a partridge. She refused with a shake of the head but then, like an automaton, took her knife and fork and started eating. The partridge was followed by a large glass of wine, and soon there were no more signs of tears – except for a few pink spots near the eyes and some isolated, deep sighs.

Soon we could hear laughter… Olga was laughing like a comforted child that had forgotten the injury done to it. The Count laughed too as he looked at her.

‘Do you know – I’ve had an idea!’ he began, moving closer to her. ‘I’m thinking of organizing some amateur dramatics at my place. We’ll put on a play with excellent parts for women. Eh? What do you think?’

They started discussing amateur dramatics. How violently this idle chatter clashed with the horror that had been written all over Olga’s face when she had rushed weeping into the room only an hour before, her hair hanging loose. How cheap that horror, those tears!

Meanwhile, time passed. The clock struck twelve. At this respectable hour women usually go to bed. Olga should have already left, but half past struck, one o’clock and still she was sitting there chatting with the Count.

‘Time for bed,’ I said, looking at my watch. ‘I’m off! May I see you home, Olga Nikolayevna?’

Olga glanced at me and then at the Count.

‘Where can I go?’ she whispered. ‘I can’t go back to him.’

‘No, of course you can’t go back to him,’ the Count said. ‘Who’ll guarantee that he won’t start beating you again? No, no!’

I walked up and down the room. All became silent. I paced from corner to corner, while my friend and my mistress followed my footsteps with their eyes. I felt that I understood both that silence and those looks – there was something impatient in them, something expectant. I put my hat down and sat on the couch.

‘Well now,’ mumbled the Count, impatiently rubbing his hands. ‘Well now… that’s what things have come to…’

Half-past one struck. The Count swiftly glanced at the clock, frowned and started walking up and down. From the looks he gave me it was obvious he wanted to tell me something important, but rather delicate and unpleasant.

‘Listen, Seryozha,’ he finally brought himself to say, seating himself next to me and whispering in my ear. ‘My dear chap, don’t take offence. Of course, you’ll understand my position and my request won’t strike you as strange or impudent.’

‘Out with it! Don’t beat about the bush!’

‘Can’t you see what’s… going on? Please leave, my dear chap. You’re cramping our style! She’s staying here with me. Please forgive me for throwing you out but… you’ll understand my impatience.’

‘All right.’

My friend was loathsome. If I hadn’t been so squeamish I might have squashed him like a beetle when, feverishly trembling, he asked me to leave him alone with Urbenin’s wife. That sickly, effete anchorite, completely saturated with alcohol, wanted to take to himself that ‘poetic’ girl in red, who had been nurtured by forests and a turbulent lake, who had dreams of a dramatic death! No, she wasn’t safe even within half a mile of him.

I went up to her and told her I was going. She nodded.

‘Must I take my leave? Yes?’ I asked, trying to read the truth on her pretty, flushed face. ‘Yes?’

She turned away from me as one turns away from a tiresome wind. She didn’t feel like talking. And why should she? It was impossible to reply in brief to such a prolix matter – and this was neither the time nor the place for long speeches.

I took my hat and left without saying goodbye. Subsequently, Olga told me that the moment I left, the moment the sound of my footsteps had mingled with the noise of the wind in the garden, the drunken Count was pressing her in his embrace. Closing her eyes and stopping her mouth and nostrils, she could barely stay on her feet from the revulsion she felt. There was even a moment when she very nearly broke loose from his clutches and ran into the lake. There were moments when she tore her hair and sobbed. Selling oneself is not easy!

When I left the house and went towards the stables where my Zorka was waiting, I had to pass the manager’s house. I peered through the window. Pyotr Yegorych was sitting at a table in the dim light of a smoking lamp that had been turned up extremely high. I could not see his face, as it was buried in his hands, but his whole fat, clumsy figure betrayed so much grief, anguish and despair that there was no need to see his face in order to understand his state of mind. Two bottles were standing before him. One was empty, the other had only just been opened. Both were vodka bottles. The poor devil was seeking peace neither in himself nor in the company of others, but in alcohol.

Five minutes later I was riding home. It was terribly dark. The lake seethed angrily and seemed to be furious that a sinner like me, who had just witnessed a sinful deed, dared disturb its austere repose. It was too dark to see the lake and it was as if an invisible monster were roaring away and the enveloping darkness seemed to be roaring too. I reined in Zorka, closed my eyes and became lost in thought as I listened to the sound of the roaring monster.

What if I went back now and destroyed them? I thought. Terrible anger raged within me. That small measure of goodness and decency that remained within me after lifelong dissipation, all that had survived decay, all that I had cherished, nurtured, prided myself upon, had been outraged, spat upon, besmirched!

I had known earlier of venal women, I had bought them, studied them, but they did not possess that blush of innocence or those sincere blue eyes that I saw that May morning when I went through the forest to the fair at Tenevo. I, who was corrupt to the core, could forgive, preach tolerance for everything that was depraved, could be lenient towards frailty… I was convinced that one could never ask of filth that it should cease to be so, and I couldn’t blame those gold coins that fall into filth by force of circumstance. But I hadn’t known before that gold coins can dissolve in filth and merge with it into one single solid mass. That meant solid gold could dissolve too!

A strong gust of wind tore my hat off and bore it away into the surrounding gloom. As it flew through the air it brushed Zorka’s muzzle and she took fright, reared and careered off down the familiar road.

When I was home I slumped onto the bed and when Polikarp suggested I take my clothes off he was called an old devil for no reason at all.

‘Devil yourself,’ growled Polikarp, stepping away from the bed.

‘What did you say? What did you say?’ I shouted, leaping up.

‘There’s none so deaf as those who won’t hear!’

‘Aaaah! How dare you be so impertinent again!’ I cried, trembling as I vented my spleen on my poor lackey. ‘Get out! Out of my sight, you scoundrel! Get out!’

Without waiting for my man to leave the room, I collapsed onto the bed and started sobbing like a child. My overtaxed nerves could take no more. My impotent rage, wounded feelings, jealousy – all this had to find some kind of outlet, one way or the other.

‘A husband murdered his wife!’ squawked my parrot, ruffling its thin feathers.

Prompted by this cry, the thought occurred to me that Urbenin might kill his wife…

When I fell asleep, I dreamt of that murder – it was an agonizing, suffocating nightmare. It seemed that my hands were stroking some cold object and that I only had to open my eyes to see a corpse. I dreamt that Urbenin was standing at the head of my bed and looking at me with pleading eyes.

After the night I have just described, a period of calm set in.

XVI

I settled down at home, allowing myself to leave the house and drive around on business only. A mass of work had accumulated, so there was no danger of my getting bored. From morning to night I sat at my desk, diligently scribbling away or cross-examining people who had fallen into my investigatory clutches. I had no inclination at all to go to Karneyevka, the Count’s estate.

I dismissed Olga from my mind. What’s lost is lost and she was precisely what I had lost – lost for ever, so it seemed. I thought no more about her, nor did I want to.

‘Stupid, dissolute trash!’ I invariably called her whenever she loomed in my imagination during my intensive labours.

But sometimes, when I went to bed and woke up the next morning, I recalled different moments during my acquaintance and shortlived affair with Olga. I remembered Stone Grave, the cottage in the forest where the ‘girl in red’ lived, the road to Tenevo, the meeting in the grotto – and my heart began to pound. I felt a nagging pain… But none of this lasted very long. Those bright memories soon faded under the pressure of unpleasant ones. What poetry from the past could withstand the filth of the present? And now that I had finished with Olga I viewed that ‘poetry’ differently. Now I saw it as an optical illusion, as a lie, as hypocrisy – and in my eyes it lost half its charm.

The Count had now become utterly repulsive to me. I was glad that I wasn’t seeing him and I always grew angry when his mustachioed face timidly appeared in my imagination.

Every day he sent me letters in which he implored me to stop moping and to visit someone who was no longer a ‘solitary hermit’. Obeying his letters would have made things very unpleasant for myself.

‘It’s all over!’ I thought. ‘Thank God… I’m sick and tired of it.’

I decided to break off all relations with the Count and this determination didn’t cost me the slightest effort. Now I was no longer the person of three weeks earlier who could barely stay at home after the quarrel over Pshekhotsky – there was nothing to entice me to the Count’s any more.

After an unbroken spell at home I grew bored and wrote to Dr Pavel Ivanovich, asking him to come over for a chat. For some reason I received no reply, so I wrote again. But this second letter met with the same response as the first. Clearly, dear old Screwy was pretending to be angry. After being turned down by Nadezhda Nikolayevna the poor devil considered me the cause of his misfortune. He had every right to be furious and, if he’d never been angry before, it was because he didn’t know how to be.

So, when did he manage to find out? I wondered, bewildered at the absence of any reply to my letters.

In the third week of my obstinate, continuous self-incarceration, the Count paid me a visit. After telling me off for not riding over or answering his letters, he stretched himself out on the couch and, before starting to snore, embarked on his favourite theme – women.

‘I can understand,’ he began, languidly screwing up his eyes and putting his hands under his head, ‘your being touchy and difficult. You don’t come and see me any more because you’re afraid of spoiling our little duet, of being in the way. An unwanted guest is worse than a Tatar, as the saying goes. But a visitor during a honeymoon is worse than a horned devil! I do understand you. But you’re forgetting, dear chap, that you’re my friend and not simply a guest, that I like and respect you. Yes, your presence would only complete the harmony. And what harmony, old chap! Harmony that I can’t find words to describe!’

The Count drew one hand from underneath his head and waved it.

‘I just can’t make out if living with her is good or lousy – the devil himself couldn’t make head or tail of it! There really are moments when I would sacrifice half my life for an “encore”. But then there are days when I pace the rooms like a madman and I’m ready to bawl my head off.’

‘Because of what?’

‘I can’t make Olga out, old man. She’s a type of fever, not a woman… with a fever you first get a temperature, then the shivers – that’s exactly what it’s like with her – she changes five times a day. Sometimes she feels cheerful, then she’s so miserable she swallows her tears and prays. First she loves me, then she doesn’t. There are times when she’s very nice to me – nicer than any woman has ever been to me all my life. But sometimes it’s like this: I wake up unexpectedly, open my eyes and I see a face staring at me… such a horrible, wild face, a face twisted with malice and revulsion! When you see things like that all the enchantment vanishes. And she often looks at me that way.’

‘With revulsion?’

‘Oh, yes, I just can’t understand it. She swears she came to live with me only out of love, but not one night passes without my seeing a face like hers. What’s the explanation for it? I’m beginning to think – of course, I don’t want to believe it – that she can’t stand me and that she’s only given herself to me for the clothes I’m buying her now. She’s mad about clothes! If she has a new frock, she’s capable of standing in front of the mirror from morning to night. Because of a spoilt flounce she’ll weep day and night. She’s terribly vain! And what she likes most about me is the fact I’m a count. If I weren’t a count she’d never have loved me. Not one dinner or supper goes by without her tearfully reproaching me for not surrounding myself with aristocratic society. She’d love to be queen of that society. Such a strange girl!’

The Count fixed his dull eyes on the ceiling and became lost in thought. To my amazement, I saw that on this occasion he was sober – unusually for him! This astonished and even touched me.

‘You’re perfectly normal today,’ I said. ‘You’re not drunk and you haven’t asked for vodka. What does this dream of mine signify?’

‘Well now! I didn’t have time to have a drink – I was always thinking… I have to tell you, Seryozha, that I’m head over heels in love, in real earnest. I like her enormously – and that’s understandable too. She’s a rare woman, quite exceptional – not to mention her appearance. She’s not particularly bright, but what sensitivity, elegance, freshness! There’s no comparison with all those earlier loves of mine – those Amalias, Angelicas and Grushas. She’s a person from another world, a world that is unfamiliar to me.’

‘You’re getting philosophical!’ I laughed.

‘I was carried away, as if I’d fallen in love! But now I can see that I’m wasting my time trying to raise zero to the power of four. It was only a mask that aroused this false excitement in me. That bright flush of innocence turned out to be rouge, that loving kiss a request for a new dress. I took her into my house as a wife, but she behaved like a paid mistress. But enough of that! I’m trying to calm myself and beginning to see Olga as a mistress… And that’s the long and short of it!’

‘Well, what next? How’s the husband?’

‘The husband? Hm… how do you think he is?’

‘I think that it would be hard to imagine an unhappier man at this moment.’

‘Do you think so? That’s where you’re wrong… he’s such a rogue, such a scoundrel that I don’t feel sorry for him at all. Scoundrels can never be unhappy, they always find a way out.’

‘But why are you running him down like this?’

‘Because he’s a swindler. You know that I respected him, trusted him as a friend. I myself – and even you – everyone considered him an honest, respectable man, incapable of deceit. But for all that he’s been robbing me, fleecing me! Taking full advantage of his position as manager, he’s been doing what he likes with my property. The only things he didn’t steal were those that couldn’t be moved.’

Since I’d always known Urbenin to be an extremely honest and unselfish person, I jumped up as if I’d been stung when I heard the Count’s words and I went over to him.

‘So, you’ve actually caught him stealing?’

‘No, but I know about his thieving tricks from reliable sources.’

‘What sources, may I ask?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to accuse someone without good reason. Olga has told me everything about him. Even before she became his wife she saw with her own eyes the cart-loads of slaughtered chickens and geese that he was dispatching to town. More than once she saw my geese and chickens being sent as a present to certain benefactors with whom his schoolboy son was lodging. What’s more, she saw him send flour, millet and lard there. I grant you, these are mere trifles, but surely these trifles don’t belong to him? It’s not a question of value, but of principles. Principles have been flouted. And there’s more, my dear sir! She happened to see a bundle of banknotes in his cupboard. When she asked whose it was and where he’d got it he begged her not to let slip that he had money. You know that he’s as poor as a church mouse, dear chap! His salary is barely large enough to pay for his board. So please explain to me where he got that money from?’

‘And you’re fool enough to believe that little reptile’s words?’ I shouted, disturbed to the very depths of my being. ‘She’s not satisfied with running away from him, blackening his name throughout the whole district – she had to go and deceive him! Such a small, puny body, but with so much vileness of every variety lurking in it! Fowls, geese, millet… oh, you’re a fine landowner, you are! Your instinct for political economy, your agricultural obtuseness have been insulted by the fact that for church festivals he kept sending presents of slaughtered poultry that would have been eaten by foxes and polecats had the birds not been killed and given as presents. But have you checked even once those enormous accounts that Urbenin submits to you? Have you ever counted the thousands and tens of thousands? No! So what’s the use of talking? You’re stupid, just like an animal. You’d be pleased enough to have your mistress’s husband locked up, but you’ve no idea how!’

‘My affair with Olga has nothing to do with it. Whether he’s her husband or not, once he’s stolen I must openly declare him a thief. But let’s leave this swindling to one side. Tell me: is it or isn’t it dishonest to be paid a salary and lie around for days on end, constantly drunk? Every day he’s drunk! Not one day passes without my seeing him reeling around. Respectable people don’t behave like that!’

‘He gets drunk because he’s respectable.’ I commented.

‘You appear to have some sort of passion for standing up for gentlemen like him. But I’ve decided to show no mercy. Today I paid him off and asked him to clear out and make room for someone else. My patience is exhausted.’

I felt it was superfluous to try and convince the Count that he was being unfair, impractical and stupid: I had no intention of defending Urbenin against the Count.

Five days later I heard that Urbenin had gone to live in town with his schoolboy son and little daughter. They told me that he was dead drunk when they drove there and that he fell off the cart twice. The schoolboy and Sasha cried the whole way.

XVII

Soon after Urbenin’s departure I was obliged to stay for a while – much against my wishes – on the Count’s estate. One of the Count’s stables had been broken into and thieves had made off with several valuable saddles. The investigating magistrate (that is, me) was informed and, nolens volens,⁴⁶ I had to go there.

I found the Count drunk and angry. He was marching through all the rooms, seeking refuge from his anguish, but to no avail.

‘That Olga’s more than I can take,’ he said, waving his arm. ‘She lost her temper with me this morning, threatened to drown herself, stormed out of the house – and as you can see, there’s still no sign of her. I know she wouldn’t drown herself, but it’s a rotten business all the same. All yesterday she sulked and kept smashing crockery… The day before she gorged herself on chocolate. God only knows what kind of person she really is!’

I consoled the Count as best I could and sat down to dinner with him.

‘No, it’s time she stopped behaving like a child,’ he muttered during dinner. ‘It’s high time – otherwise all this might turn into a stupid farce. Besides, I have to admit that she’s already beginning to bore me with her sharp changes of mood. I need someone quiet and steady, modest – like Nadezhda Nikolayevna, you know. A splendid girl!’

When I was strolling in the garden after dinner I met the ‘drowned girl’. When she saw me she turned crimson and – strange woman! – she laughed for happiness. The shame on her face mingled with joy, the grief with happiness. Giving me a sheepish look, she ran towards me and hung on my neck without a word.

‘I love you,’ she whispered, squeezing my neck. ‘I’ve been pining for you so much that I would have died if you hadn’t come.’

I embraced her and silently led her to one of the summer-houses. Ten minutes later, when I was saying goodbye, I took a twenty-five rouble note from my pocket and gave it to her.

‘What’s that for?’

‘I’m paying you for today’s love.’

Olga didn’t understand and kept looking at me in amazement.

‘You see, there are women,’ I explained, ‘who love for money. They’re prostitutes. They have to be paid for with money. So take it! If you accept money from others, why don’t you want to take it from me? I don’t need any favours!’

However cynical this insult, Olga still didn’t understand. As yet she had no knowledge of life and didn’t understand the meaning of ‘venal’ women.