The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91

The Duel

I

It was eight in the morning, a time when officers, civil servants and visitors usually took a dip in the sea after the hot, stuffy night, proceeding to the Pavilion afterwards for tea or coffee. When Ivan Layevsky, a thin, fair-haired young man of about twenty-eight, came down for his bathe in slippers and with his Ministry of Finance peaked cap, he met many of his friends on the beach, including Samoylenko, an army doctor.

The stout, red-faced, flabby Samoylenko with his large, close-cropped head, big nose, black bushy eyebrows, grey side-whiskers and no neck to speak of, with a hoarse soldier’s voice as well, struck all newcomers as an unpleasant army upstart. But about two or three days after the first meeting his face began to strike them as exceptionally kind, amiable, handsome even. Although a rude-mannered, clumsy person, he was docile, infinitely kind, good-humoured and obliging. He called everyone in town by their Christian names, lent money to everyone, gave medical treatment to all, arranged marriages, patched up quarrels and organized picnics, where he grilled kebabs and made a very tasty grey mullet soup. He was always helping people and interceding for them, and there was always something that made him happy. He was generally regarded as a saint, with just two weaknesses: firstly, he was ashamed of his own kindness and tried to conceal it behind a forbidding expression and an affected rudeness; secondly, he liked to be called ‘General’ by the medical orderlies and soldiers, although he was only a colonel.

‘Just answer one question for me, Alexander,’ Layevsky began when he and Samoylenko were right up to their shoulders in the water. ‘Suppose you fell in love and had an affair with the woman. Suppose you lived with her for more than two years and then, as happens so often, you stopped loving her and felt she was no more than a stranger. What would you have done in that event?’

‘Very simple. I would say “Get out, my dear” – and that would be that.’

‘That’s easy enough to say! But supposing she had nowhere to go? Supposing she was all on her own, with no family, not a penny to her name, no job…’

‘What of it? Five hundred roubles down, to keep her quiet, or twenty-five a month and no arguments. Very simple.’

‘Let’s assume you could pay her the five hundred or twenty-five a month, but the woman I’m talking about is educated and has her pride. Could you really offer someone like that money? How would you pay her?’

Samoylenko wanted to give him an answer, but at that moment a large wave broke over them both, crashed onto the beach and roared back over the shingle. The two friends came out of the water and started dressing.

‘Of course it’s difficult living with a woman if you don’t love her,’ Samoylenko said, shaking the sand out of his boot. ‘But you must consider, Ivan, would it be humane? If it were me, I wouldn’t let her see I didn’t love her any more and I’d stay with her until my dying day.’ Suddenly he felt ashamed of these words and thought again. ‘In my opinion we’d be better off if there weren’t any women at all, damn them!’

The friends dressed and went into the Pavilion where Samoylenko was one of the regulars, and even had his own cups, saucers and glasses reserved for him. Every morning he was served a cup of coffee, a tall, cut-glass tumbler of iced water and a glass of brandy on a tray. First he would drink the brandy, then the hot coffee, then the iced water, all of which obviously gave him great enjoyment, as afterwards his eyes would gleam and he would gaze at the sea, stroking his side-whiskers with both hands, and say: ‘A remarkably beautiful view!’

Layevsky was feeling jaded and lifeless after a long night of gloomy, empty thoughts which had disturbed his sleep and only intensified the humidity and darkness, it seemed. Nor did the swim and the coffee make him feel any better. ‘Alexander, may we carry on this conversation?’ he said. ‘I shan’t hide anything and I’m telling you quite candidly, as a friend: things with Nadezhda are bad… very bad! Forgive me for letting you into my secrets, but I must tell someone.’

Samoylenko had anticipated that he was going to tell him this; he lowered his eyes and drummed his fingers on the table.

‘I’ve lived with her for two years and now I don’t love her any more…’ Layevsky said. ‘To be more precise, I’ve come to realize I never did love her. These two years have been sheer delusion.’

Layevsky had the habit of closely studying his pink palms, biting his nails or crumpling his shirt cuffs during a conversation. And this is what he did now. ‘I know only too well you can’t help,’ he said, ‘but I’m telling you, talking things over is the only salvation for failures, or Superfluous Men¹ like yours truly. I always feel I have to start generalizing after anything I do, I have to find an explanation and justification for my absurd existence in some sort of theory or other, in literary types – for example in the fact that we gentlefolk are becoming degenerate, and so on… All last night, for example, I consoled myself by thinking how right Tolstoy is, how ruthlessly right! And it made me feel better. A really great writer, my friend, say what you like!’

Samoylenko, who had never read Tolstoy and had been meaning to read him every day, was taken aback and said: ‘Yes, all writers draw on their imagination, but he writes directly from nature…’

‘Good Lord!’ Layevsky sighed, ‘how civilization has crippled us! I fell in love with a married woman, and she with me. At first there was kissing, and quiet evenings, and promises, and Spencer,² and ideals, and mutual interests… What a sham! Essentially, we were just running away from her husband, but we deluded ourselves into thinking we were running away from the emptiness of our lives. We imagined our future like this: first, until we got to know the Caucasus and the people here, I would wear my civil service uniform and work in a government office; then, out in the wide open spaces, we would buy a little plot of land, work by the sweat of our brows, cultivate a vineyard, fields, and so on. If you yourself or that zoologist friend of yours, von Koren, had been in my place, perhaps you would have lived with Nadezhda for thirty years and left your heirs a thriving vineyard and three thousand acres or so of maize. But I felt a complete failure, from the very first day. It’s insufferably hot and boring in this town, no one you can make friends with, and out in the country, under every bush and stone you think you’re seeing poisonous spiders, scorpions and snakes. Beyond the fields there’s nothing but mountains and the wilderness. Foreign people, foreign landscape, pathetic cultural standards – all this, my friend, is a different proposition from strolling along the Nevsky in your fur coat, arm-in-arm with Nadezhda and dreaming of sunny climes. Here you have to go at it hammer and tongs – and I’m no fighter. Just a wretched bag of nerves, an old softy… I realized from the very first day that my ideas about the life of labour and vineyards aren’t worth a tinker’s cuss. And as for love, I must inform you that life with a woman who’s read Spencer and gone to the ends of the earth for you is just about as boring as living with any village girl. There’s that same old smell of ironing, face powder and medicine, the same curling-papers every morning, the same self-deception…’

‘You can’t run a household without ironing,’ Samoylenko said, blushing because Layevsky was speaking so frankly about a woman he knew. ‘Ivan, I can see you’re feeling a bit low this morning, aren’t you? Nadezhda is a beautiful, cultured woman and you’re a highly intelligent man… Of course, you’re not married,’ Samoylenko continued, looking round at the neighbouring tables, ‘but after all, that’s not your fault… What’s more, one has to cast aside one’s prejudices and keep up with modern ideas on the subject. I’m all for civil marriage myself, yes… But I do think that once you’ve started living with someone you must stay that way till your dying day.’

‘But without loving her?’

‘I’ll tell you why, here and now,’ Samoylenko said. ‘About eight years ago there was an old shipping-agent living here, a very intelligent man. This is what he used to say: the most important thing in family life is patience. Are you listening, Ivan? Not love, but patience. Love can’t last very long. You’ve been in love for two years but now your domestic life has entered that stage when you have to bring all your patience into play to maintain your equilibrium, so to speak…’

‘You can believe that old agent of yours if you like, but his advice makes no sense at all to me. Your old gentleman could have been fooling his partner, testing his stamina, at the same time using the unloved woman as something essential for his exercises. But I haven’t fallen that low yet. If I wanted to put my powers of endurance to the test, I’d buy dumb-bells or a lively horse, but I’d leave human beings alone.’

Samoylenko ordered some chilled wine. After they had drunk a glass each Layevsky suddenly asked, ‘Can you please explain what softening of the brain is?’

‘It’s… how can I best explain it to you? It’s an illness where the brain gets softer, as if it were decomposing…’

‘Is it curable?’

‘Yes, if it hasn’t gone too far. Cold showers, plasters… and some sort of medicine you have to drink.’

‘Oh. Well, so you see the state I’m in. I can’t live with her, it’s more than I can cope with. While I’m sitting here with you I can philosophize and smile all right, but the moment I’m home I really get very down in the dumps. I feel so bad, so absolutely awful, that if someone told me I must live with her, let’s say just one more month, I think I’d put a bullet through my brains. And at the same time I just can’t leave her. She’s got no one else, she can’t work, neither of us has any money… Where could she go? And to whom? I just can’t think… Well now, tell me what to do.’

‘Hm… yes…’ Samoylenko mumbled, at a loss for a reply. ‘Does she love you?’

‘Yes, as much as anyone of her age and temperament needs a man. She’d find it as difficult to part with me as with her powder and curling-papers… I’m an indispensable component of her boudoir.’

Samoylenko was taken aback by this. ‘You’re really in a foul mood today, Ivan,’ he said. ‘Probably it’s lack of sleep.’

‘Yes, I had a bad night… And I feel generally pretty rough, old chap. It all seems so futile, I feel so nervy, so weak… I must get away from here!’

‘But where to?’

‘Up north. To pines, mushrooms, people, ideas… I’d give half my life to be somewhere near Moscow or Tula now, to have a swim in a river, then cool down, then wander around for about three hours, with the most wretched student even, and talk, talk, talk… You remember the scent of that hay! And those evening walks in the garden when you can hear the piano in the house, the sound of a passing train…’

Layevsky smiled with pleasure, his eyes filled with tears and in an effort to hide them he leant over to the next table for a box of matches without getting up.

‘It’s eighteen years since I was up north,’ Samoylenko said. ‘I’ve forgotten what it’s like there. If you ask me, nowhere’s as magnificent as the Caucasus.’

‘There’s a painting by Vereshchagin³ in which some prisoners condemned to death are languishing at the bottom of a terribly deep well. Your magnificent Caucasus strikes me as exactly the same kind of bottomless pit. If you offered me two choices – being a chimney-sweep in St Petersburg or a prince in this place – I’d opt for the chimney-sweep.’

Layevsky thought for a moment. As he looked at that stooping figure, those staring eyes, that pale sweaty face with its sunken temples, the gnawed finger nails and the slipper hanging down from Layevsky’s heel, revealing a badly darned sock, Samoylenko felt a surge of pity. Then, probably because Layevsky reminded him of a helpless child, he asked:

‘Is your mother still alive?’

‘Yes, but we never see each other. She never forgave me for this affair.’

Samoylenko was very fond of his friend. In his eyes Layevsky was a thoroughly decent ‘hail-fellow-well-met’ type, a genuine student, the kind of person with whom one could have a good laugh over a drink and a real heart-to-heart chat. What he understood about him he disliked intensely. Layevsky drank a great deal, and at the wrong time, played cards, despised his work, lived beyond his means, often used bad language, wore slippers in the street and quarrelled with Nadezhda in public. Samoylenko liked none of this. But the fact that Layevsky was once a university student, in the arts faculty, that he now subscribed to two literary reviews and often spoke so cleverly that only few could understand him, that he was living with a woman of culture – all this was beyond Samoylenko’s understanding and it pleased him; he considered Layevsky his superior and respected him.

‘Just one more thing,’ Layevsky said, shaking his head. ‘Just between ourselves. I’m not telling Nadezhda for the moment, so don’t let the cat out of the bag when you see her. The day before yesterday I received a letter saying her husband had died of softening of the brain.’

‘May he rest in peace!’ Samoylenko sighed. ‘But why are you hiding it from her?’

‘Showing her that letter would mean “Off to the altar, please!” Things between us have to be cleared up first. When she’s convinced that we can’t go on living together I’ll show her the letter. There’ll be no danger then.’

‘Do you know what, Ivan?’ Samoylenko said and his face took on a sad, pleading expression, as if he was about to beg for something very nice and was afraid of being refused. ‘Get married, my dear chap!’

‘Why?’

‘Do your duty by this beautiful woman! Her husband has died – this is the way Providence has of showing you what to do!’

‘But please try and understand, you silly man! That’s impossible. Marrying someone you don’t love is just as vile and dishonourable as celebrating Mass and not believing in God.’

‘But it’s your duty!’

‘Why is it my duty?’ Layevsky asked irritably.

‘Because you took her away from her husband and therefore you assumed responsibility.’

‘Well, I’m telling you in plain language, I don’t love her!’

‘Then if you don’t love her, show her some respect, spoil her a little.’

‘Respect, spoil?’ Layevsky said, mimicking him. ‘Do you think she’s a Mother Superior?… You’re not much of a psychologist or physiologist if you think that respect and honour on their own will do you much good when you live with a woman. What women need most is bed.’

‘Ivan, Ivan!’ Samoylenko said, embarrassed.

‘You’re a big baby, all theories. As for me, I’m old before my time and a pragmatist, so we shall never see eye to eye. Let’s change the subject.’ Layevsky called out to one of the waiters, ‘Mustafa, how much do we owe you?’

‘No, no,’ the doctor said, grasping Layevsky’s arm anxiously. ‘I’ll do the honours. I ordered.’ And he called out to Mustafa, ‘Charge it to me.’

The friends got up and walked in silence along the front. They stopped at the main boulevard to say goodbye and shook hands.

‘You gentlemen are too spoilt!’ Samoylenko sighed. ‘Fate has sent you a young, beautiful, educated woman and you don’t want her. If only God would send me some hunch-backed old crone, how happy I should be – as long as she was affectionate and kind. I’d live in my vineyard with her and…’ Samoylenko suddenly pulled himself up. ‘As long as the old witch could keep my samovar on the boil!’

After bidding Layevsky farewell he went off down the boulevard. Whenever that ponderous, majestic, stern-faced man strolled along the boulevard in his snow-white tunic and impeccably polished boots, thrusting his chest out and flaunting his splendid Order of Vladimir (with ribbon) he was very pleased with himself and thought the whole world was looking at him in delight. Without turning his head, he looked from side to side and concluded that the boulevard had been beautifully planned, that the young cypresses, the eucalyptus and those unsightly, anaemic-looking palm trees were very beautiful in fact and, given time, would cast a broad shade, and that the Circassians were a decent, hospitable people. ‘Strange that Layevsky doesn’t like the Caucasus,’ he thought. ‘Most strange.’ Five soldiers with rifles saluted as they passed him. On the pavement, on the other side of the boulevard, a civil servant’s wife was walking along with her schoolboy son.

‘Good morning, Marya Konstantinova!’ Samoylenko called out, smiling pleasantly. ‘Have you been for a bathe? Ha, ha, ha… My regards to Nikodim Aleksandrych.’

He walked on further, still smiling pleasantly, but when he spotted a medical orderly coming towards him he suddenly frowned, stopped him and asked, ‘Is there anyone at the hospital?’

‘No one, General.’

‘What?’

‘No one, General.’

‘Very good… Carry on.’

Swaying majestically, he went over to a soft drinks kiosk, where an old, full-bosomed Jewess who pretended to be a Georgian was sitting behind the counter.

‘Please give me a glass of soda water!’ he said, so loud, he might have been giving orders to a regiment.

II

The main reason for Layevsky’s dislike of Nadezhda was the falsity – or the apparent falsity – of everything she did. All he had read attacking women and love, it seemed, couldn’t have been more applicable to himself, Nadezhda and her husband. When he arrived home she was already dressed and had done her hair, and she was sitting at the window drinking coffee, looking through a literary review with an anxious look on her face. He reflected that simply drinking coffee hardly warranted such a worried look and that her fashionable hair-do had been a sheer waste of time, since there was no one around worth pleasing in this kind of place and no point in the exercise anyway. And reading that review was only another pretence. He thought that she had only dressed up and had done her hair to look pretty, and in the same way the reading was just to make herself look clever.

‘Do you mind if I go for a bathe today?’ she asked.

‘Why not? I don’t suppose the mountains will cave in if you do or if you don’t.’

‘I only asked because the doctor might be annoyed.’

‘Well, go and ask him. I’m not qualified to speak on the subject.’

What Layevsky disliked most about Nadezhda on this occasion was her bare white neck and the little curls around the back, and he remembered that when Anna Karenina stopped loving her husband, she had conceived a particular loathing for his ears. ‘How true, how true!’ he thought. Feeling weak and despondent, he went to his study, lay down on the couch and covered his face with a handkerchief to keep the flies away. Dull, lazy, monotonous thoughts lumbered through his mind like a long train of peasant carts on a foul autumn evening and he lapsed into a drowsy, depressed state of mind. He thought he was guilty as far as Nadezhda and her husband were concerned and that her husband’s death was his fault. He felt he was to blame for ruining his own life, for betraying the wonderful world of noble ideas, learning, work, which did not seem to exist or be capable of realization in this seaside resort with its hungry, prowling Turks and lazy Abkhazians,⁴ but only in the north with its opera, theatres, newspapers and great diversity of intellectual life. Only there could one be honourable, clever, noble-minded and pure – not in this sort of place. He accused himself of being without ideals or guiding principles in life, although he only had a vague idea what that meant. Two years before, when he had fallen in love with Nadezhda, he thought all he had to do to escape the nastiness and futility of life was to become her lover and go away with her to the Caucasus. Similarly, he was convinced that he only had to abandon Nadezhda and go to St Petersburg to achieve his every desire.

‘Escape!’ he muttered as he sat biting his nails. ‘Escape!’

He imagined himself going on board ship, having lunch, drinking cold beer, chatting with the ladies on deck, then catching a train at Sevastopol – and away! Hail, Freedom! Stations flash past one after the other, the air grows cooler and sharper. Now he can see birches and firs, that’s Kursk, now Moscow… Cabbage soup, mutton with buckwheat, sturgeon, beer at station buffets – in brief, no more of this barbarity, but Russia, the real Russia. The passengers discuss trade, new singers, Franco-Prussian accord. Everywhere life is vigorous, cultured, intelligent, brimming with energy. Faster, faster! Here at last is the Nevsky Avenue, Great Morskoy Street, then Kovensky Lane, where once he had lived with students. Here is that dear grey sky, drizzle, those drenched cab-drivers…

‘Ivan Andreich!’ someone called from the next room. ‘Are you in?’

‘I’m here!’ Layevsky answered. ‘What is it?’

‘I’ve got some papers.’

As Layevsky lazily got to his feet, his head was reeling and he went into the next room yawning and shuffling his slippers. One of his young colleagues was standing by the window that overlooked the street and laying out government papers along the sill.

‘Won’t be a second, old man,’ Layevsky said softly and went off to find an ink-pot. He returned to the window, signed the papers without reading them and remarked, ‘It’s hot!’

‘Yes, sir. Are you coming to the office today?’

‘I don’t think so… I’m not feeling too good. My dear chap, please tell Sheshkovsky I’ll look in after dinner.’

The clerk left. Layevsky lay down on his couch again and thought, ‘So, I must carefully weigh up the pros and cons and come to a decision. Before I leave this place I must settle my debts. I owe about two thousand roubles. I’ve no money… Of course, that’s not important. I could pay part of it now, somehow or other and I’ll send some later from St Petersburg. The main problem’s Nadezhda… I must get things straight between us, before I do anything else… Yes.’

A little later he was wondering if it might be best to go to Samoylenko for advice. ‘I could go and see him,’ he thought, ‘but what’s the use? I’d only say the wrong thing again, about boudoirs, women, what’s honourable or not. And how the hell can I discuss what’s honourable or not when the most urgent thing is to save my own skin, when I’m suffocating in this damned slavery and killing myself… It’s time I realized that carrying on living as I am is shameful and an act of cruelty before which all else pales into insignificance!’

‘Escape!’ he murmured, sitting down. ‘Escape!’

The deserted beach, the merciless heat and the monotony of the eternally silent, hazy, pinkish-violet mountains saddened him and seemed to be lulling him to sleep and robbing him of something. Perhaps he was very clever in fact, talented and remarkably honest; perhaps he might have made an excellent district official, public servant, orator, commentator on current affairs, champion of causes, had he not been shut in on all sides by sea and mountains. Who knows? And if this were true, wasn’t it stupid to argue whether it was the right thing or not if a talented and useful man – a musician or artist, for example – tore walls down and fooled his jailers to escape from prison? For any man in that situation, everything was honourable.

After two o’clock Layevsky and Nadezhda sat down to lunch. When the cook served rice soup with tomatoes Layevsky said, ‘The same old thing every day. Can’t she make cabbage soup?’

‘We haven’t any cabbage.’

‘That’s strange, Samoylenko has cabbage soup, Marya Konstantinova has cabbage soup, only I am obliged to eat these sickly slops. It’s no good, my dear.’

Like most married couples, at one time Layevsky and Nadezhda could not finish lunch without some scene or tantrums. But since Layevsky decided he did not love her any more, he tried to let Nadezhda have everything her own way, spoke gently and politely to her, smiled and called her darling.

‘This soup’s like liquorice,’ he said, smiling. He was making a great effort to be friendly, but it was too much for him and he told her, ‘No one looks after things in this house. If you’re really so ill, or if you’re too busy reading, I could see to the cooking, if you like.’

Earlier she would have replied, ‘See to it, then’, or ‘It’s obvious you want to turn me into a cook’, but all she did now was give him a timid look and blush.

‘Well, how do you feel today?’ he asked affectionately.

‘I’m all right today, just a little weak.’

‘You must look after yourself, my dear. I’m terribly worried about you.’

In fact there was something wrong with Nadezhda. Samoylenko said she was suffering from intermittent fever and was giving her quinine. But another doctor, Ustimovich – a tall, skinny, unsociable person who stayed in during the day and strolled slowly along the front in the evenings, coughing away, his walking-stick pressed to his back with his hands – found she had some woman’s complaint and prescribed hot compresses. Before, when Layevsky was in love with Nadezhda, her illness had made him feel sorry for her and worried, but now he could see it was mere pretence. That sallow, sleepy face and sluggish look, those yawning fits she had after attacks of fever and the way she lay under a rug during them, making herself look more like a little child than a grown woman, the stuffiness and unpleasant smell in her room – to his mind all this served to destroy any romantic illusions and was enough to throw cold water on any ideas of love and marriage.

For a second course he was served spinach and hard-boiled eggs, while Nadezhda had jelly and milk, as she wasn’t well. At first, when she anxiously touched the jelly with her spoon and then lazily started eating it, washing it down with milk, the gulping noise aroused such violent hatred that it made his head itch. The way he felt, he knew very well, would have insulted a dog even, but he was not angry with himself, but with Nadezhda for stirring such feelings in him and he understood why lovers sometimes murder their mistresses. Of course, he could never have committed murder himself, but if he had happened to be on a jury at that moment he would have found for the accused.

‘Merci, my dear,’ he said after dinner, and kissed Nadezhda on the forehead.

Back in his study he paced up and down for five minutes, squinting at his boots, after which he sat on the couch and muttered, ‘Escape! Escape! Just get things straight and then escape!’

As he lay on the couch he remembered that he was possibly to blame for the death of Nadezhda’s husband. ‘It’s stupid blaming someone for falling in or out of love,’ he said, trying to convince himself as he lay there lifting his legs up to put his boots on. ‘Love and hatred are beyond our control. As for her husband, I was possibly one of the causes of his death, indirectly. But there again, is it my fault that I fell in love with his wife, and his wife with me?’

As he walked along Layevsky thought, ‘I’m just like Hamlet in my indecision! How truly Shakespeare observed it! Oh, how truly!’

III

To ward off boredom and to cater for the desperate needs of new arrivals and bachelors who had nowhere to eat, owing to the complete absence of hotels in the town, Dr Samoylenko maintained a kind of table d’hôte. At the time in question only two of these gentlemen were taking meals with him, von Koren, a young zoologist who had arrived in the summer to study the embryology of the jellyfish in the Black Sea; and Deacon Pobedov, who had left theological college not long before and had been dispatched to this small town to stand in for the old deacon, who was away taking the cure. Each paid twelve roubles a month for lunch and dinner, and Samoylenko had made them promise faithfully to be there for lunch at two o’clock on the dot.

Von Koren was usually first to arrive. He would silently sit down in the drawing-room, pick up an album from the table and examine faded photographs of certain strange gentlemen in wide trousers and toppers, and ladies in crinolines and lace caps. Samoylenko could remember the names of only just a few and would comment with a sigh on those he had forgotten, ‘A very fine person, of the highest intellect!’

When he had finished with the album, von Koren would take a pistol from the shelf, screw up his left eye and keep it pointed for a long time at Prince Vorontsov’s⁵ portrait; or he would stand in front of the mirror surveying his swarthy face, large forehead and hair that was as black and curly as a Negro’s, then his faded cotton print shirt with its large floral pattern resembling a Persian carpet, then the broad leather belt he wore as a waistcoat. This self-contemplation gave him almost greater enjoyment than inspecting those photographs or that expensively mounted pistol. He was satisfied with his face and with his beautifully trimmed beard and broad shoulders that were clear proof of his good health and strong build. He was satisfied too with his terribly smart outfit – from the tie, which matched his shirt, right down to his yellow shoes.

While he was standing before the mirror looking through the album, Samoylenko was rushing bare-chested around the kitchen and pantry, without jacket or waistcoat. He sweated profusely as he excitedly fussed around the tables, preparing the salad, or some sort of sauce, or the meat, or cucumbers and onions for the soup, glaring furiously and alternately brandishing a knife and a spoon at the batman who was helping him.

‘Vinegar!’ he commanded. ‘No, not the vinegar, I meant salad-oil!’ he shouted, stamping his foot. ‘And where are you going, you swine?’

‘To get the oil, General,’ replied the stunned batman in a high-pitched voice.

‘Hurry up! It’s in the cupboard. And tell Darya to put some more dill into the cucumber jar. Dill! Cover up that sour cream, you moron, or the flies will get to it!’

The whole house seemed to echo with his shouts. At about ten or fifteen minutes to two the deacon arrived – a thin young man of about twenty-two, long-haired, beardless and with a barely visible moustache. After he entered the drawing-room he crossed himself before the icon, smiled and held out his hand to von Koren.

‘Hullo,’ the zoologist said coldly. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Fishing for gobies in the harbour.’

‘Why of course. It’s quite evident, deacon, you’ll never put your mind to doing some work.’

‘Why ever not?’ the deacon said smiling, shoving his hands into the cavernous pockets of his white cassock. ‘Time enough for work tomorrow!’

‘You always win,’ the zoologist sighed.

Another fifteen or twenty minutes passed and still they weren’t summoned to the table; and they could still hear the clatter of boots as the batman scurried from pantry to kitchen and back again, while Samoylenko shouted, ‘Put it on the table! What are you doing? Wash it first!’

The deacon and von Koren, who were starving by now, showed their impatience by tapping their heels on the floor, like a theatre audience. At last the door opened and the harassed batman announced, ‘Lunch is ready!’

In the dining-room they were confronted by an angry, crimson-faced Samoylenko, who looked as if he had been boiled in that hot kitchen. He glanced at them malignantly and there was a horrified look on his face as he lifted the lid of the soup tureen and filled their plates. Only when he was convinced that they were enjoying the food, that it was to their taste, did he heave a gentle sigh and sink into his deep armchair. His face took on a languid, unctuous expression. Leisurely, he poured himself a glass of vodka and said, ‘To the younger generation!’

After his talk with Layevsky, Samoylenko had passed the entire morning until lunch feeling rather heavy at heart, despite his generally excellent mood. He felt sorry for Layevsky and wanted to help him. Drinking his vodka before starting the soup he sighed and said, ‘I saw Ivan Layevsky today. The poor devil’s having a rough time of it. Materially, he’s in a bad way, but the main problems are psychological. I do feel sorry for the young man.’

‘Of all people I’m not sorry for him!’ von Koren said. ‘If that nice young gentleman were drowning I’d help him down with a stick and tell him, “Drown, my dear chap, please drown.” ’

‘That’s not true, you wouldn’t do it.’

‘And why not?’ the zoologist said with a shrug of the shoulders. ‘I’m just as capable of a good deed as you are.’

‘Is making someone drown a good deed?’ the deacon asked, laughing.

‘If it’s Layevsky – yes.’

‘There’s something missing in the soup,’ Samoylenko said, trying to change the subject.

‘There’s no question about it, Layevsky’s as harmful and dangerous to society as a cholera microbe,’ von Koren went on. ‘Drowning him would be rendering it a service.’

‘It does you no credit speaking like that about your fellow human being. Tell me, why do you hate him?’

‘Don’t talk such nonsense, doctor. It’s stupid hating and despising a microbe. But to think that any passing stranger just has to be thought of as your fellow human being, without discrimination – that’s not rational at all, but a refusal to take any reasonable attitude towards people, if you don’t mind my saying so. In short, it’s the same as washing your hands of the matter. That Layevsky is a swine – I won’t conceal the fact – and I regard him as such with the clearest conscience. But if you consider him your fellow, then go and drool over him as much as you like. If you consider him your neighbour that means you have the same attitude towards him as to the deacon and myself, and that means any old attitude. You’re equally indifferent to everyone.’

‘Calling the man a swine!’ Samoylenko muttered, frowning with disgust. ‘That’s so awful, words just fail me!’

‘People are judged by their actions,’ von Koren went on. ‘So now you can judge for yourself, deacon. There’s something I’d like to tell you. Mr Layevsky’s activities lie wide open before you, like a Chinese scroll, and you can read about them from beginning to end. What has he achieved in the two years he’s been here? Let’s count it on our fingers. Firstly, he’s taught the people in this town to play whist. This game was unknown here two years ago, but now everyone’s playing it from morning to night, even women and teenagers. Secondly, he’s taught the people to drink beer, which was also unknown in this place. And the people are indebted to him for information regarding different brands of vodka, with the result that now they can tell Koshelyov from Smirnov No. 21 blindfold. Thirdly, when men used to sleep with other men’s wives in this place before, they kept it a secret, for the same reasons that motivate burglars, who go about their business in secret and don’t tell the whole world about it. Adultery used to be looked on as too shameful for the public eye. But Layevsky has shown himself to be a pioneer in this field, he’s living quite openly with another man’s wife. Fourthly…’

Von Koren quickly finished his soup and handed the batman his bowl. ‘I saw through Layevsky the very first month we met,’ he went on, turning to the deacon. ‘We both came here at the same time. People of his sort love friendship, togetherness, unity and so on, because they always need partners for whist, for drinking and eating. What’s more, they’re great talkers and need an audience. We became friends – by that I mean he came over to my place every day and loafed around, interrupted my work and told me all about his mistress. At first he startled me by his extraordinary mendacity, which simply made me feel sick. As one friend to another, I told him off, asked him why he drank so much, why he lived beyond his means and ran up so many debts, why he neglected his work, why he read nothing, why he was so uncultured, why he was so ignorant – and his sole reply to all my questions was to smile bitterly and say, “I’m a failure, a Superfluous Man”, or “What do you want from us, old man, we’re just left-overs from the serf system?” or “We’re all going to pot”. Or he’d spin me a whole yarn about Onegin, Pechorin, Byron’s Cain, Bazarov,⁶ calling them “our fathers in the spirit and in the flesh”. You must understand that he’s not to blame if official parcels lie around unopened for weeks, or if he drinks and sees that others get drunk with him. Onegin, Pechorin, and Turgenev, who invented failures and the Superfluous Man – they’re to blame. The reason for his outrageous depravity and disgraceful carryings-on can’t be found in him at all, but somewhere outside, in space. What’s more – and this is a cunning stroke – he’s not alone in being dissipated, lying, and vile, but we too – we “men of the eighties”, we, “the lifeless, neurotic offspring of serfdom”, we “cripples of civilization”. The long and short of it is, we must realize that a man of Layevsky’s calibre is great, even in decline; that his debauchery, ignorance and filthy ways are a quite normal evolutionary phenomenon, sanctified by the laws of necessity, that the reasons for all this are elemental, of world-shattering importance, and that we must cringe before Layevsky, since he’s a doomed victim of the epoch, of trends of opinion, of heredity and all the rest of it. Whenever civil servants and their wives listened to him there would be sighs and gasps and for a long time I did not realize the kind of person I was dealing with – a cynic or a cunning rogue? People like him with a modicum of education, who appear to be intellectuals and with a lot to say about their own noble qualities, are dab hands at passing themselves off as highly complex characters.’

‘Be quiet!’ Samoylenko said, flaring up. ‘I won’t have you maligning the noblest of men in my presence!’

‘Don’t interrupt, Alexander,’ von Koren said icily. ‘I’ve nearly finished now. Layevsky is a fairly uncomplicated organism. This is his moral framework: slippers, bathing and coffee early in the morning, then slippers, exercise and conversation; at two – slippers, lunch and booze; bathing, tea and drinks at five, followed by whist and telling lies; supper and booze at ten; after midnight – sleep and la femme. His existence is bounded by this strict routine, like an egg by its shell. Whether he’s walking, losing his temper, writing or having a good time, in the end everything boils down to drink, cards, slippers and women. Women play a fateful, overwhelming role in his life. He’ll tell you he was already in love at the age of thirteen. When he was a first-year student, he lived with a woman who had a good influence on him and to whom he owes his musical education. In his second year he redeemed a prostitute from a brothel and raised her to his level – that’s to say, made her his mistress. She stayed with him for six months and then fled back to Madame, an escape that caused him no end of spiritual distress. Alas, he suffered so much he was compelled to leave university and live at home for two years without doing a thing. But it was for the best. At home he started an affair with a widow who advised him to drop law and take up modern languages. And that’s precisely what he did. The moment he finished the course he fell madly in love with this married woman he’s with now – what’s her name? – and had to run away with her to the Caucasus, presumably for the sake of his ideals… Any day now he’ll tire of her and fly back to St Petersburg – and that will be because of his ideals too.’

‘How do you know?’ growled Samoylenko, looking daggers at the zoologist. ‘Come on, better have something to eat.’

Boiled grey mullet à la polonaise was served. Samoylenko laid a whole fish on each of his guests’ plates, pouring the sauce himself. Two minutes passed in silence.

‘Women play an essential part in every man’s life,’ the deacon observed. ‘There’s no getting away from it.’

‘Yes, but how great? For each one of us a woman is mother, sister, wife, friend. But to Layevsky she’s everything – and at the same time she’s only someone to go to bed with. Women – I mean living with one – are his whole purpose in life, his whole happiness. If he’s cheerful, sad, bored, disenchanted it’s always because of a woman. If his life has turned sour, then a woman’s to blame. If a new life has brightly dawned, if new ideals have been unearthed, you only have to look for the woman. Only books or paintings featuring women satisfy him. According to him, the age we live in is rotten, worse than the forties and sixties, just because we cannot completely surrender ourselves to love’s ecstasy and passion. These sensualists must have some sort of tumour-like growth which, by exerting pressure on the brain, has taken complete control of their minds. Just watch Layevsky when he’s with people. You’ll see, if you raise some general topic – cells, or the instincts, for example – he’ll sit on one side, not listening or saying a word, lifeless and bored: none of it interests him, everything is trivial and second-rate. But just mention male and female, talk about female spiders devouring the male after mating, say, his face will light up, his eyes will burn with curiosity – in brief, he will come to life. However noble, elevated or unbiased his ideas may seem, they invariably centre around the same point of departure. You might be walking down the street with him and meet a she-ass, for example. He’ll ask, “Tell me what you get, please, if you mate a she-ass with a camel?” And as for his dreams! Has he told you about his dreams? They are superb! First he’ll dream he’s getting married to the moon, then that he’s been summoned to a police station and ordered to live with a guitar…’

The deacon broke into loud peals of laughter. Samoylenko frowned and angrily wrinkled his face to stop laughing, but he couldn’t control himself and burst out laughing.

‘And he never stops talking nonsense. Good Lord, the rubbish he talks!’

IV

The deacon was very easily amused – any little trifle was enough to send him into stitches and make him laugh until he dropped. It seemed he only liked company because people had their funny side and he could give them all comical nicknames. He called Samoylenko ‘Tarantula’, his orderly ‘the Drake’, and went into raptures when von Koren once called Layevsky and Nadezhda ‘macaques’. He would hungrily peer into faces, listen without blinking and one could see his eyes fill with laughter and his face grow tense as he waited for a chance to let himself go and roar with laughter.

‘He’s a dissipated, perverted type,’ the zoologist continued, while the deacon, expecting something funny, stared at him. ‘You’ll have to go a long way to find such a nobody. Physically, he’s flabby, feeble and senile, while intellectually he’s no different from any old merchant’s fat wife who does nothing but guzzle, drink, sleep on a feather bed and have sex with her coachman.’ Again the deacon burst out laughing. ‘Now don’t laugh, deacon,’ von Koren said; ‘that’s stupid, after all.’ Waiting until the deacon stopped, he went on, ‘If this nonentity weren’t so harmful and dangerous I wouldn’t give him another moment’s thought. His capacity for doing harm stems from his success with women, which means there’s the danger he might have offspring and in this way he could present the world with a dozen Layevskys, all as sickly and perverted as himself. Secondly, he’s highly contagious – I’ve already told you about the whist and the beer. Give him another year or two and he’ll have the whole Caucasian coastline at his feet. You know how much the masses, especially the middle strata, believe in things of the mind, in university education, refinement of manners and polished self-expression. Whatever abomination he may perpetrate, everyone believes there’s nothing at all wrong, that this is how it should be, since he’s a cultured, liberally minded man with a university education. And the fact that he’s a failure, a Superfluous Man, a neurotic, a victim of the times means that he’s allowed to do whatever he likes. He’s a nice young fellow, a good sort, so genuinely tolerant of human frailty. He’s obliging, easygoing, undemanding, not in the least high and mighty. One can have a nice little drink with him and swap dirty jokes, or have a chat about the latest gossip. The masses, who have always tended towards anthropomorphism in religion and morals, prefer those idols who have the same weaknesses as themselves. Judge for yourselves the wide field he has for spreading infection! What’s more, he’s not a bad actor, a clever impostor, there are no flies on him. Just take his little tricks and dodges, for example his attitude to civilization. He hasn’t a clue about it, yet you can hear him say, “Oh, how civilization has crippled us! Oh, how I envy savages, those children of nature, ignorant of civilization!” You must understand that, at one time, in the old days, he was devoted to civilization heart and soul. He was its servant, he knew its innermost secrets, but it exhausted, disillusioned and cheated him. Can’t you see that he’s a Faust, a second Tolstoy? And he shrugs off Schopenhauer⁷ and Spencer as schoolboys, gives them a paternal pat on the shoulder as if to say, “Well, Spencer, what have you got to say, old pal?” Of course, he’s never read Spencer, but how charming he seems when he tells us – with mild, casual irony – that his lady friend “has read her Spencer”. And people listen to him and no one wants to know that not only does this charlatan have no right to talk about Spencer in that tone, but that he isn’t even fit to kiss his feet! Only a highly selfish, vile, disgusting animal would ever go about undermining civilization, authority and other people’s gods, slinging mud at them with a playful wink, merely to justify and conceal its own impotence and moral bankruptcy.’

‘I don’t know what you expect of him, Kolya,’ Samoylenko said, eyeing the zoologist more guiltily than hatefully. ‘He’s like everyone else. Of course, he has his weaknesses, but he keeps abreast of current ideas, does his work and is useful to his country. Ten years ago there was an old shipping-agent here, a man of the greatest intellect. What he used to say was…’

‘Enough of that, enough!’ the zoologist interrupted. ‘You tell me he’s working for the government. But what has he done? Have things improved here, are the clerks any more conscientious, honest, courteous, since he arrived on the scene? On the contrary, with the authority of a cultured, university man he’s only sanctioned slackness. He’s punctual only on the twentieth of the month, when he gets paid, the rest of the time he shuffles around at home in his slippers and tries to give the impression he’s doing the Russian government a great favour by living in the Caucasus. No, Alexander, you shouldn’t stand up for him. You’re completely lacking in sincerity. If you were really so very fond of him and considered him your neighbour, then, before anything else, you wouldn’t be so blind to his weaknesses, you wouldn’t be so tolerant. Instead, you’d try to render him harmless, for his own good.’

‘Which means?’

‘Neutralizing him. Since he’s incorrigible, there’s only one way to do it…’ Von Koren ran his fingers along his neck. ‘Either by drowning him or…’ he added, ‘in the interests of humanity, in his own interest, such people should be exterminated. No doubt about it.’

‘What are you saying?’ Samoylenko muttered as he stood up and looked in amazement at the zoologist’s calm, cool face. ‘Deacon, what is he saying? Have you gone out of your mind?’

‘I wouldn’t insist on the death penalty,’ von Koren said. ‘If that’s been proven harmful, then think of something else. If Layevsky can’t be exterminated, then isolate him, strip him of his individuality, make him do community work.’

‘What are you saying?’ Samoylenko said, aghast. ‘With pepper, with pepper!’ he cried out in despair when he saw the deacon eating stuffed marrows without any. ‘You’re an extremely intelligent man, but what are you saying? Forcing our friend, such a proud, intelligent man, to do community work!’

‘But if he’s proud and tries to resist, then clap him in irons!’

Samoylenko was speechless and could only twiddle his fingers. The deacon peered into his stunned face, which really did look funny, and burst out laughing.

‘Let’s change the subject,’ the zoologist said. ‘Remember one thing, Alexander, primitive man was protected from men like Layevsky by the struggle for survival and natural selection. But nowadays, since civilization has significantly weakened this struggle and the process of natural selection too, the extermination of the weak and worthless has become our worry. Otherwise, if people like Layevsky were to multiply, civilization would perish and humanity would degenerate completely. We’d be the guilty ones.’

‘If we’re going to drown and hang people,’ Samoylenko said, ‘then to hell with your civilization, to hell with humanity! To hell with them! Now, let me tell you. You’re a deeply learned man, highly intelligent, the pride of your country. But the Germans have ruined you. Yes, the Germans, the Germans!’

Since leaving Dorpat,⁸ where he studied medicine, Samoylenko rarely saw any Germans and had not read one German book. But in his opinion the Germans were to blame for all the evil in politics and science. Even he could not say how he had arrived at this opinion, but he stuck firmly to it.

‘Yes, the Germans!’ he repeated. ‘Now come and have some tea.’

All three stood up, put their hats on and went out into the small garden, where they sat in the shade of pale maple, pear and chestnut trees. The zoologist and the deacon sat on a bench near a small table, while Samoylenko sank into a wicker armchair with a broad, sloping back. The orderly brought them tea, preserves and a bottle of syrup.

It was very hot, about ninety in the shade. The burning air had become listless, inert; a long cobweb stretching down to the ground from the chestnut hung limp and motionless.

The deacon took his guitar – it was always lying on the ground near the table – tuned it and began to sing in a soft, thin voice, ‘Oh, the young college boys were standing by the tavern…’, but immediately stopped, as it was so hot, wiped the sweat from his brow and looked up at the deep blue, blazing sky. Samoylenko dozed off; he felt weak, intoxicated by the heat, the silence and that sweet afternoon drowsiness which swiftly took control of his limbs. His arms drooped, his eyes grew small, his head nodded on his chest. He gave von Koren and the deacon a sickly, sentimental look and murmured, ‘The young generation… A great man of science and luminary of the church… You’ll see, that long-skirted propounder of sacred mysteries will probably end up as a Metropolitan… and we’ll all have to kiss his hand… Well, good luck to them.’

The sound of snoring soon followed. Von Koren and the deacon finished their tea and went out into the street.

‘Going to catch gobies in the harbour again?’ the zoologist asked.

‘No, it’s a bit too hot.’

‘Let’s go to my place. You can do up a parcel for me and copy something out. At the same time we can discuss what you are going to do. You must do some work, deacon, you can’t go on like this.’

‘What you say is fair and logical,’ the deacon said, ‘but my present circumstances do provide some excuse for my idleness. You know yourself that uncertainty as to one’s position significantly increases apathy. The Lord alone knows if I’m here temporarily or for the duration. Here I am living in uncertainty, while the deaconess is vegetating at her father’s and feeling lonely. I must confess this heat has fuddled my brains.’

‘Nonsense,’ the zoologist said. ‘You should be able to get used to this heat and being without the deaconess. You shouldn’t pamper yourself, take a firm grip.’

V

In the morning Nadezhda went for a bathe, followed by Olga her cook with jug, copper basin, towels and a sponge. Out in the roads two strange ships (obviously foreign freighters) with dirty white funnels lay at anchor. Some men in white, with white shoes, were strolling up and down the quayside shouting out loud in French, and they were answered by people on the ships. A lively peal of bells came from the little town church.

‘It’s Sunday!’ Nadezhda remembered with great pleasure.

She was feeling quite well and her mood was gay and festive. She thought she looked very sweet in her new, loose dress of coarse tussore,⁹ in her large straw hat with its broad brim pressed down so tightly over her ears that her face seemed to be looking out of a box. She thought that there was only one young, pretty, cultured woman in the town – herself. Only she knew how to dress inexpensively, elegantly and tastefully. Her dress, for example, had cost only twenty-two roubles, yet it was so charming! She was the only woman who could please the men in a town that was full of them and so they just could not help envying Layevsky, whether they liked it or not.

She was glad Layevsky had been cool and grudgingly polite towards her lately – at times he had been impertinent and even downright rude. Once she would have answered his outbursts and his contemptuous and cold, or strange and inscrutable, glances with reproaches, would have threatened to leave him or starve herself to death; but now she only replied with blushes, looked guilty, and rejoiced in the fact that he did not show any affection. It would have been even better and more pleasant if he had told her off or threatened her, since she felt entirely to blame. She thought she was the guilty one – firstly, for not showing any sympathy for his dreams of a life of toil, on account of which he had given up St Petersburg and come out here to the Caucasus. She was convinced that this was the true reason for his recent anger with her. When she was on her way to the Caucasus she thought that on the very first day she would find herself a quiet little place near the sea, with a cosy, shady little garden with birds and streams where she could plant flowers and vegetables, keep ducks and hens, entertain the neighbours, dole out medicine to the poor peasants and give them books. However, as it turned out, the Caucasus offered nothing but bare mountains, forests, enormous valleys – it was a place where one always had to be choosing, making a fuss, building. There just weren’t any neighbours around, it was terribly hot, and one could easily be burgled. Layevsky was in no hurry to acquire a building-plot. Of that she was glad and it seemed they had both tacitly agreed never to mention that ‘life of toil’ again. His silence on the subject meant he was angry with her for not saying anything about it, so she thought.

Secondly, without his knowledge, she had spent about three hundred roubles over these two years on various trifles at Achmianov’s shop. Buying cloth, silk, a parasol, little by little, she had run up a sizeable bill without even noticing it.

‘I’ll tell him today,’ she decided, but immediately realized that it was hardly the best time to talk to Layevsky about bills in his present frame of mind.

In the third place she had already entertained Kirilin, an inspector in the local police, twice in Layevsky’s absence – one morning when Layevsky had gone for a swim, and then at midnight, when he was playing cards. Nadezhda flushed as she recalled this and she looked at her cook as though she was frightened she might read her thoughts. These long, insufferably hot, tedious days; these beautiful, languorous evenings; these stifling nights; her whole life here, when from morning to night time hung heavily; the obsessive thought that she was the youngest and most beautiful woman in the town and that she was squandering her youth; and Layevsky himself, so honest, idealistic, but so set in his ways, perpetually shuffling about in his slippers, biting his nails and plaguing her with his moods – all these things gradually made her a victim of desire, so that, like a woman insane, she could think only of one thing, day and night. In her breathing, her glances, her tone of voice, the way she walked, she was ruled by desire. The roar of the waves told her how she must love, so did the darkness of evening, and the mountains too… And when Kirilin had begun courting her, she was neither able nor willing to resist, and she had given herself to him.

Now those foreign ships and men in white somehow put her in mind of a huge ballroom: the sounds of a waltz rang in her ears, mingling with French, and her breast trembled with inexplicable joy. She wanted to dance and to speak French.

Joyfully she thought that there was nothing so terrible in being unfaithful to him and her heart had played no part in that betrayal: she still loved Layevsky and this was plain from her jealousy of him, from feeling sorry for him and bored when he was out. As for Kirilin, he was just ordinary and a little on the coarse side, despite his good looks. She had already broken off with him and there would never be anything between them again. It was all over, finished, and it was no one’s business – if Layevsky chanced to find out he would never believe it.

There was only one bathing-house on the beach – for ladies; the men swam out in the open. As she entered the bathing-house, Nadezhda met Marya Konstantinova Bityugov, the middle-aged wife of a civil servant, together with her fifteen-year-old schoolgirl daughter Katya. Both of them were sitting on a bench undressing. Marya Konstantinova was a kindly, emotional, refined lady who spoke with a drawl and over-dramatically. Up to the age of thirty-two she had been a governess, then she married Bityugov, a short, bald, extremely docile man who combed his hair over his temples. She was still in love with him, jealous of other women, blushed every time the word ‘love’ was mentioned, and assured everyone she was very happy.

‘My dear!’ she said, enraptured at seeing Nadezhda and assuming that expression all her friends called ‘sugary’. ‘My dear, I’m so pleased you’ve come! We shall bathe together – how delightful!’

Olga quickly threw off her dress and blouse and began undressing her mistress.

‘Not quite so hot today, is it?’ Nadezhda said, shrinking at her naked cook’s rough hands. ‘Yesterday I nearly died from the heat!’

‘Oh yes, my dear! I almost suffocated. Can you believe it, I bathed three times yesterday, just imagine my dear, three times! Even my Nikodim was worried.’

‘Well, how can people be so ugly?’ Nadezhda thought as she looked at Olga and the civil servant’s wife. She glanced at Katya and thought, ‘Quite a good figure for a young girl!’

‘Your Nikodim is very, very nice!’ she said. ‘I’m just mad about him.’

Marya Konstantinova replied, forcing a laugh, ‘Ha, ha, ha! How delightful!’

Free of her clothes, Nadezhda had a sudden urge to fly and she felt that she had only to flap her arms to soar up into the sky. As she sat there undressed she saw Olga was looking at her white body rather disgustedly. The wife of a young soldier, Olga was living with her lawful husband and for this reason considered herself superior. Nadezhda also felt that Marya Konstantinova and Katya despised and feared her. This was unpleasant, so she tried to raise herself in their opinion and said, ‘At home in St Petersburg the holiday season is in full swing right now. My husband and I have so many friends! We should go and see them.’

‘Your husband’s an engineer, I believe?’ Marya Konstantinova asked timidly.

‘I’m talking about Layevsky. He knows a lot of people. Unfortunately his mother’s a terrible snob, and she’s a little soft in the head…’

Nadezhda did not finish and plunged into the water; Marya Konstantinova and Katya followed her in.

‘Society is so riddled with prejudices,’ Nadezhda said. ‘It’s harder to get on with people than you think.’

Marya Konstantinova, who had worked as a governess with aristocratic families and who knew about high society, said, ‘Oh, yes! Would you believe it, my dear, you had to dress for lunch and dinner at the Garatynskys’, no question, so they gave me a dress allowance, apart from my salary, just as if I were an actress.’

She stood between Nadezhda and Katya as though shielding her daughter from the water that was washing over Nadezhda. Through the open doorway which led out to the sea they could see someone swimming about a hundred yards from the bathing enclosure.

‘Mama, it’s Kostya!’ Katya said.

‘Oh, oh!’ Marya Konstantinova clucked in horror. ‘Kostya, come back!’ she shouted. ‘Kostya, come back!’

Kostya, a boy of fourteen, dived and swam further away to show off to his mother and sister, but he tired and hurried back. It was plain from his serious, tense expression that he did not trust his own strength.

‘Boys are so much trouble, my dear!’ Marya Konstantinova said, feeling relieved now. ‘It always seems that he’s about to break his neck. Oh, my dear, how lovely to be a mother – but at the same time, it’s a real worry! Everything scares you.’

Nadezhda put on her straw hat and struck out to sea. She swam ten yards or so and then floated on her back. She could see as far as the horizon, ships, people on the beach, the town, and all these sights, together with the heat and the translucent, caressing waves, excited her and whispered that she needed to live… live… A sailing-boat rushed swiftly past, vigorously cutting through the waves and air. The man at the rudder was looking at her and she felt how pleasant it was to be looked at.

After their bathe the ladies dressed and went off together. ‘I’m usually running a temperature every other day, but I don’t lose any weight, despite this,’ Nadezhda said, licking her lips that were salty after the bathe, and smiling at bowing acquaintances. ‘I’ve always been plump and now I seem to have put on even more weight.’

‘My dear, it all depends on one’s disposition. If you’re not inclined to put on weight, like myself for example, then it makes no difference how much food you eat. But my dear, your hat’s dripping wet.’

‘It doesn’t matter, it will soon dry.’

Nadezhda caught another glimpse of those French-speaking men in white strolling along the front. And once again, for some strange reason, she felt the joy rise up within her and she dimly remembered some great ballroom where she had once danced – or was it only a dream? And from deep down inside her came muffled, hollow whispers, telling her she was a petty-minded, vulgar, worthless, insignificant woman.

Marya Konstantinova stopped by her front gate and invited her to come in and sit down. ‘Please do come in, my dear,’ she said imploringly, and at the same time she looked anxiously at Nadezhda, half hoping she would refuse.

‘Delighted,’ Nadezhda agreed. ‘You know how I love visiting you.’ And she went into the house. Marya Konstantinova asked her to sit down, gave her coffee and rolls. Then she showed her photographs of her former charges – the Garatynsky girls, who were married now; and she showed her Katya and Kostya’s examination marks. They were very good, but to make them appear even better she sighed and complained how difficult schoolwork was these days. She looked after her guest, but at the same time felt sorry for her and was worried in case her presence might have a bad effect on Kostya and Katya’s morals. She was pleased Nikodim was out. Convinced that all men fell for her sort, she felt Nadezhda might have a bad influence on Nikodim Aleksandrych as well.

As she chatted with her guest, Marya could not forget that there was going to be a picnic later that afternoon and that von Koren had particularly requested her not to tell the ‘macaques’ about it – that is, Layevsky and Nadezhda. But she accidentally let it slip, blushed deeply and told her in an embarrassed voice, ‘I do hope you’ll join us!’

VI

The arrangements were to drive about five miles out of town along the southbound road, to stop near the inn at the junction of the Black and Yellow Rivers, where they would make some fish soup. Samoylenko and Layevsky led the way in a cabriolet, followed by Marya Konstantinova, Nadezhda, Katya and Kostya in a carriage drawn by three horses; in this carriage were the hamper and the crockery. In the next carriage sat Inspector Kirilin and young Achmianov – the son of the merchant whom Nadezhda owed three hundred roubles. Huddled up on a bench opposite them, legs crossed, was Nikodim Aleksandrych, a smart little man with his hair brushed over his temples. Last of all came von Koren, and the deacon, who had a basket of fish at his feet.

‘Keep to the r-r-ight!’ Samoylenko shouted at the top of his voice whenever they met a bullock cart or an Abkhazian on his donkey.

‘Two years from now,’ von Koren was telling the deacon, ‘when I have the funds and staff, I’ll be off on my expedition. I’m going up the coast from Vladivostok to the Bering Straits, then to the mouth of the Yenisey. We’re going to make a map, study the fauna and flora and carry out detailed geological, anthropological and ethnographic surveys. It’s up to you whether you come or not.’

‘That’s impossible,’ said the deacon.

‘Why?’

‘I’m a family man, I’m tied down.’

‘The deaconess will let you go. We’ll see she has nothing to worry about. Even better, you might try to persuade her, for the good of society, to become a nun. That would enable you to become a monk yourself and come on the expedition as a regular priest. I can fix it.’ The deacon remained silent. ‘Is your theology up to scratch?’

‘Pretty weak.’

‘Hm… can’t advise you there, because I don’t know much about it myself. Give me a list of the books you need and I’ll send them to you this winter from St Petersburg. You’ll also have to read the memoirs of missionaries. There you’ll find excellent ethnologists and experts in oriental languages. When you’re familiar with their approach you’ll find you can tackle the work more easily. Well, don’t waste your time while you’re waiting for books, come and see me and we’ll study the compass and do some meteorology. All that’s essential.’

‘Well now…’ muttered the deacon and he burst out laughing. ‘I’ve applied for a post in Middle Russia and my archpriest uncle promised to help. If I join you I’ll have troubled him for nothing.’

‘I don’t understand why you can’t make your mind up. If you go on as you are, just an ordinary deacon, your only duty conducting services on Sundays and high holidays, and taking it easy the rest of the time, in ten years you’ll be just the same – although you might have acquired whiskers and a beard. Whereas if you come on the expedition you’ll be a different man in ten years’ time, you’ll be rich in the knowledge that you’ve achieved something.’

Cries of horror and delight came from the ladies’ carriage. They were travelling along a road carved out of a sheer cliff and everyone felt they were racing along a shelf attached to a high wall and that at any moment they would all go hurtling over into the abyss. On the right stretched the sea, while on the left was a rugged brown wall covered in black patches, red veins and creeping roots, while up above bushy conifers seemed to be leaning down towards them and gazing in fear and curiosity. A minute later there was laughter and more shrieks – they had to pass under an enormous, overhanging rock.

‘I don’t know why the hell I’ve come with you,’ Layevsky said. ‘It’s so stupid and trivial! I should be on my way north, running away, escaping, but for some reason here I am on this ridiculous picnic.’

‘But look at that view!’ Samoylenko told him when the horses had turned to the left and the Yellow River valley opened out before them, with the glinting river itself flowing yellow, turbid, insane…

‘I can’t see anything nice about it,’ Layevsky answered. ‘Always going into raptures over nature is to betray poverty of imagination. Compared with what my imagination can offer me all those streams and cliffs are absolute rubbish, nothing else.’

The carriages were travelling along the river bank now. The lofty, precipitous banks gradually closed in, the valley narrowed, confronting them now in the form of a gorge. The great crag which they were passing had been constructed by nature from huge rocks that were exerting such pressure on each other that Samoylenko had to grunt every time he looked at it. Here and there that gloomy, magnificent mountain was intersected by narrow defiles and clefts, from which dampness and a sense of mystery came wafting towards the travellers. Through the defiles they caught sight of other mountains – brown, pink, lilac, smoky, or suffused with light. Every now and then, as they passed the defiles, they could hear water pouring down from above, splashing over the rocks.

‘Blasted mountains,’ Layevsky sighed; ‘they bore me stiff!’

At the point where the Black River flowed into the Yellow, where its ink-black waters stained the yellow as they did battle with them, stood Kerbalay the Tatar’s inn, just off the road. The Russian flag flew over it and the name Pleasant Inn was chalked on the signboard. Nearby was a small garden, enclosed by a wattle fence, with tables and benches, and from a miserable looking thorny bush rose a solitary cypress, beautiful and dark. Kerbalay, a small sprightly Tatar in dark blue shirt and white apron, was standing in the road. Clasping his stomach he bowed low to the approaching carriages and smiled to reveal his brilliant white teeth.

‘Hallo, my dear old Kerbalay!’ Samoylenko shouted. ‘We’re just going on a little bit further, so bring us a samovar and chairs. Look lively now!’

Kerbalay nodded his close-cropped head and muttered something which only the occupants of the last carriage could make out, ‘We’ve got trout today, General.’

‘Bring it then, bring it!’ von Koren told him.

About five hundred yards past the inn the carriages stopped. Samoylenko chose a small meadow strewn with rocks that made good seats. Here there was a tree felled in a storm, lying with bared, shaggy roots and dried-up yellow needles. A rickety plank bridge spanned the river and right opposite, on the far bank, was a little shed used as a drying-room for maize; with its four low piles it reminded one of the fairy-tale hut that stood on chicken’s legs. A short ladder led down from the door.

Their first impression was that they would never get out of the place. Wherever they looked, the mountains loomed on all sides and seemed to be bearing down on them; the evening shadows swiftly closed in from the direction of the inn and the dark cypress, making the narrow, sinuous Yellow River valley look even narrower and the mountains higher. The river gurgled and cicadas chirped incessantly.

‘Enchanting!’ Marya Konstantinova said with deep sighs of delight. ‘My dears, look how beautiful it is! So very quiet!’

‘Yes, it really is nice,’ agreed Layevsky, who liked this view. For some reason he felt suddenly sad when he gazed at the sky and then at the blue wisp of smoke curling out of the inn’s chimney. ‘Yes, very nice!’ he repeated.

‘Ivan Andreich, please describe the view for us!’ Marya Konstantinova said.

‘What for?’ Layevsky asked. ‘First-hand impressions are better than any description. The wealth of colour and sound that we all receive from nature through our senses is turned into an ugly, unrecognizable mishmash by writers.’

‘Is that so?’ von Koren asked coldly, selecting the largest rock near the water and trying to climb up it and sit down. ‘Is that so?’ he repeated and stared at Layevsky. ‘What about Romeo and Juliet? Or Pushkin’s Ukrainian Night?¹⁰ Nature should prostrate herself before them.’

‘That may be so,’ Layevsky agreed, too lazy to offer any considered reply. ‘However,’ he said a little later, ‘what exactly is Romeo and Juliet? Beautiful, poetic, divine love is only roses covering up the rottenness beneath. Romeo’s an animal, like anyone else.’

‘No matter what anyone tells you, you always turn it into…’

Von Koren glanced at Katya and did not finish.

‘And what do I turn it into?’ Layevsky asked.

‘Well, for instance, if someone says, “What a lovely bunch of grapes,” you reply, “Yes, but how ugly when they’ve been chewed and then digested into the stomach.” Why say things like that? It’s nothing very original and it’s really a strange way of expressing yourself.’

Layevsky knew that von Koren did not like him and therefore was scared of him. When von Koren was around, he thought, people felt very awkward, as if someone were standing guard behind their backs. Ignoring this last remark he walked away and regretted having come.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, quick march! Get some wood for the fire!’ Samoylenko commanded.

Everyone wandered off at random, leaving only Kirilin, Achmianov and Bityugov behind. Kerbalay brought some chairs, spread a carpet and stood several bottles of wine on the ground. Inspector Kirilin, a tall, distinguished-looking man who wore a raincoat over his tunic in all weathers, put one in mind of those young provincial police chiefs with his proud bearing, solemn walk and deep, rather hoarse voice. He had a sad, sleepy look, as if he had just been woken against his will.

‘What’s that you’ve brought, you scum?’ Kirilin asked Kerbalay, slowly enunciating every word. ‘I asked you to serve Kvarel, but what have you brought, you Tatar pig? Eh? What?’

‘We have plenty of our own wine, Inspector Kirilin,’ Bityugov observed timidly and politely.

‘So what? But I want you to have some of my wine as well. I’m on this picnic and I assume I’ve a perfect right to contribute my share. That’s what I ass-ume! Bring ten bottles of Kvarel.’

‘Why so many?’ Bityugov asked in surprise, knowing full well that Kirilin had no money.

‘Twenty bottles! Thirty!’ shouted Kirilin.

‘Don’t worry,’ Achmianov whispered to Bityugov, ‘I’ll pay.’

Nadezhda was in a gay, playful mood. She felt like skipping, laughing, shouting, teasing, flirting. In her cheap cotton dress with its pattern of blue dots, her little red shoes and that same straw hat, she felt as tiny, natural, light and ethereal as a butterfly. She ran across the rickety bridge and looked down at the water for a minute to make her head go round; then she cried out and ran laughing towards the shed, conscious that all the men – even Kerbalay – were feasting their eyes on her. In the swiftly approaching dusk, when the trees, mountains, horses and carriages had all merged together and a light gleamed in the windows of the inn, she climbed a mountain path that threaded its way up the hillside between boulders and prickly bushes, and sat on a rock. Down below, the bonfire was already burning. With sleeves rolled up, the deacon was walking about and his long black shadow moved in a radius around the fire. He was piling on wood and stirring the pot with a spoon tied to a long stick. Samoylenko, his handsome face coppery-red, was fussing around the fire as though at home in his own kitchen.

‘But where’s the salt, gentlemen?’ he shouted fiercely. ‘I bet you’ve forgotten it. And why are you all lounging about like country squires while I’m left to do all the work?’

Layevsky and Bityugov were sitting side by side on the uprooted tree, gazing pensively at the fire. Marya, Katya and Kostya were taking teacups, saucers and plates out of the baskets. Von Koren stood wondering at the water’s edge, his arms folded and with one foot on a rock. Red patches of light cast by the bonfire wandered with the shadows over the ground near dark human shapes, trembled on the mountains, trees, bridge and drying-room. The steep, hollowed-out far bank was lit up all over and its reflection flickered in the river, to be torn to shreds by the fast-flowing, turbulent water.

The deacon went to fetch the trout which Kerbalay was cleaning and washing on the bank, but he stopped half-way to look around. ‘Heavens, how beautiful!’ he thought. ‘Just people, rocks, a bonfire, twilight, a twisted tree – nothing more than that, but how beautiful!’

Near the drying-room on the far bank some strangers came into view. It was impossible to make them all out straight away in the flickering light and bonfire smoke drifting over the river, but one could make out some details – first a shaggy fur cap and a grey beard, then a dark blue shirt, rags hanging from shoulder to knee and a dagger across a stomach, then a swarthy young face with black eyebrows, thick and sharp as if drawn in charcoal. About five of these people were squatting in a circle, while another five or so went into the shed. One of them stood in the doorway, hands thrust behind him, with his back to the fire, and started telling what was undoubtedly a most interesting story because, after Samoylenko had put some more wood on the fire, making it flare up, scattering sparks and brightly illuminating the shed, two calm, deeply attentive faces could be seen looking through the doorway, while others in the circle had turned round to listen as well. Shortly afterwards the men in the circle struck up a slow-moving song, rather like those sung in church during Lent. As he listened the deacon pictured himself ten years from then, after he had returned from the expedition: he is a young monk and missionary, a celebrated writer with a glittering past; he is ordained Archimandrite, then Bishop. He celebrates Mass in the cathedral. With his golden mitre and image hanging round his neck, he steps up into the pulpit and proclaims as he makes the sign of the cross over the congregation with his three- and two-branched candelabrum, ‘Look down from heaven, oh Lord. Behold and visit this vineyard, which Thy right hand hath planted!’ And the children would respond, singing ‘Holy God’ in angelic voices.

‘Deacon, where’s that fish?’ he heard Samoylenko say.

Returning to the bonfire, the deacon imagined a religious procession moving along a dusty road on a hot day in July. Leading the way are men with banners and women and girls carry the icons. They are followed by choirboys and a lay reader with a bandaged cheek and straw in his hair. Then (in the correct order) follow the deacon, then the parish priest with calotte and cross, and after them a crowd of peasant men, women and boys raising clouds of dust. And there in the crowd are the priest’s wife and the deaconess in kerchiefs. Choirboys sing, children howl, quails call and a lark bursts into song. Now they stop to sprinkle the cattle with holy water. They move on and kneel to pray for rain. Then food, conversation…

‘All that would be very nice too,’ thought the deacon.

VII

Kirilin and Achmianov clambered up the mountain path. Achmianov lagged behind and stopped, while Kirilin went over to Nadezhda.

‘Good evening!’ he said, saluting.

‘Good evening.’

‘Oh, yes!’ Kirilin said, gazing pensively at the sky.

‘What does that mean?’ Nadezhda asked after a short silence, noticing that they were both being watched by Achmianov.

‘Well now, it means,’ the police officer said, articulating every syllable, ‘our love has withered without having time to blossom, in a manner of speaking. How else can I take it? Is this some special kind of flirtatiousness on your part or do you take me for some ruffian whom you can treat as you like?’

‘It was a mistake! Leave me!’ snapped Nadezhda looking at him in terror on that wonderful evening and asking herself in bewilderment if there actually had been a time when this man had attracted her and was close to her.

‘Well then!’ Kirilin said. He stood silently pondering for a moment, then he asked, ‘What now? Let’s wait until you’re in a better mood. In the meantime, may I make so bold as to assure you I’m a respectable man and I forbid anyone to doubt it. No one plays games with me! Adieu!’

He saluted and made off through the bushes. A little later Achmianov hesitantly approached. ‘A fine evening!’ he said with a slight Armenian accent.

He was quite good-looking, dressed smartly and had the easy-going manner of a well-bred young man. But Nadezhda did not like him, as she owed his father three hundred roubles. What was more, she did not like the fact that a shopkeeper had been invited to the picnic, and she did not like being approached by him on an evening just when she felt so pure at heart.

‘On the whole, the picnic’s been a success,’ he said after a pause.

‘Yes,’ she agreed, casually adding as though she had just remembered that debt, ‘yes, tell them in your shop that Ivan Andreich will call soon to pay the three hundred… I don’t remember exactly how much.’

‘I’d lend you another three hundred just to stop you reminding me of that debt every single day. Why do you have to be so prosaic?’

Nadezhda burst out laughing. The funny thought occurred to her, that if she were sufficiently immoral and were so inclined, she could have settled that debt in one minute. What if she were to turn that handsome young idiot’s head? How comical, absurd, how insane that would be! And suddenly she had the urge to make him fall in love with her, to take what she could, drop him and then sit back to see what happened.

‘Allow me to give you a piece of advice,’ Achmianov said timidly. ‘I beg you to steer clear of Kirilin. He’s been saying terrible things about you everywhere.’

‘I’m not interested in hearing what any fool has to say about me,’ Nadezhda said coldly and she became dreadfully worried; that amusing idea of having a game with young, handsome Achmianov suddenly lost its charm.

‘I must go down now,’ she said; ‘they’re calling.’

Down below the soup was ready. They poured it into the bowls and drank it with that air of ritual solemnity exclusive to picnics. They all found the soup delicious and declared they had never tasted anything so appetizing at home.

As usually happens on picnics, in all that jumble of napkins, packets, useless scraps of greasy paper floating around in the wind, no one knew where anyone else’s glass or bread was, they spilt wine on carpet and knees, they scattered salt all over the place. All round it was dark now and the bonfire was dying out. Everyone felt too lazy to get up and put more wood on; everyone drank wine and Kostya and Katya were allowed half a glass each. Nadezhda drank one glass after another, became drunk and forgot Kirilin.

‘A splendid picnic and an enchanting evening,’ Layevsky said, exhilarated by the wine, ‘but I prefer a good winter to all of this. “His beaver collar sparkles silver with frosty dust.” ’¹¹

‘Each to his taste,’ von Koren observed.

Layevsky felt awkward: his back was hot from the fire, while von Koren’s loathing was directed at his chest and face. This decent, clever man’s hatred of him, which most probably was founded on some sound, underlying reason, humiliated him and made him feel weak. Lacking the strength to combat it he said in a cringing voice, ‘I’m passionately fond of nature and I’m sorry I’m not a scientist. I envy you.’

‘Well, I don’t feel envious or sorry,’ Nadezhda said. ‘I don’t understand how anyone can seriously study small beetles and bugs when the common people are suffering.’

Layevsky shared this opinion. He knew nothing whatsoever about the natural sciences and therefore he could not stand that authoritarian tone of voice and show of erudition and profound wisdom affected by students of ants’ antennae and cockroaches’ legs. It always annoyed him to think that these people presumed to solve questions embracing the origin and life of man on the evidence of these antennae, legs and something called protoplasm – for some reason he always imagined this as an oyster. But he saw that what Nadezhda had said was false and retorted (merely for the sake of contradicting her), ‘It’s not the bugs that are important, but the deductions you make from them!’

VIII

It was late – past ten – when they climbed back into the carriages. Everyone was seated, with the exception of Nadezhda and Achmianov, who were chasing each other along the opposite bank and laughing.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, hurry up!’ Samoylenko shouted at them.

‘We shouldn’t have served wine to the ladies,’ von Koren said softly.

Exhausted by the picnic, by von Koren’s hatred of him and by his own thoughts, Layevsky went to meet Nadezhda. She was in high spirits, radiant and she felt as light as a feather; when she seized him by both hands and laid her head on his chest, breathlessly laughing out loud, he took a step backwards and said sternly, ‘You’re behaving like a… tart.’

This was so very nasty that he even felt sorry for her. On his tired, angry face she read hatred, pity, self-annoyance, and suddenly she lost heart. She realized she had gone too far, had behaved far too irresponsibly, and sadly she climbed into the first empty carriage with Achmianov, feeling ponderous, fat, coarse and drunk. Layevsky got in with Kirilin, the zoologist with Samoylenko, the deacon with the ladies and the convoy moved off.

‘That’s typical of macaques,’ von Koren began, wrapping himself in his cape and closing his eyes. ‘You heard her say it, how she wouldn’t want to study bugs and beetles, because the common people are suffering. That’s how all macaques judge people like me. They’re a servile, crafty breed, intimidated by ten generations of the knout and fist; they tremble, show feeling and cringe only when they’re forced to. But just let your macaque loose where he can be free, where there’s no one to grasp him by the scruff of the neck, and he will display himself and make his presence felt. Just look how brazenly he behaves at painting exhibitions, museums, theatres, or when he passes judgement, puffs himself up, gets on his hind legs, lashes out, criticizes… And he never fails to criticize – this shows how much of a slave he is! Just listen: professional people come in for more abuse than crooks and this is because three quarters of society consists of slaves, of these same macaques. You’ll never find one of these slaves holding his hand out and offering you his sincere thanks for working.’

‘I don’t know what you expect!’ Samoylenko said, yawning. ‘That poor woman, in her simplicity of mind, wanted to have a serious talk with you and here you are jumping to conclusions. You’re annoyed with him over something or other, so you have to drag her into it as well. But she’s a fine woman!’

‘Hey, that’s enough! She’s just an ordinary kept woman, dissolute and vulgar. Listen to me, Alexander, if you met a simple peasant woman who wasn’t living with her husband, who did no work and could only giggle all the time, then you would tell her to go and do some work. So why are you so timid, so frightened of speaking the truth? Just because Nadezhda’s living with a civil servant, not a sailor?’

‘So what should I do with her then?’ Samoylenko said angrily. ‘Beat her?’

‘Don’t flatter vice. We only condemn vice behind its back, but that’s the same as poking your tongue out when no one’s there. I’m a zoologist or sociologist, which comes to the same thing. You’re a doctor. Society trusts us and it’s our duty to point out the dreadful damage that the existence of women like Nadezhda Ivanovna might inflict on it and generations to come.’

‘Fyodorovna,’ corrected Samoylenko. ‘But what must society do?’

‘Do? That’s its own affair. In my opinion the most straightforward and the safest way is by force; she should be returned to her husband manu militari¹² and if he won’t take her back then she should be sentenced to hard labour or some house of correction.’

‘Ugh!’ Samoylenko sighed. He was silent for a moment, then he quietly asked, ‘Only a short time ago you were saying people like Layevsky should be exterminated… Tell me, if the state or society gave you the job, could you do it?’

‘I wouldn’t hesitate.’

IX

When they arrived home Layevsky and Nadezhda went into their dark, stuffy, dreary rooms. Neither said a word. Layevsky lit a candle while Nadezhda sat down and, without taking off her cloak or hat, looked at him with sad, guilty eyes.

He realized she was waiting for an explanation. But that would have been so boring and futile, so exhausting, and he felt depressed at having lost his temper and spoken rudely to her. He happened to touch the letter in his pocket that he had intended reading to her for days now and thought that by showing it to her this would help to distract her attention.

‘It’s high time things were sorted out,’ he thought. ‘I’ll give her the letter and what will be, will be.’

He took the letter out and gave it to her. ‘Read this. It concerns you.’

Then he went into his study and lay down in the dark on his couch without a cushion. Nadezhda read the letter and felt the ceiling had fallen down, that the walls had closed in on her. Suddenly everything seemed cramped, dark and frightening. Quickly she crossed herself three times and murmured, ‘May he rest in peace… May he rest in peace.’ And she burst into tears.

‘Ivan!’ she called. ‘Ivan!’

There was no reply. Thinking Layevsky had come into the room and was standing behind her chair she sobbed like a child and asked, ‘Why didn’t you tell me before that he’d died? I wouldn’t have gone on the picnic and I wouldn’t have laughed in that dreadful way… The men said such vulgar things to me… What a disgrace, what a disgrace! Save me, Ivan, save me… I’m out of my mind… I’m ruined!’

Layevsky heard her sobs. He felt he was nearly suffocating and his heart was pounding. In his despair he got up, stood in the middle of the room, groped for the armchair near the table and sat down.

‘This is a prison,’ he thought. ‘I must get away… I can’t go on like this.’

It was too late now for cards and there were no restaurants in the town. He lay down again, stuffed his fingers in his ears to shut out the sobs and suddenly he remembered that he could call on Samoylenko. To avoid Nadezhda, he climbed into the garden through a window, over a fence and went down the street.

It was dark. A ship had just docked – a large liner judging by her lights. The anchor-chain rattled away. A small red light swiftly moved from shore to ship – this was the Customs boat.

‘The passengers are snugly asleep in their cabins,’ Layevsky thought and envied others their rest.

The windows in Samoylenko’s house were open. Layevsky peered through one of them, then another. Inside it was dark and quiet.

‘Are you asleep, Alexander?’ he called. ‘Alexander!’

He heard some coughing and then a cry of alarm. ‘Who in the devil’s name is that?’

‘It’s me, Alexander. Please forgive me.’

A few moments later the door opened, a lamp cast its soft light and the massive figure of Samoylenko appeared, all in white and with a white nightcap.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, breathing heavily and scratching himself as he stood there half asleep. ‘Just a moment, I’ll open up.’

‘Don’t bother, I can get through the window.’

Layevsky climbed through a small window, went up to Samoylenko and gripped his arm.

‘Alexander,’ he said in a trembling voice, ‘save me! I beg you, I implore you! Try and understand! I’m in absolute agony. Another couple of days of this and I’ll hang myself like… like a dog!’

‘Wait a minute… What exactly are you on about?’

‘Light a candle.’

‘Oh, oh,’ Samoylenko sighed, lighting a candle. ‘Good heavens, it’s already past one, my dear chap.’

‘Forgive me, but I can’t stay at home,’ Layevsky said, greatly relieved at the candlelight and Samoylenko’s presence. ‘You, Alexander, are my best, my only friend. You are my only hope. Whether you want to or not, please save me, for God’s sake! I must escape from here at all costs. Lend me some money!’

‘Oh, good Lord, good Lord!’ Samoylenko sighed, scratching himself. ‘I was just falling asleep when I heard the ship’s siren… and now you… Do you need much?’

‘At least three hundred roubles. I must leave her a hundred and I need two hundred for the journey… I already owe you about four hundred, but I’ll send you everything in the post… everything…’

Samoylenko grasped both side-whiskers in one hand, stood with legs apart and pondered. ‘Well now,’ he murmured pensively. ‘Three hundred… All right. But I don’t have that much. I’ll have to borrow it from someone.’

‘Please borrow it then, for God’s sake!’ Layevsky said and he could tell from Samoylenko’s face that he wanted to lend him the money and that he would not let him down. ‘Borrow it, I’ll pay you back without fail. I’ll send it from St Petersburg the moment I arrive, don’t worry about that.’ Brightening up he added, ‘I’ll tell you what, Sasha, let’s have some wine.’

‘All right, let’s drink some wine.’

They both went into the dining-room.

‘But what about Nadezhda?’ Samoylenko asked, putting three bottles and a bowl of peaches on the table. ‘She’s not staying on, surely?’

‘I’ll arrange everything, everything,’ Layevsky said, with a sudden surge of joy in his heart. ‘Later on I’ll send her money and then she’ll come and join me. We’ll sort things out all right once we’re there. Your health, my friend.’

‘Wait a moment!’ Samoylenko said. ‘Try this first… it’s from my own vineyard. That one’s from Navaridze’s and this is an Akhatulov… Try them all and tell me quite frankly what you think… Mine’s a little sharp, eh? Do you think so?’

‘Yes. You’ve really cheered me up, Alexander. Thanks. I’m a new man.’

‘Rather sharp?’

‘Damn it, I don’t know. But you’re a wonderful, marvellous person.’

As he looked at his pale, excited, kind face Samoylenko remembered von Koren’s opinion, that such people should be exterminated, and Layevsky struck him as a weak, defenceless child whom anyone could harm or exterminate.

‘Be sure you make your peace with your mother when you go,’ he said. ‘This sort of thing’s not very nice.’

‘Yes, yes. Without fail.’

For a moment neither said a word. When the first bottle was finished Samoylenko said, ‘You ought to make it up with von Koren too. You’re always quarrelling.’

‘Yes, he’s a very fine, very clever man,’ Layevsky agreed, now ready to praise and forgive everyone. ‘He’s a remarkable man, but I find him impossible to get on with. No! Our temperaments are too far apart. I’m a sluggish, feeble, servile sort of person. I might offer to shake hands with him when the time’s right, but he’d turn away in contempt…’ Layevsky sipped his wine, paced up and down and then continued, from the middle of the room, ‘I understand von Koren perfectly. He’s the firm, strong type, a despot. You’ve heard him always going on about expeditions and these are no idle words. He needs a desert, a moonlit night. All around, sleeping in tents and under the open sky, are his hungry, sick Cossacks, guides, bearers, doctor, priest, worn out by killing treks. He’s alone, doesn’t sleep and he sits like Stanley¹³ on his camp-stool, feeling lord of the desert and master of these people. He’s always going somewhere and his men groan and die, one after the other, but on and on he goes, until he himself perishes in the end. None the less he’s still tyrant, still lord and master, since the cross over his grave can be seen by caravans thirty or forty miles off and it rules the desert. I’m only sorry this man isn’t in the army. He would have made an excellent, brilliant commander. He would have known how to drown his cavalry in a river and build bridges from the corpses, and such daring is more necessary in war than any fortifications or tactics. Oh, I understand him perfectly! But tell me why is he hanging about here? What’s he after?’

‘He’s studying marine animals.’

‘No, my friend. No, no!’ Layevsky sighed. ‘A scientist on board ship told me the Black Sea is poor in fauna and that the excess of sulphuretted hydrogen in its depths makes organic life impossible. All serious zoologists work at the marine biological stations in Naples or Villefranche. But von Koren is stubborn and independent. He’s working on the Black Sea because no one else is. He’s severed all links with the university, he won’t have anything to do with scientists or colleagues, as he’s first and foremost a tyrant, and then a zoologist. He’ll go far, you see. And now he’s dreaming that when he gets back from his expedition he’ll root out intrigues and mediocrity from our universities and make the professors crawl like worms. Despotism is just as powerful in the academic world as in war. But he’s spending a second summer in this stinking little dump, as it’s better to be boss in a village than underdog in town. Here he’s lord and master. He rules everyone here with a rod of iron, crushes them with his authority. He’s taken everyone in hand, pokes his nose into other people’s business, gets involved in everything and everyone is scared of him. He senses I’m slipping through his fingers and he hates me for it. Didn’t he tell you I should be exterminated and made to do community work?’

‘Yes,’ Samoylenko laughed.

Layevsky laughed too and drank some wine. ‘He’s even despotic in his ideals,’ he said, laughing and nibbling a peach. ‘Ordinary mortals working for the common good think of their fellow men – me, you, human beings in brief. But for von Koren people are amateurs and nonentities, too insignificant to serve any purpose in life. He does his work and he’ll go on his expedition where he’ll break his neck, not out of love for his fellow men, but in the name of some abstraction such as humanity, future generations, the ideal race. He’s striving to improve the human race and in this respect we’re nothing but slaves for him, just cannon fodder or beasts of burden. Some he would exterminate or pack off to labour camps, while others he would subject to strict discipline, making them get up and go to bed to the sound of the drum, like Arakcheyev.¹⁴ Or he’d bring in eunuchs to mount guard over our chastity and morals, he’d order anyone stepping outside the bounds of our narrow, conservative morality to be shot. And all this to improve the human race. But what is the human race? An illusion, a mirage… Despots have always been illusionists. I understand him perfectly, my dear chap. I appreciate him and don’t deny his importance: men like him provide a firm foundation for the world and if it were left to us alone we’d make as big a mess of it as those flies are making of that picture, for all our kindness and good intentions.’

Layevsky sat down by Samoylenko and said with genuine conviction, ‘I’m a superficial, insignificant wreck of a man! The air I breathe, this wine, love – all in all, I’ve paid for everything in my life up to now with lies, idleness and cowardice. Up to now I’ve been deceiving others and myself and have suffered as a result. And even my sufferings have been cheap and vulgar. I bow humbly before von Koren’s hatred, since I loathe and despise myself at times.’ Highly excited, Layevsky once again paced the room. ‘I’m glad I can see my own shortcomings so clearly and I admit them,’ he said. ‘That will help me to rise from the dead, become a new man. My dear fellow, if you only knew how passionately, with what yearning I long for this regeneration! I will be a real person, I promise you! I will be a man! I don’t know whether it’s the wine or if it’s really happening, but it seems ages since I knew such bright, pure moments as I’m experiencing right now with you.’

‘Time for bed, my dear chap,’ Samoylenko said.

‘Yes, yes… Forgive me. I’m going right now.’

Layevsky fussed around the furniture and windows in search of his cap.

‘Thank you,’ he muttered, sighing. ‘Thank you… Kindness and a friendly word are better than any charity. You’ve given me a new lease of life.’

He found his cap, stopped for a moment and gave Samoylenko a guilty look.

‘Alexander!’ he begged.

‘What?’

‘My dear friend, please let me stay the night.’

‘Be my guest… Why not?’

Layevsky lay down on the couch and went on talking to the doctor for a long time.

X

Three days after the picnic Marya Konstantinova unexpectedly called on Nadezhda. Without a word of greeting or taking her hat off she seized both her hands, pressed them to her breast and said in extreme agitation, ‘My dear, I’m so upset, absolutely stunned. Yesterday, it seems, our dear, charming doctor told my Nikodim that your husband has died. Tell me, my dear, is it true?’

‘Yes, it’s true. He’s dead,’ Nadezhda replied.

‘That’s terrible, just terrible, my dear! But every cloud has a silver lining. Your husband was probably a wonderful, extraordinary, saintly person, but men like him are needed more in heaven than in this world.’

Every little feature and spot on Marya Konstantinova’s face trembled, as though tiny needles were jumping about under her skin; she produced that sugary smile and said breathlessly, ecstatically, ‘So, my dear, you’re free! You can hold your head high now and not be afraid to look people in the face. From now on God, and everyone here, will bless your union with Layevsky. It’s so enchanting it makes me tremble for joy! I’m lost for words. I’ll see to the wedding arrangements, my dear. Nikodim and I have always been so fond of you, you must allow us to give our blessing to your lawful, unsullied union. When, when is the day?’

‘I haven’t given it any thought,’ Nadezhda said, freeing her hands.

‘But that’s not possible, my dear. You must have thought about it!’

‘Really, I haven’t!’ Nadezhda said laughing. ‘What’s the point of our marrying? I don’t see the need for it. We’ll carry on as before.’

‘What are you saying!’ Marya Konstantinova said, horrified. ‘For God’s sake, what are you saying?’

‘Marrying won’t improve anything. On the contrary, it would even make things worse. We would lose our freedom.’

‘My dear! My dear, what are you saying!’ Marya Konstantinova cried, stepping back and wringing her hands. ‘You’re quite outrageous! Come to your senses! Calm down!’

‘What do you mean, calm down? I haven’t lived yet and you tell me to calm down!’

Nadezhda recalled that she actually hadn’t had much of a life up to now. After boarding-school she married someone she did not love. Then she went away with Layevsky and stayed the whole time with him on this boring, deserted coast, hoping for better things. Was that any kind of life?

‘We ought to get married,’ she thought, but then she remembered Kirilin and Achmianov, and she blushed.

‘No, it’s impossible,’ she said. ‘Even if Ivan Andreich went down on his knees and begged me, I’d still refuse.’

Marya Konstantinova sat silently for a minute on the couch, sad and serious, and staring at one point. Then she stood up and said coldly, ‘Goodbye, my dear! Forgive me for disturbing you. Although it’s not easy for me to say this, I must tell you that from now on it’s all over between us and despite my deep regard for Ivan Andreich the doors of my house are closed to you.’

She pronounced this with great solemnity and seemed overcome by her own seriousness. Her face trembled again and assumed that mild, sugary expression. Holding out both her hands to a frightened, bewildered Nadezhda she pleaded, ‘My dear, please allow me to be your mother or elder sister – for one minute! I’ll speak to you frankly, just like a mother.’

Nadezhda felt such warmth, joy and self-pity deep down inside, it was as if her mother had in fact risen from the dead and was standing before her. Impulsively she embraced Marya Konstantinova and buried her face in her shoulder. Both burst into tears and sat sobbing on the couch for several minutes, without looking at each other, unable to speak one word.

‘My dear, my little child!’ Marya Konstantinova began. ‘I’m going to tell you a few home truths and I shan’t spare you!’

‘Please do, for goodness’ sake! Please do!’

‘Trust me, my dear. You will remember that I was the only lady here who invited you home. You horrified me from the very first day, but unlike the rest, I just couldn’t give you the cold shoulder. I suffered for that dear, kind Ivan Andreich as though he were my own son. He was a young man in a foreign country, inexperienced, weak, without his mother – and how I suffered! My husband was against making friends with him but I managed to win him over… We began inviting him home and of course that meant you as well, otherwise he would have taken offence. I have a daughter, a son… You understand. A child’s tender mind and pure heart – you know the passage, “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones”.¹⁵ When I had you home I trembled for my children. Oh, when you’re a mother you’ll understand my fears. Everyone was amazed that I received you – please forgive me – like a respectable person and they kept dropping hints. And of course there was gossip and speculation. In my heart of hearts I condemned you, but you were so unhappy, pathetic, so outrageous in your behaviour that I wept for pity!’

‘But why, why?’ Nadezhda asked, shaking all over. ‘What harm have I ever done anyone?’

‘You’ve committed a terrible sin. You’ve broken the vow you made to your husband at the altar. You’ve seduced a young man who, if he had never met you, might have taken a lawful wife from a good family, someone of his own class, and might have been leading a proper life now, like everyone else. You’ve ruined his youth. Don’t say anything, my dear, don’t say anything! I just can’t believe that men are to blame for our sins, the woman’s always the guilty party. When it comes to family life men are so thoughtless, they live by their minds and not their hearts, they understand very little, but a woman understands everything. Everything depends on her. Much has been given to women, but much will be required of them. Oh, my dear, if women were sillier or weaker than men in this respect, God would never have entrusted them with bringing up boys and girls. And then, my dear, you trod the path of vice and left all sense of shame behind you. In your position another woman would have hidden herself, locked the doors and stayed at home, and you would only have appeared in God’s temple, pale, all dressed in black, weeping. And everyone would have really been saddened and said “Oh Lord, this fallen angel returns to Thee…” But you cast all modesty aside, my dear, you lived quite brazenly, outrageously, as if you prided yourself on your sins. You behaved wantonly and laughed as I watched you. I shuddered in horror, afraid that heaven’s thunder might strike our house when you were there.

‘My dear, don’t speak, don’t speak!’ Marya Konstantinova shrieked, seeing that Nadezhda wanted to say something. ‘Trust me, I won’t deceive you, I won’t hide a single truth from your inner eye. Listen to me, my dear. God puts his mark on great sinners and this is what you bear. Remember, your dresses always were shocking!’

Nadezhda, who had always greatly admired her own dresses, stopped crying and looked at her in amazement.

‘Yes, shocking!’ Marya Konstantinova continued. ‘Anyone can tell what your behaviour’s like from the pretentious, gaudy dresses you wear. Whenever people looked at you they all had a good laugh to themselves, but I suffered terribly. And if you’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, you’re not very clean! You gave me a fright when we met in the bathing-house. Your top dress isn’t too bad, but what you wear underneath, your petticoat and slip… well my dear, it makes me blush! And poor Ivan Andreich’s no one to knot his tie properly for him and one look at his linen and boots shows no one looks after the poor man at home. And he never has enough to eat, my dear. In fact, if there’s no one at home to see to the tea and coffee you’ll have to spend half your salary in the Pavilion. And your house is awful, just awful! No one in the whole town has flies, but your place is swarming with them, all the saucers and plates are black with them. And as for the windowsills and tables, there’s dust, dead flies, glasses… Why keep glasses there? And you never clear the table, my dear. It makes one ashamed going into your bedroom, underwear just thrown anywhere, all those rubber things of yours hanging on the wall and that china object, whatever that may be, standing there… My dear! A husband should know nothing of these things and his wife should keep herself as pure as an angel for him. Every morning, as soon as it’s light, I wake up and wash my face with cold water so that my Nikodim won’t see me looking sleepy.’

‘But those are trivial little things,’ Nadezhda sobbed. ‘If only I were happy, but I’m so miserable!’

‘Yes, you’re dreadfully unhappy!’ Marya Konstantinova sighed, barely able to stop crying herself. ‘And great sorrow awaits you in the future. A lonely old age, illnesses, then you will have to answer at the Day of Judgement. It’s terrible, terrible! And now that fate is lending you a helping hand you stupidly turn your back on it. You must get married, there’s not a moment to lose!’

‘Yes, I should, I should,’ Nadezhda said, ‘but it’s impossible!’

‘But why?’

‘It’s impossible! Oh, if only you knew!’

Nadezhda wanted to tell her about Kirilin, about yesterday evening’s meeting with young, handsome Achmianov on the quayside, and about her crazy, ridiculous idea of getting rid of that debt of three hundred roubles, about how amusing it had all been, about how she had returned home very late that evening feeling irrevocably ruined – like a prostitute. She herself did not know how it had all come about. And now she wanted to make an oath, with Marya Konstantinova as witness, that she would settle the debt, without fail. But she could not speak for sobbing and shame.

‘I shall go away from here,’ she said, ‘Ivan can stay if he likes, but I’m going.’

‘But where?’

‘Back to central Russia.’

‘And what will you live on there? You haven’t a penny, surely?’

‘I’ll do some translating… or open a little lending library.’

‘Stop daydreaming, my dear. You need money to start a library. Well, I’ll leave you now, so please calm yourself, think it over and tomorrow you’ll come and see me, all nice and cheerful. That will be delightful! Well, goodbye, my little angel. Let me give you a kiss.’

Marya Konstantinova kissed Nadezhda on the forehead, made the sign of the cross over her and quietly left. It was already growing dark and Olga had lit the lamp in the kitchen. Nadezhda went into the bedroom and lay down on the bed. She began to run a high fever. She undressed as she lay there, crumpling her dress down to her feet, then she rolled herself into a ball under the blanket. She felt thirsty, but no one was there to bring her a drink. ‘I’ll settle that debt!’ she told herself and in her delirium she imagined she was sitting beside some sick woman whom she recognized as herself. ‘I’ll settle it! How stupid to think that just for some money I’d… I’ll leave and send him the money from St Petersburg. First a hundred roubles… then another hundred… then another…’

Late that night Layevsky returned.

‘A hundred to begin with, then another…’ Nadezhda told him.

‘You should take some quinine,’ he said and thought to himself, ‘It’s Wednesday tomorrow, that ship will sail and I won’t be on it. That means I’m stuck here till Saturday.’

Nadezhda knelt up in bed.

‘I didn’t say anything just now, did I?’ she asked, smiling and screwing up her eyes in the candlelight.

‘No. We’ll have to send for the doctor tomorrow morning. Get some sleep now.’

He took a pillow and went towards the door. Ever since he finally made up his mind to go away and abandon Nadezhda she began to arouse pity and guilt in him. He felt rather shamefaced when he was with her, as though she were an old or sick horse that was going to be put down. He stopped in the doorway and looked back at her. ‘I was feeling irritable at the picnic and I said something very rude to you. Please forgive me, for God’s sake.’

With these words he went to his study and lay down, but it was a long time before he fell asleep.

The next morning, Samoylenko, in full ceremonial uniform (today was an official holiday), parading his epaulettes and medals, took Nadezhda’s pulse and examined her tongue. As he came out of the bedroom, Layevsky, who was standing in the doorway, worriedly asked, ‘Well, is it all right? Is everything all right then?’ Fear, extreme anxiety and hope were written all over his face.

‘Relax, it’s nothing dangerous,’ Samoylenko said. ‘Just an ordinary fever.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Layevsky said, impatiently frowning. ‘Did you get the money?’

‘My dear chap, do forgive me,’ Samoylenko whispered, glancing back at the door in embarrassment. ‘Please forgive me, for heaven’s sake! No one has any spare cash and up to now I’ve managed to collect only five or ten roubles here and there – all in all, a hundred and ten. I’ll be speaking to some other people today. Please be patient.’

‘But Saturday’s the last day!’ Layevsky whispered, trembling with impatience. ‘In the name of all that’s holy, by Saturday! If I can’t get away on Saturday, then I won’t need anything… anything! I don’t understand how a doctor can be short of money!’

‘Good God, all right then. As you like,’ Samoylenko whispered so rapidly and impatiently his throat squeaked. ‘I’ve been stripped bare. I’m owed seven thousand and I’m up to my eyes in debt. Is that my fault?’

‘Do you mean you’ll have it by Saturday? Yes?’

‘I’ll try.’

‘I beg you, my dear chap! You must see I have the money by Friday morning.’

Samoylenko sat down and wrote out a prescription for quinine solution with kalium bromatum,¹⁶ rhubarb infusion, tincture of gentian and aqua foeniculi¹⁷ – all in the same mixture, with rose syrup to take the bitterness away – and then he left.