Velchaninoff slept soundly until half-past nine, at which hour he started
up, sat down on the side of his bed, and began to think.
His thoughts quickly fixed themselves upon the death of “that woman.”
The agitating impression wrought upon his mind by yesterday’s news as to
her death had left a painful feeling of mental perturbation.
This morning the whole of the events of nine years back stood out before
his mind’s eye with extraordinary distinctness.
He had loved this woman, Natalia Vasilievna—Trusotsky’s wife,—he had loved
her, and had acted the part of her lover during the time which he had
spent in their provincial town (while engaged in business connected with a
legacy); he had lived there a whole year, though his business did not
require by any means so long a visit; in fact, the tie above mentioned had
detained him in the place.
He had been so completely under the influence of this passion, that
Natalia Vasilievna had held him in a species of slavery. He would have
obeyed the slightest whim or the wildest caprice of the woman, at that
time. He had never, before or since, experienced anything approaching to
the infatuation she had caused.
When the time came for departing, Velchaninoff had been in a state of such
absolute despair, though the parting was to have been but a short one,
that he had begged Natalia Vasilievna to leave all and fly across the
frontier with him; and it was only by laughing him out of the idea (though
she had at first encouraged it herself, probably for a joke), and by
unmercifully chaffing him, that the lady eventually persuaded Velchaninoff
to depart alone.
However, he had not been a couple of months in St. Petersburg before he
found himself asking himself that question which he had never to this day
been able to answer satisfactorily, namely, “_Did_ he love this woman at
all, or was it nothing but the infatuation of the moment?” He did not ask
this question because he was conscious of any new passion taking root in
his heart; on the contrary, during those first two months in town he had
been in that condition of mind that he had not so much as looked at a
woman, though he had met hundreds, and had returned to his old society
ways at once. And yet he knew perfectly well that if he were to return to
T—— he would instantly fall into the meshes of his passion for Natalia
Vasilievna once more, in spite of the question which he could not answer
as to the reality of his love for her.
Five years later he was as convinced of this fact as ever, although the
very thought of it was detestable to him, and although he did not remember
the name of Natalia Vasilievna but with loathing.
He was ashamed of that episode at T——. He could not understand how he
(Velchaninoff) could ever have allowed himself to become the victim of
such a stupid passion. He blushed whenever he thought of the shameful
business—blushed, and even wept for shame.
He managed to forget his remorse after a few more years—he felt sure that
he had “lived it down;” and yet now, after nine years, here was the whole
thing resuscitated by the news of Natalia’s death.
At all events, however, now, as he sat on his bed with agitating thoughts
swarming through his brain, he could not but feel that the fact of her
being dead was a consolation, amidst all the painful reflections which the
mention of her name had called up.
“Surely I am a little sorry for her?” he asked himself.
Well, he certainly did not feel that sensation of hatred for her now; he
could think of her and judge her now without passion of any kind, and
therefore more justly.
He had long since been of opinion that in all probability there had been
nothing more in Natalia Vasilievna than is to be found in every lady of
good provincial society, and that he himself had created the whole
“fantasy” of his worship and her worshipfulness; but though he had formed
this opinion, he always doubted its correctness, and he still felt that
doubt now. Facts existed to contradict the theory. For instance, this
Bagantoff had lived for several years at T——, and had been no less a
victim to passion for this woman, and had been as helpless as Velchaninoff
himself under her witchery. Bagantoff, though a young idiot (as
Velchaninoff expressed it), was nevertheless a scion of the very highest
society in St. Petersburg. His career was in St. Petersburg, and it was
significant that such a man should have wasted five important years of his
life at T—— simply out of love for this woman. It was said that he had
only returned to Petersburg even then because the lady had had enough of
him; so that, all things considered, there must have been something which
rendered Natalia Vasilievna preeminently attractive among women.
Yet the woman was not rich; she was not even pretty (if not absolutely
_plain_!) Velchaninoff had known her when she was twenty-eight years old.
Her face was capable of taking a pleasing expression, but her eyes were
not good—they were too hard. She was a thin, bony woman to look at. Her
mind was intelligent, but narrow and one-sided. She had tact and taste,
especially as to dress. Her character was firm and overbearing. She was
never wrong (in her own opinion) or unjust. The unfaithfulness towards her
husband never caused her the slightest remorse; she hated corruption, and
yet she was herself corrupt; and she believed in herself absolutely.
Nothing could ever have persuaded her that she herself was actually
depraved; Velchaninoff believed that she really did not know that her own
corruption was corrupt. He considered her to be “one of those women who
only exist to be unfaithful wives.” Such women never remain unmarried,—it
is the law of their nature to marry,—their husband is their first lover,
and he is always to blame for anything that may happen afterwards; the
unfaithful wife herself being invariably _absolutely_ in the right, and of
course perfectly innocent.
So thought Velchaninoff; and he was convinced that such a type of woman
actually existed; but he was no less convinced that there also existed a
corresponding type of men, born to be the husbands of such women. In his
opinion the mission of such men was to be, so to speak, “permanent
husbands,”—that is, to be husbands all their lives, and nothing else.
Velchaninoff had not the smallest doubt as to the existence of these two
types, and Pavel Pavlovitch Trusotsky was, in his opinion, an excellent
representative of the male type. Of course, the Pavel Pavlovitch of last
night was by no means the same Pavel Pavlovitch as he had known at T——. He
had found an extraordinary change in the man; and yet, on reflection, he
was bound to admit that the change was but natural, for that he could only
have remained what he was so long as his wife lived; and that now he was
but a part of a whole, allowed to wander at will—that is, an imperfect
being, a surprising, an incomprehensible sort of a _thing_, without proper
balance.
As for the Pavel Pavlovitch of T——, this is what Velchaninoff remembered
of him:
Pavel Pavlovitch had been a husband, of course,—a formality,—and that was
all. If, for instance, he was a clerk of department besides, he was so
merely in his capacity of, and as a part of his responsibility as—a
husband. He worked for his wife, and for her social position. He had been
thirty-five years old at that time, and was possessed of some considerable
property. He had not shown any special talent, nor, on the other hand, any
marked incapacity in his professional employment; his position had been
decidedly a good one.
Natalia Vasilievna had been respected and looked up to by all; not that
she valued their respect in the least,—she considered it merely as her
due. She was a good hostess, and had schooled Pavel Pavlovitch into polite
manners, so that he was able to receive and entertain the very best
society passably well.
He might be a clever man, for all Velchaninoff knew, but as Natalia
Vasilievna did not like her husband to talk much, there was little
opportunity of judging. He may have had many good qualities, as well as
bad; but the good ones were, so to speak, kept put away in their cases,
and the bad ones were stifled and not allowed to appear. Velchaninoff
remembered, for instance, that Pavel Pavlovitch had once or twice shown a
disposition to laugh at those about him, but this unworthy proclivity had
been very promptly subdued. He had been fond of telling stories, but this
was not allowed either; or, if permitted at all, the anecdote was to be of
the shortest and most uninteresting description.
Pavel Pavlovitch had a circle of private friends outside the house, with
whom he was fain, at times, to taste the flowing bowl; but this vicious
tendency was radically stamped out as soon as possible.
And yet, with all this, Natalia Vasilievna appeared, to the uninitiated,
to be the most obedient of wives, and doubtless considered herself so.
Pavel Pavlovitch may have been desperately in love with her,—no one could
say as to this.
Velchaninoff had frequently asked himself during his life at T——, whether
Pavel Pavlovitch ever suspected his wife of having formed the tie with
himself, of which mention has been made. Velchaninoff had several times
questioned Natalia Vasilievna on this point, seriously enough; but had
invariably been told, with some show of annoyance, that her husband
neither did know, nor ever could know; and that “all there might be to
know was not his business!”
Another trait in her character was that she never laughed at Pavel
Pavlovitch, and never found him funny in any sense; and that she would
have been down on any person who dared to be rude to him, at once!
Pavel Pavlovitch’s reference to the pleasant little readings enjoyed by
the trio nine years ago was accurate; they used to read Dickens’ novels
together. Velchaninoff or Trusotsky reading aloud, while Natalia
Vasilievna worked. The life at T—— had ended suddenly, and so far as
Velchaninoff was concerned, in a way which drove him almost to the verge
of madness. The fact is, he was simply turned out—although it was all
managed in such a way that he never observed that he was being thrown over
like an old worn-out shoe.
A young artillery officer had appeared in the town a month or so before
Velchaninoff’s departure and had made acquaintance with the Trusotsky’s.
The trio became a quartet. Before long Velchaninoff was informed that for
many reasons a separation was absolutely necessary; Natalia Vasilievna
adduced a hundred excellent reasons why this had become unavoidable—and
especially one which quite settled the matter. After his stormy attempt to
persuade Natalia Vasilievna to fly with him to Paris—or
anywhere,—Velchaninoff had ended by going to St. Petersburg alone—for two
or three months at the _very most_, as he said,—otherwise he would refuse
to go at all, in spite of every reason and argument Natalia might adduce.
Exactly two months later Velchaninoff had received a letter from Natalia
Vasilievna, begging him to come no more to T——, because that she already
loved another. As to the principal reason which she had brought forward in
favour of his immediate departure, she now informed him that she had made
a mistake. Velchaninoff remembered the young artilleryman, and
understood,—and so the matter had ended, once and for all. A year or two
after this Bagantoff appeared at T——, and an intimacy between Natalia
Vasilievna and the former had sprung up which lasted for five years. This
long period of constancy, Velchaninoff attributed to advancing age on the
part of Natalia. He sat on the side of his bed for nearly an hour and
thought. At last he roused himself, rang for Mavra and his coffee, drank
it off quickly—dressed—and punctually at eleven was on his way to the
Pokrofsky Hotel: he felt rather ashamed of his behaviour to Pavel
Pavlovitch last night. Velchaninoff put down all that phantasmagoria of
the trying of the lock and so on to Pavel Pavlovitch’s drunken condition
and to other reasons,—but he did not know why he was now on his way to
make fresh relations with the husband of that woman, since their
acquaintanceship and intercourse had come to so natural and simple a
termination; yet something seemed to draw him thither—some strong current
of impulse,—and he went.