"I really don't know what I am to say!" she said, in hesitation,
dropping her eyes and smiling. "I don't like to refuse, and at the
same time. . . ."
"Do, please," I begged.
Nadyezhda Lvovna looked at me and laughed. I laughed too. She was
probably amused by what Grontovsky had so enjoyed--that is, the
right of giving or withholding permission; my visit suddenly struck
me as queer and strange.
"I don't like to break the long-established rules," said Madame
Kandurin. "Shooting has been forbidden on our estate for the last
six years. No!" she shook her head resolutely. "Excuse me, I must
refuse you. If I allow you I must allow others. I don't like
unfairness. Either let all or no one."
"I am sorry!" I sighed. "It's all the sadder because we have come
more than ten miles. I am not alone," I added, "Prince Sergey
Ivanitch is with me."
I uttered the prince's name with no _arrière pensée_, not prompted
by any special motive or aim; I simply blurted it out without
thinking, in the simplicity of my heart. Hearing the familiar name
Madame Kandurin started, and bent a prolonged gaze upon me. I noticed
her nose turn pale.
"That makes no difference . . ." she said, dropping her eyes.
As I talked to her I stood at the window that looked out on the
shrubbery. I could see the whole shrubbery with the avenues and the
ponds and the road by which I had come. At the end of the road,
beyond the gates, the back of our chaise made a dark patch. Near
the gate, with his back to the house, the prince was standing with
his legs apart, talking to the lanky Grontovsky.
Madame Kandurin had been standing all the time at the other window.
She looked from time to time towards the shrubbery, and from the
moment I mentioned the prince's name she did not turn away from the
window.
"Excuse me," she said, screwing up her eyes as she looked towards
the road and the gate, "but it would be unfair to allow you only
to shoot. . . . And, besides, what pleasure is there in shooting
birds? What's it for? Are they in your way?"
A solitary life, immured within four walls, with its indoor twilight
and heavy smell of decaying furniture, disposes people to sentimentality.
Madame Kandurin's idea did her credit, but I could not resist saying:
"If one takes that line one ought to go barefoot. Boots are made
out of the leather of slaughtered animals."
"One must distinguish between a necessity and a caprice," Madame
Kandurin answered in a toneless voice.
She had by now recognized the prince, and did not take her eyes off
his figure. It is hard to describe the delight and the suffering
with which her ugly face was radiant! Her eyes were smiling and
shining, her lips were quivering and laughing, while her face craned
closer to the panes. Keeping hold of a flower-pot with both hands,
with bated breath and with one foot slightly lifted, she reminded
me of a dog pointing and waiting with passionate impatience for
"Fetch it!"
I looked at her and at the prince who could not tell a lie once in
his life, and I felt angry and bitter against truth and falsehood,
which play such an elemental part in the personal happiness of men.
The prince started suddenly, took aim and fired. A hawk, flying
over him, fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow far away.
"He aimed too high!" I said. "And so, Nadyezhda Lvovna," I sighed,
moving away from the window, "you will not permit . . ."--Madame
Kandurin was silent.
"I have the honour to take my leave," I said, "and I beg you to
forgive my disturbing you. . ."
Madame Kandurin would have turned facing me, and had already moved
through a quarter of the angle, when she suddenly hid her face
behind the hangings, as though she felt tears in her eyes that she
wanted to conceal.
"Good-bye. . . . Forgive me . . ." she said softly.
I bowed to her back, and strode away across the bright yellow floors,
no longer keeping to the carpet. I was glad to get away from this
little domain of gilded boredom and sadness, and I hastened as
though anxious to shake off a heavy, fantastic dream with its
twilight, its enchanted princess, its lustres. . . .
At the front door a maidservant overtook me and thrust a note into
my hand: "Shooting is permitted on showing this. N. K.," I read.