"What you say is not true," she went on, after a moment's thought.
"You only come here on account of Dmitri Petrovitch. Well, I am
very glad. One does not often see such friendships nowadays."
"Aha!" I thought, and, not knowing what to say, I asked: "Would you
care for a turn in the garden?"
I went out upon the verandah. Nervous shudders were running over
my head and I felt chilly with excitement. I was convinced now that
our conversation would be utterly trivial, and that there was nothing
particular we should be able to say to one another, but that, that
night, what I did not dare to dream of was bound to happen--that
it was bound to be that night or never.
"What lovely weather!" I said aloud.
"It makes absolutely no difference to me," she answered.
I went into the drawing-room. Marya Sergeyevna was standing, as
before, near the fireplace, with her hands behind her back, looking
away and thinking of something.
"Why does it make no difference to you?" I asked.
"Because I am bored. You are only bored without your friend, but I
am always bored. However . . . that is of no interest to you."
I sat down to the piano and struck a few chords, waiting to hear
what she would say.
"Please don't stand on ceremony," she said, looking angrily at me,
and she seemed as though on the point of crying with vexation. "If
you are sleepy, go to bed. Because you are Dmitri Petrovitch's
friend, you are not in duty bound to be bored with his wife's
company. I don't want a sacrifice. Please go."
I did not, of course, go to bed. She went out on the verandah while
I remained in the drawing-room and spent five minutes turning over
the music. Then I went out, too. We stood close together in the
shadow of the curtains, and below us were the steps bathed in
moonlight. The black shadows of the trees stretched across the
flower beds and the yellow sand of the paths.
"I shall have to go away tomorrow, too," I said.
"Of course, if my husband's not at home you can't stay here," she
said sarcastically. "I can imagine how miserable you would be if
you were in love with me! Wait a bit: one day I shall throw myself
on your neck. . . . I shall see with what horror you will run away
from me. That would be interesting."
Her words and her pale face were angry, but her eyes were full of
tender passionate love. I already looked upon this lovely creature
as my property, and then for the first time I noticed that she had
golden eyebrows, exquisite eyebrows. I had never seen such eyebrows
before. The thought that I might at once press her to my heart,
caress her, touch her wonderful hair, seemed to me such a miracle
that I laughed and shut my eyes.
"It's bed-time now. . . . A peaceful night," she said.
"I don't want a peaceful night," I said, laughing, following her
into the drawing-room. "I shall curse this night if it is a peaceful
one."
Pressing her hand, and escorting her to the door, I saw by her face
that she understood me, and was glad that I understood her, too.
I went to my room. Near the books on the table lay Dmitri Petrovitch's
cap, and that reminded me of his affection for me. I took my stick
and went out into the garden. The mist had risen here, too, and the
same tall, narrow, ghostly shapes which I had seen earlier on the
river were trailing round the trees and bushes and wrapping about
them. What a pity I could not talk to them!
In the extraordinarily transparent air, each leaf, each drop of dew
stood out distinctly; it was all smiling at me in the stillness
half asleep, and as I passed the green seats I recalled the words
in some play of Shakespeare's: "How sweetly falls the moonlight on
yon seat!"
There was a mound in the garden; I went up it and sat down. I was
tormented by a delicious feeling. I knew for certain that in a
moment I should hold in my arms, should press to my heart her
magnificent body, should kiss her golden eyebrows; and I wanted to
disbelieve it, to tantalize myself, and was sorry that she had cost
me so little trouble and had yielded so soon.
But suddenly I heard heavy footsteps. A man of medium height appeared
in the avenue, and I recognized him at once as Forty Martyrs. He
sat down on the bench and heaved a deep sigh, then crossed himself
three times and lay down. A minute later he got up and lay on the
other side. The gnats and the dampness of the night prevented his
sleeping.
"Oh, life!" he said. "Wretched, bitter life!"
Looking at his bent, wasted body and hearing his heavy, noisy sighs,
I thought of an unhappy, bitter life of which the confession had
been made to me that day, and I felt uneasy and frightened at my
blissful mood. I came down the knoll and went to the house.
"Life, as he thinks, is terrible," I thought, "so don't stand on
ceremony with it, bend it to your will, and until it crushes you,
snatch all you can wring from it."
Marya Sergeyevna was standing on the verandah. I put my arms round
her without a word, and began greedily kissing her eyebrows, her
temples, her neck. . . .
In my room she told me she had loved me for a long time, more than
a year. She vowed eternal love, cried and begged me to take her
away with me. I repeatedly took her to the window to look at her
face in the moonlight, and she seemed to me a lovely dream, and I
made haste to hold her tight to convince myself of the truth of it.
It was long since I had known such raptures. . . . Yet somewhere
far away at the bottom of my heart I felt an awkwardness, and I was
ill at ease. In her love for me there was something incongruous and
burdensome, just as in Dmitri Petrovitch's friendship. It was a
great, serious passion with tears and vows, and I wanted nothing
serious in it--no tears, no vows, no talk of the future. Let that
moonlight night flash through our lives like a meteor and--_basta!_
At three o'clock she went out of my room, and, while I was standing
in the doorway, looking after her, at the end of the corridor Dmitri
Petrovitch suddenly made his appearance; she started and stood aside
to let him pass, and her whole figure was expressive of repulsion.
He gave a strange smile, coughed, and came into my room.
"I forgot my cap here yesterday," he said without looking at me.
He found it and, holding it in both hands, put it on his head; then
he looked at my confused face, at my slippers, and said in a strange,
husky voice unlike his own:
"I suppose it must be my fate that I should understand nothing. . . .
If you understand anything, I congratulate you. It's all darkness
before my eyes."
And he went out, clearing his throat. Afterwards from the window I
saw him by the stable, harnessing the horses with his own hands.
His hands were trembling, he was in nervous haste and kept looking
round at the house; probably he was feeling terror. Then he got
into the gig, and, with a strange expression as though afraid of
being pursued, lashed the horses.
Shortly afterwards I set off, too. The sun was already rising, and
the mist of the previous day clung timidly to the bushes and the
hillocks. On the box of the carriage was sitting Forty Martyrs; he
had already succeeded in getting drunk and was muttering tipsy
nonsense.
"I am a free man," he shouted to the horses. "Ah, my honeys, I am
a nobleman in my own right, if you care to know!"
The terror of Dmitri Petrovitch, the thought of whom I could not
get out of my head, infected me. I thought of what had happened and
could make nothing of it. I looked at the rooks, and it seemed so
strange and terrible that they were flying.
"Why have I done this?" I kept asking myself in bewilderment and
despair. "Why has it turned out like this and not differently? To
whom and for what was it necessary that she should love me in
earnest, and that he should come into my room to fetch his cap?
What had a cap to do with it?"
I set off for Petersburg that day, and I have not seen Dmitri
Petrovitch nor his wife since. I am told that they are still living
together.