GROHOLSKY embraced Liza, kept kissing one after another all her
little fingers with their bitten pink nails, and laid her on the
couch covered with cheap velvet. Liza crossed one foot over the
other, clasped her hands behind her head, and lay down.
Groholsky sat down in a chair beside her and bent over. He was
entirely absorbed in contemplation of her.
How pretty she seemed to him, lighted up by the rays of the setting
sun!
There was a complete view from the window of the setting sun, golden,
lightly flecked with purple.
The whole drawing-room, including Liza, was bathed by it with
brilliant light that did not hurt the eyes, and for a little while
covered with gold.
Groholsky was lost in admiration. Liza was so incredibly beautiful.
It is true her little kittenish face with its brown eyes, and turn
up nose was fresh, and even piquant, his scanty hair was black as
soot and curly, her little figure was graceful, well proportioned
and mobile as the body of an electric eel, but on the whole. . . .
However my taste has nothing to do with it. Groholsky who was spoilt
by women, and who had been in love and out of love hundreds of times
in his life, saw her as a beauty. He loved her, and blind love finds
ideal beauty everywhere.
"I say," he said, looking straight into her eyes, "I have come to
talk to you, my precious. Love cannot bear anything vague or
indefinite. . . . Indefinite relations, you know, I told you
yesterday, Liza . . . we will try to-day to settle the question we
raised yesterday. Come, let us decide together. . . ."
"What are we to do?"
Liza gave a yawn and scowling, drew her right arm from under her
head.
"What are we to do?" she repeated hardly audibly after Groholsky.
"Well, yes, what are we to do? Come, decide, wise little head . . .
I love you, and a man in love is not fond of sharing. He is more
than an egoist. It is too much for me to go shares with your husband.
I mentally tear him to pieces, when I remember that he loves you
too. In the second place you love me. . . . Perfect freedom is an
essential condition for love. . . . And are you free? Are you not
tortured by the thought that that man towers for ever over your
soul? A man whom you do not love, whom very likely and quite
naturally, you hate. . . . That's the second thing. . . . And
thirdly. . . . What is the third thing? Oh yes. . . . We are deceiving
him and that . . . is dishonourable. Truth before everything, Liza.
Let us have done with lying!"
"Well, then, what are we to do?"
"You can guess. . . . I think it necessary, obligatory, to inform
him of our relations and to leave him, to begin to live in freedom.
Both must be done as quickly as possible. . . . This very evening,
for instance. . . . It's time to make an end of it. Surely you must
be sick of loving like a thief?"
"Tell! tell Vanya?"
"Why, yes!"
"That's impossible! I told you yesterday, Michel, that it is
impossible."
"Why?"
"He will be upset. He'll make a row, do all sorts of unpleasant
things. . . . Don't you know what he is like? God forbid! There's
no need to tell him. What an idea!"
Groholsky passed his hand over his brow, and heaved a sigh.
"Yes," he said, "he will be more than upset. I am robbing him of
his happiness. Does he love you?"
"He does love me. Very much."
"There's another complication! One does not know where to begin.
To conceal it from him is base, telling him would kill him. . . .
Goodness knows what's one to do. Well, how is it to be?"
Groholsky pondered. His pale face wore a frown.
"Let us go on always as we are now," said Liza. "Let him find out
for himself, if he wants to."
"But you know that . . . is sinful, and besides the fact is you are
mine, and no one has the right to think that you do not belong to
me but to someone else! You are mine! I will not give way to anyone!
. . . I am sorry for him--God knows how sorry I am for him, Liza!
It hurts me to see him! But . . . it can't be helped after all. You
don't love him, do you? What's the good of your going on being
miserable with him? We must have it out! We will have it out with
him, and you will come to me. You are my wife, and not his. Let him
do what he likes. He'll get over his troubles somehow. . . . He is
not the first, and he won't be the last. . . . Will you run away?
Eh? Make haste and tell me! Will you run away?"
Liza got up and looked inquiringly at Groholsky.
"Run away?"
"Yes. . . . To my estate. . . . Then to the Crimea. . . . We will
tell him by letter. . . . We can go at night. There is a train at
half past one. Well? Is that all right?"
Liza scratched the bridge of her nose, and hesitated.
"Very well," she said, and burst into tears.
Patches of red came out of her cheeks, her eyes swelled, and tears
flowed down her kittenish face. . . .
"What is it?" cried Groholsky in a flutter. "Liza! what's the matter?
Come! what are you crying for? What a girl! Come, what is it?
Darling! Little woman!"
Liza held out her hands to Groholsky, and hung on his neck. There
was a sound of sobbing.
"I am sorry for him . . ." muttered Liza. "Oh, I am so sorry for
him!"
"Sorry for whom?"
"Va--Vanya. . . ."
"And do you suppose I'm not? But what's to be done? We are causing
him suffering. . . . He will be unhappy, will curse us . . . but
is it our fault that we love one another?"
As he uttered the last word, Groholsky darted away from Liza as
though he had been stung and sat down in an easy chair. Liza sprang
away from his neck and rapidly--in one instant--dropped on the
lounge.
They both turned fearfully red, dropped their eyes, and coughed.
A tall, broad-shouldered man of thirty, in the uniform of a government
clerk, had walked into the drawing-room. He had walked in unnoticed.
Only the bang of a chair which he knocked in the doorway had warned
the lovers of his presence, and made them look round. It was the
husband.
They had looked round too late.
He had seen Groholsky's arm round Liza's waist, and had seen Liza
hanging on Groholsky's white and aristocratic neck.
"He saw us!" Liza and Groholsky thought at the same moment, while
they did not know what to do with their heavy hands and embarrassed
eyes. . . .
The petrified husband, rosy-faced, turned white.
An agonising, strange, soul-revolting silence lasted for three
minutes. Oh, those three minutes! Groholsky remembers them to this
day.
The first to move and break the silence was the husband. He stepped
up to Groholsky and, screwing his face into a senseless grimace
like a smile, gave him his hand. Groholsky shook the soft perspiring
hand and shuddered all over as though he had crushed a cold frog
in his fist.
"Good evening," he muttered.
"How are you?" the husband brought out in a faint husky, almost
inaudible voice, and he sat down opposite Groholsky, straightening
his collar at the back of his neck.
Again, an agonising silence followed . . . but that silence was no
longer so stupid. . . . The first step, most difficult and colourless,
was over.
All that was left now was for one of the two to depart in search
of matches or on some such trifling errand. Both longed intensely
to get away. They sat still, not looking at one another, and pulled
at their beards while they ransacked their troubled brains for some
means of escape from their horribly awkward position. Both were
perspiring. Both were unbearably miserable and both were devoured
by hatred. They longed to begin the tussle but how were they to
begin and which was to begin first? If only she would have gone
out!
"I saw you yesterday at the Assembly Hall," muttered Bugrov (that
was the husband's name).
"Yes, I was there . . . the ball . . . did you dance?"
"M'm . . . yes . . . with that . . . with the younger Lyukovtsky
. . . . She dances heavily. . . . She dances impossibly. She is a
great chatterbox." (Pause.) "She is never tired of talking."
"Yes. . . . It was slow. I saw you too. . ."
Groholsky accidentally glanced at Bugrov. . . . He caught the
shifting eyes of the deceived husband and could not bear it. He got
up quickly, quickly seized Bugrov's hand, shook it, picked up his
hat, and walked towards the door, conscious of his own back. He
felt as though thousands of eyes were looking at his back. It is a
feeling known to the actor who has been hissed and is making his
exit from the stage, and to the young dandy who has received a blow
on the back of the head and is being led away in charge of a
policeman.
As soon as the sound of Groholsky's steps had died away and the
door in the hall creaked, Bugrov leapt up, and after making two or
three rounds of the drawing-room, strolled up to his wife. The
kittenish face puckered up and began blinking its eyes as though
expecting a slap. Her husband went up to her, and with a pale,
distorted face, with arms, head, and shoulders shaking, stepped on
her dress and knocked her knees with his.
"If, you wretched creature," he began in a hollow, wailing voice,
"you let him come here once again, I'll. . . . Don't let him dare
to set his foot. . . . I'll kill you. Do you understand? A-a-ah
. . . worthless creature, you shudder! Fil-thy woman!"
Bugrov seized her by the elbow, shook her, and flung her like an
indiarubber ball towards the window. . . .
"Wretched, vulgar woman! you have no shame!"
She flew towards the window, hardly touching the floor with her
feet, and caught at the curtains with her hands.
"Hold your tongue," shouted her husband, going up to her with
flashing eyes and stamping his foot.
She did hold her tongue, she looked at the ceiling, and whimpered
while her face wore the expression of a little girl in disgrace
expecting to be punished.
"So that's what you are like! Eh? Carrying on with a fop! Good! And
your promise before the altar? What are you? A nice wife and mother.
Hold your tongue!"
And he struck her on her pretty supple shoulder. "Hold your tongue,
you wretched creature. I'll give you worse than that! If that
scoundrel dares to show himself here ever again, if I see
you--listen!--with that blackguard ever again, don't ask for mercy!
I'll kill you, if I go to Siberia for it! And him too. I shouldn't
think twice about it! You can go, I don't want to see you!"
Bugrov wiped his eyes and his brow with his sleeve and strode about
the drawing-room, Liza sobbing more and more loudly, twitching her
shoulders and her little turned up nose, became absorbed in examining
the lace on the curtain.
"You are crazy," her husband shouted. "Your silly head is full of
nonsense! Nothing but whims! I won't allow it, Elizaveta, my girl!
You had better be careful with me! I don't like it! If you want to
behave like a pig, then . . . then out you go, there is no place
in my house for you! Out you pack if. . . . You are a wife, so you
must forget these dandies, put them out of your silly head! It's
all foolishness! Don't let it happen again! You try defending
yourself! Love your husband! You have been given to your husband,
so you must love him. Yes, indeed! Is one not enough? Go away till
. . . . Torturers!"
Bugrov paused; then shouted:
"Go away I tell you, go to the nursery! Why are you blubbering, it
is your own fault, and you blubber! What a woman! Last year you
were after Petka Totchkov, now you are after this devil. Lord forgive
us! . . . Tfoo, it's time you understood what you are! A wife! A
mother! Last year there were unpleasantnesses, and now there will
be unpleasantnesses. . . . Tfoo!"
Bugrov heaved a loud sigh, and the air was filled with the smell
of sherry. He had come back from dining and was slightly drunk
. . . .
"Don't you know your duty? No! . . . you must be taught, you've not
been taught so far! Your mamma was a gad-about, and you . . . you
can blubber. Yes! blubber away. . . ."
Bugrov went up to his wife and drew the curtain out of her hands.
"Don't stand by the window, people will see you blubbering. . . .
Don't let it happen again. You'll go from embracing to worse trouble.
You'll come to grief. Do you suppose I like to be made a fool of?
And you will make a fool of me if you carry on with them, the low
brutes. . . . Come, that's enough. . . . Don't you. . . . Another
time. . . . Of course I . . Liza . . . stay. . . ."
Bugrov heaved a sigh and enveloped Liza in the fumes of sherry.
"You are young and silly, you don't understand anything. . . . I
am never at home. . . . And they take advantage of it. You must be
sensible, prudent. They will deceive you. And then I won't endure
it. . . . Then I may do anything. . . . Of course! Then you can
just lie down, and die. I . . . I am capable of doing anything if
you deceive me, my good girl. I might beat you to death. . . . And
. . . I shall turn you out of the house, and then you can go to
your rascals."
And Bugrov (_horribile dictu_) wiped the wet, tearful face of the
traitress Liza with his big soft hand. He treated his twenty-year-old
wife as though she were a child.
"Come, that's enough. . . . I forgive you. Only God forbid it should
happen again! I forgive you for the fifth time, but I shall not
forgive you for the sixth, as God is holy. God does not forgive
such as you for such things."
Bugrov bent down and put out his shining lips towards Liza's little
head. But the kiss did not follow. The doors of the hall, of the
dining-room, of the parlour, and of the drawing-room all slammed,
and Groholsky flew into the drawing-room like a whirlwind. He was
pale and trembling. He was flourishing his arms and crushing his
expensive hat in his hands. His coat fluttered upon him as though
it were on a peg. He was the incarnation of acute fever. When Bugrov
saw him he moved away from his wife and began looking out of the
other window. Groholsky flew up to him, and waving his arms and
breathing heavily and looking at no one, he began in a shaking
voice:
"Ivan Petrovitch! Let us leave off keeping up this farce with one
another! We have deceived each other long enough! It's too much! I
cannot stand it. You must do as you like, but I cannot! It's hateful
and mean, it's revolting! Do you understand that it is revolting?"
Groholsky spluttered and gasped for breath.
"It's against my principles. And you are an honest man. I love her!
I love her more than anything on earth! You have noticed it and
. . . it's my duty to say this!"
"What am I to say to him?" Ivan Petrovitch wondered.
"We must make an end of it. This farce cannot drag on much longer!
It must be settled somehow."
Groholsky drew a breath and went on:
"I cannot live without her; she feels the same. You are an educated
man, you will understand that in such circumstances your family
life is impossible. This woman is not yours, so . . . in short, I
beg you to look at the matter from an indulgent humane point of
view. . . . Ivan Petrovitch, you must understand at last that I
love her--love her more than myself, more than anything in the
world, and to struggle against that love is beyond my power!"
"And she?" Bugrov asked in a sullen, somewhat ironical tone.
"Ask her; come now, ask her! For her to live with a man she does
not love, to live with you is . . . is a misery!"
"And she?" Bugrov repeated, this time not in an ironical tone.
"She . . . she loves me! We love each other, Ivan Petrovitch! Kill
us, despise us, pursue us, do as you will, but we can no longer
conceal it from you. We are standing face to face--you may judge
us with all the severity of a man whom we . . . whom fate has robbed
of happiness!"
Bugrov turned as red as a boiled crab, and looked out of one eye
at Liza. He began blinking. His fingers, his lips, and his eyelids
twitched. Poor fellow! The eyes of his weeping wife told him that
Groholsky was right, that it was a serious matter.
"Well!" he muttered. "If you. . . . In these days. . . . You are
always. . . ."
"As God is above," Groholsky shrilled in his high tenor, "we
understand you. Do you suppose we have no sense, no feeling? I know
what agonies I am causing you, as God's above! But be indulgent, I
beseech you! We are not to blame. Love is not a crime. No will can
struggle against it. . . . Give her up to me, Ivan Petrovitch! Let
her go with me! Take from me what you will for your sufferings.
Take my life, but give me Liza. I am ready to do anything. . . .
Come, tell me how I can do something to make up in part at least!
To make up for that lost happiness, I can give you other happiness.
I can, Ivan Petrovitch; I am ready to do anything! It would be base
on my part to leave you without satisfaction. . . . I understand
you at this moment."
Bugrov waved his hand as though to say, 'For God's sake, go away.'
His eyes began to be dimmed by a treacherous moisture--in a moment
they would see him crying like a child.
"I understand you, Ivan Petrovitch. I will give you another happiness,
such as hitherto you have not known. What would you like? I have
money, my father is an influential man. . . . Will you? Come, how
much do you want?"
Bugrov's heart suddenly began throbbing. . . . He clutched at the
window curtains with both hands. . . .
"Will you have fifty thousand? Ivan Petrovitch, I entreat you. . . .
It's not a bribe, not a bargain. . . . I only want by a sacrifice
on my part to atone a little for your inevitable loss. Would you
like a hundred thousand? I am willing. A hundred thousand?"
My God! Two immense hammers began beating on the perspiring temples
of the unhappy Ivan Petrovitch. Russian sledges with tinkling bells
began racing in his ears. . . .
"Accept this sacrifice from me," Groholsky went on, "I entreat you!
You will take a load off my conscience. . . . I implore you!"
My God! A smart carriage rolled along the road wet from a May shower,
passed the window through which Bugrov's wet eyes were looking. The
horses were fine, spirited, well-trained beasts. People in straw
hats, with contented faces, were sitting in the carriage with long
fishing-rods and bags. . . . A schoolboy in a white cap was holding
a gun. They were driving out into the country to catch fish, to
shoot, to walk about and have tea in the open air. They were driving
to that region of bliss in which Bugrov as a boy--the barefoot,
sunburnt, but infinitely happy son of a village deacon--had once
raced about the meadows, the woods, and the river banks. Oh, how
fiendishly seductive was that May! How happy those who can take off
their heavy uniforms, get into a carriage and fly off to the country
where the quails are calling and there is the scent of fresh hay.
Bugrov's heart ached with a sweet thrill that made him shiver. A
hundred thousand! With the carriage there floated before him all
the secret dreams over which he had gloated, through the long years
of his life as a government clerk as he sat in the office of his
department or in his wretched little study. . . . A river, deep,
with fish, a wide garden with narrow avenues, little fountains,
shade, flowers, arbours, a luxurious villa with terraces and turrets
with an Aeolian harp and little silver bells (he had heard of the
existence of an Aeolian harp from German romances); a cloudless
blue sky; pure limpid air fragrant with the scents that recall his
hungry, barefoot, crushed childhood. . . . To get up at five, to
go to bed at nine; to spend the day catching fish, talking with the
peasants. . . . What happiness!
"Ivan Petrovitch, do not torture me! Will you take a hundred
thousand?"
"H'm . . . a hundred and fifty thousand!" muttered Bugrov in a
hollow voice, the voice of a husky bull. He muttered it, and bowed
his head, ashamed of his words, and awaiting the answer.
"Good," said Groholsky, "I agree. I thank you, Ivan Petrovitch
. . . . In a minute. . . . I will not keep you waiting. . . ."
Groholsky jumped up, put on his hat, and staggering backwards, ran
out of the drawing-room.
Bugrov clutched the window curtains more tightly than ever. . . .
He was ashamed . . . . There was a nasty, stupid feeling in his
soul, but, on the other hand, what fair shining hopes swarmed between
his throbbing temples! He was rich!
Liza, who had grasped nothing of what was happening, darted through
the half-opened door trembling all over and afraid that he would
come to her window and fling her away from it. She went into the
nursery, laid herself down on the nurse's bed, and curled herself
up. She was shivering with fever.
Bugrov was left alone. He felt stifled, and he opened the window.
What glorious air breathed fragrance on his face and neck! It would
be good to breathe such air lolling on the cushions of a carriage
. . . . Out there, far beyond the town, among the villages and the
summer villas, the air was sweeter still. . . . Bugrov actually
smiled as he dreamed of the air that would be about him when he
would go out on the verandah of his villa and admire the view. A
long while he dreamed. . . . The sun had set, and still he stood
and dreamed, trying his utmost to cast out of his mind the image
of Liza which obstinately pursued him in all his dreams.
"I have brought it, Ivan Petrovitch!" Groholsky, re-entering,
whispered above his ear. "I have brought it--take it. . . . Here
in this roll there are forty thousand. . . . With this cheque will
you kindly get twenty the day after to-morrow from Valentinov? . . .
Here is a bill of exchange . . . a cheque. . . . The remaining
thirty thousand in a day or two. . . . My steward will bring it to
you."
Groholsky, pink and excited, with all his limbs in motion, laid
before Bugrov a heap of rolls of notes and bundles of papers. The
heap was big, and of all sorts of hues and tints. Never in the
course of his life had Bugrov seen such a heap. He spread out his
fat fingers and, not looking at Groholsky, fell to going through
the bundles of notes and bonds. . . .
Groholsky spread out all the money, and moved restlessly about the
room, looking for the Dulcinea who had been bought and sold.
Filling his pockets and his pocket-book, Bugrov thrust the securities
into the table drawer, and, drinking off half a decanter full of
water, dashed out into the street.
"Cab!" he shouted in a frantic voice.
At half-past eleven that night he drove up to the entrance of the
Paris Hotel. He went noisily upstairs and knocked at the door of
Groholsky's apartments. He was admitted. Groholsky was packing his
things in a portmanteau, Liza was sitting at the table trying on
bracelets. They were both frightened when Bugrov went in to them.
They fancied that he had come for Liza and had brought back the
money which he had taken in haste without reflection. But Bugrov
had not come for Liza. Ashamed of his new get-up and feeling
frightfully awkward in it, he bowed and stood at the door in the
attitude of a flunkey. The get-up was superb. Bugrov was unrecognisable.
His huge person, which had never hitherto worn anything but a
uniform, was clothed in a fresh, brand-new suit of fine French cloth
and of the most fashionable cut. On his feet spats shone with
sparkling buckles. He stood ashamed of his new get-up, and with his
right hand covered the watch-chain for which he had, an hour before,
paid three hundred roubles.
"I have come about something," he began. "A business agreement is
beyond price. I am not going to give up Mishutka. . . ."
"What Mishutka?" asked Groholsky.
"My son."
Groholsky and Liza looked at each other. Liza's eyes bulged, her
cheeks flushed, and her lips twitched. . . .
"Very well," she said.
She thought of Mishutka's warm little cot. It would be cruel to
exchange that warm little cot for a chilly sofa in the hotel, and
she consented.
"I shall see him," she said.
Bugrov bowed, walked out, and flew down the stairs in his splendour,
cleaving the air with his expensive cane. . . .
"Home," he said to the cabman. "I am starting at five o'clock
to-morrow morning. . . . You will come; if I am asleep, you will
wake me. We are driving out of town."