"What do you dream?"
"All sorts of things. . . ."
The doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or with
children, stroked his burning head, and muttered:
"Never mind, poor boy, never mind. . . . One can't go through life
without illness. . . . Misha, who am I--do you know me?"
Misha did not answer.
"Does your head ache very badly?"
"Ve-ery. I keep dreaming."
After examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who was
looking after the sick child, the doctor went slowly back to the
drawing-room. There it was by now dark, and Olga Ivanovna, standing
by the window, looked like a silhouette.
"Shall I light up?" asked Tsvyetkov.
No answer followed. The house-fly was still brushing against the
ceiling. Not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole
world, like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring itself
to speak. Olga Ivanovna was not weeping now, but as before, staring
at the flower-bed in profound silence. When Tsvyetkov went up to
her, and through the twilight glanced at her pale face, exhausted
with grief, her expression was such as he had seen before during
her attacks of acute, stupefying, sick headache.
"Nikolay Trofimitch!" she addressed him, "and what do you think
about a consultation?"
"Very good; I'll arrange it to-morrow."
From the doctor's tone it could be easily seen that he put little
faith in the benefit of a consultation. Olga Ivanovna would have
asked him something else, but her sobs prevented her. Again she
pressed her face into the window curtain. At that moment, the strains
of a band playing at the club floated in distinctly. They could
hear not only the wind instruments, but even the violins and the
flutes.
"If he is in pain, why is he silent?" asked Olga Ivanovna. "All day
long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries. I know God
will take the poor boy from us because we have not known how to
prize him. Such a treasure!"
The band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a
lively waltz for the opening of the ball.
"Good God, can nothing really be done?" moaned Olga Ivanovna.
"Nikolay, you are a doctor and ought to know what to do! You must
understand that I can't bear the loss of him! I can't survive it."
The doctor, who did not know how to talk to weeping women, heaved
a sigh, and paced slowly about the drawing-room. There followed a
succession of oppressive pauses interspersed with weeping and the
questions which lead to nothing. The band had already played a
quadrille, a polka, and another quadrille. It got quite dark. In
the adjoining room, the maid lighted the lamp; and all the while
the doctor kept his hat in his hands, and seemed trying to say
something. Several times Olga Ivanovna went off to her son, sat by
him for half an hour, and came back again into the drawing-room;
she was continually breaking into tears and lamentations. The time
dragged agonisingly, and it seemed as though the evening had no
end.
At midnight, when the band had played the cotillion and ceased
altogether, the doctor got ready to go.
"I will come again to-morrow," he said, pressing the mother's cold
hand. "You go to bed."
After putting on his greatcoat in the passage and picking up his
walking-stick, he stopped, thought a minute, and went back into the
drawing-room.
"I'll come to-morrow, Olga," he repeated in a quivering voice. "Do
you hear?"
She did not answer, and it seemed as though grief had robbed her
of all power of speech. In his greatcoat and with his stick still
in his hand, the doctor sat down beside her, and began in a soft,
tender half-whisper, which was utterly out of keeping with his
heavy, dignified figure:
"Olga! For the sake of your sorrow which I share. . . . Now, when
falsehood is criminal, I beseech you to tell me the truth. You have
always declared that the boy is my son. Is that the truth?"
Olga Ivanovna was silent.
"You have been the one attachment in my life," the doctor went on,
"and you cannot imagine how deeply my feeling is wounded by falsehood
. . . . Come, I entreat you, Olga, for once in your life, tell me the
truth. . . . At these moments one cannot lie. Tell me that Misha
is not my son. I am waiting."
"He is."
Olga Ivanovna's face could not be seen, but in her voice the doctor
could hear hesitation. He sighed.
"Even at such moments you can bring yourself to tell a lie," he
said in his ordinary voice. "There is nothing sacred to you! Do
listen, do understand me. . . . You have been the one only attachment
in my life. Yes, you were depraved, vulgar, but I have loved no one
else but you in my life. That trivial love, now that I am growing
old, is the one solitary bright spot in my memories. Why do you
darken it with deception? What is it for?"
"I don't understand you."
"Oh my God!" cried Tsvyetkov. "You are lying, you understand very
well!" he cried more loudly, and he began pacing about the drawing-room,
angrily waving his stick. "Or have you forgotten? Then I will remind
you! A father's rights to the boy are equally shared with me by
Petrov and Kurovsky the lawyer, who still make you an allowance for
their son's education, just as I do! Yes, indeed! I know all that
quite well! I forgive your lying in the past, what does it matter?
But now when you have grown older, at this moment when the boy is
dying, your lying stifles me! How sorry I am that I cannot speak,
how sorry I am!"
The doctor unbuttoned his overcoat, and still pacing about, said:
"Wretched woman! Even such moments have no effect on her! Even now
she lies as freely as nine years ago in the Hermitage Restaurant!
She is afraid if she tells me the truth I shall leave off giving
her money, she thinks that if she did not lie I should not love the
boy! You are lying! It's contemptible!"
The doctor rapped the floor with his stick, and cried:
"It's loathsome. Warped, corrupted creature! I must despise you,
and I ought to be ashamed of my feeling. Yes! Your lying has stuck
in my throat these nine years, I have endured it, but now it's too
much--too much."
From the dark corner where Olga Ivanovna was sitting there came the
sound of weeping. The doctor ceased speaking and cleared his throat.
A silence followed. The doctor slowly buttoned up his over-coat,
and began looking for his hat which he had dropped as he walked
about.
"I lost my temper," he muttered, bending down to the floor. "I quite
lost sight of the fact that you cannot attend to me now. . . . God
knows what I have said. . . . Don't take any notice of it, Olga."
He found his hat and went towards the dark corner.
"I have wounded you," he said in a soft, tender half-whisper, "but
once more I entreat you, tell me the truth; there should not be
lying between us. . . . I blurted it out, and now you know that
Petrov and Kurovsky are no secret to me. So now it is easy for you
to tell me the truth."
Olga Ivanovna thought a moment, and with perceptible hesitation,
said:
"Nikolay, I am not lying--Misha is your child."
"My God," moaned the doctor, "then I will tell you something more:
I have kept your letter to Petrov in which you call him Misha's
father! Olga, I know the truth, but I want to hear it from you! Do
you hear?"
Olga Ivanovna made no reply, but went on weeping. After waiting for
an answer the doctor shrugged his shoulders and went out.
"I will come to-morrow," he called from the passage.
All the way home, as he sat in his carriage, he was shrugging his
shoulders and muttering:
"What a pity that I don't know how to speak! I haven't the gift of
persuading and convincing. It's evident she does not understand me
since she lies! It's evident! How can I make her see? How?"