"Ah! How are you?" she said, recognising me at once and holding out her
hand. "I am very glad to see you."
She smiled and looked with a curious puzzled expression at my blouse and
the pail of paste and the papers lying on the floor; I was embarrassed
and she also felt awkward.
"Excuse my staring at you," she said. "I have heard so much about you.
Especially from Doctor Blagovo. He is enthusiastic about you. I have met
your sister; she is a dear, sympathetic girl, but I could not make her
see that there is nothing awful in your simple life. On the contrary,
you are the most interesting man in the town."
Once more she glanced at the pail of paste and the paper and said:
"I asked Doctor Blagovo to bring us together, but he either forgot or
had no time. However, we have met now. I should be very pleased if you
would call on me. I do so want to have a talk. I am a simple person,"
she said, holding out her hand, "and I hope you will come and see me
without ceremony. My father is away, in Petersburg."
She went into the reading-room, with her dress rustling, and for a long
time after I got home I could not sleep.
During that autumn some kind soul, wishing to relieve my existence, sent
me from time to time presents of tea and lemons, or biscuits, or roast
pigeons. Karpovna said the presents were brought by a soldier, though
from whom she did not know; and the soldier used to ask if I was well,
if I had dinner every day, and if I had warm clothes. When the frost
began the soldier came while I was out and brought a soft knitted scarf,
which gave out a soft, hardly perceptible scent, and I guessed who my
good fairy had been. For the scarf smelled of lily-of-the-valley, Aniuta
Blagovo's favourite scent.
Toward winter there was more work and things became more cheerful.
Radish came to life again and we worked together in the cemetery church,
where we scraped the holy shrine for gilding. It was a clean, quiet,
and, as our mates said, a specially good job. We could do a great deal
in one day, and so time passed quickly, imperceptibly. There was no
swearing, nor laughing, nor loud altercations. The place compelled quiet
and decency, and disposed one for tranquil, serious thoughts. Absorbed
in our work, we stood or sat immovably, like statues; there was a dead
silence, very proper to a cemetery, so that if a tool fell down, or the
oil in the lamp spluttered, the sound would be loud and startling, and
we would turn to see what it was. After a long silence one could hear a
humming like that of a swarm of bees; in the porch, in an undertone, the
funeral service was being read over a dead baby; or a painter painting a
moon surrounded with stars on the cupola would begin to whistle quietly,
and remembering suddenly that he was in a church, would stop; or Radish
would sigh at his own thoughts: "Anything may happen! Anything may
happen!" or above our heads there would be the slow, mournful tolling of
a bell, and the painters would say it must be a rich man being brought
to the church....
The days I spent in the peace of the little church, and during the
evenings I played billiards, or went to the gallery of the theatre in
the new serge suit I had bought with my own hard-earned money. They were
already beginning plays and concerts at the Azhoguins', and Radish did
the scenery by himself. He told me about the plays and tableaux vivants
at the Azhoguins', and I listened to him enviously. I had a great
longing to take part in the rehearsals, but I dared not go to the
Azhoguins'.
A week before Christmas Doctor Blagovo arrived, and we resumed our
arguments and played billiards in the evenings. When he played billiards
he used to take off his coat, and unfasten his shirt at the neck, and
generally try to look like a debauchee. He drank a little, but rowdily,
and managed to spend in a cheap tavern like the Volga as much as twenty
roubles in an evening.
Once more my sister came to see me, and when they met they expressed
surprise, but I could see by her happy, guilty face that these meetings
were not accidental. One evening when we were playing billiards the
doctor said to me:
"I say, why don't you call on Miss Dolyhikov? You don't know Maria
Victorovna. She is a clever, charming, simple creature."