On Sunday afternoon my sister came to see me and had tea with me.
"I read a great deal now," she said, showing me the books she had got
out of the town library on her way. "Thanks to your wife and Vladimir.
They awakened my self-consciousness. They saved me and have made me feel
that I am a human being. I used not to sleep at night for worrying:
'What a lot of sugar has been wasted during the week.' 'The cucumbers
must not be oversalted!' I don't sleep now, but I have quite different
thoughts. I am tormented with the thought that half my life has passed
so foolishly and half-heartedly. I despise my old life. I am ashamed of
it. And I regard my father now as an enemy. Oh, how grateful I am to
your wife! And Vladimir. He is such a wonderful man! They opened my
eyes."
"It is not good that you can't sleep," I said.
"You think I am ill? Not a bit. Vladimir sounded me and says I am
perfectly healthy. But health is not the point. That doesn't matter so
much.... Tell me, am I right?"
She needed moral support. That was obvious. Masha had gone, Doctor
Blagovo was in Petersburg, and there was no one except myself in the
town, who could tell her that she was right. She fixed her eyes on me,
trying to read my inmost thoughts, and if I were sad in her presence,
she always took it upon herself and was depressed. I had to be
continually on my guard, and when she asked me if she was right, I
hastened to assure her that she was right and that I had a profound
respect for her.
"You know, they have given me a part at the Azhoguins'," she went on. "I
wanted to act. I want to live. I want to drink deep of life; I have no
talent whatever, and my part is only ten lines, but it is immeasurably
finer and nobler than pouring out tea five times a day and watching to
see that the cook does not eat the sugar left over. And most of all I
want to let father see that I too can protest."
After tea she lay down on my bed and stayed there for some time, with
her eyes closed, and her face very pale.
"Just weakness!" she said, as she got up. "Vladimir said all town girls
and women are anæmic from lack of work. What a clever man Vladimir is!
He is right; wonderfully right! We do need work!"
Two days later she came to rehearsal at the Azhoguins' with her part in
her hand. She was in black, with a garnet necklace, and a brooch that
looked at a distance like a pasty, and she had enormous earrings, in
each of which sparkled a diamond. I felt uneasy when I saw her; I was
shocked by her lack of taste. The others noticed too that she was
unsuitably dressed and that her earrings and diamonds were out of place.
I saw their smiles and heard some one say jokingly:
"Cleopatra of Egypt!"
She was trying to be fashionable, and easy, and assured, and she seemed
affected and odd. She lost her simplicity and her charm.
"I just told father that I was going to a rehearsal," she began, coming
up to me, "and he shouted that he would take his blessing from me, and
he nearly struck me. Fancy," she added, glancing at her part, "I don't
know my part. I'm sure to make a mistake. Well, the die is cast," she
said excitedly; "the die is cast."
She felt that all the people were looking at her and were all amazed at
the important step she had taken and that they were all expecting
something remarkable from her, and it was impossible to convince her
that nobody took any notice of such small uninteresting persons as she
and I.
She had nothing to do until the third act, and her part, a guest, a
country gossip, consisted only in standing by the door, as if she were
overhearing something, and then speaking a short monologue. For at least
an hour and a half before her cue, while the others were walking,
reading, having tea, quarrelling, she never left me and kept on mumbling
her part, and dropping her written copy, imagining that everybody was
looking at her, and waiting for her to come on, and she patted her hair
with a trembling hand and said:
"I'm sure to make a mistake.... You don't know how awful I feel! I am as
terrified as if I were going to the scaffold."
At last her cue came.
"Cleopatra Alexeyevna--your cue!" said the manager.
She walked on to the middle of the stage with an expression of terror on
her face; she looked ugly and stiff, and for half a minute was
speechless, perfectly motionless, except for her large earrings which
wabbled on either side of her face.
"You can read your part, the first time," said some one.
I could see that she was trembling so that she could neither speak nor
open her part, and that she had entirely forgotten the words and I had
just made up my mind to go up and say something to her when she suddenly
dropped down on her knees in the middle of the stage and sobbed loudly.
There was a general stir and uproar. And I stood quite still by the
wings, shocked by what had happened, not understanding at all, not
knowing what to do. I saw them lift her up and lead her away. I saw
Aniuta Blagovo come up to me. I had not seen her in the hall before and
she seemed to have sprung up from the floor. She was wearing a hat and
veil, and as usual looked as if she had only dropped in for a minute.
"I told her not to try to act," she said angrily, biting out each word,
with her cheeks blushing. "It is folly! You ought to have stopped her!"
Mrs. Azhoguin came up in a short jacket with short sleeves. She had
tobacco ash on her thin, flat bosom.
"My dear, it is too awful!" she said, wringing her hands, and as usual,
staring into my face. "It is too awful!... Your sister is in a
condition.... She is going to have a baby! You must take her away at
once...."
In her agitation she breathed heavily. And behind her, stood her three
daughters, all thin and flat-chested like herself, and all huddled
together in their dismay. They were frightened, overwhelmed just as if a
convict had been caught in the house. What a shame! How awful! And this
was the family that had been fighting the prejudices and superstitions
of mankind all their lives; evidently they thought that all the
prejudices and superstitions of mankind were to be found in burning
three candles and in the number thirteen, or the unlucky day--Monday.
"I must request ... request ..." Mrs. Azhoguin kept on saying,
compressing her lips and accentuating the _quest_. "I must request you
to take her away."