“‘That the heart cannot choose but love,’” repeated Zinaïda. “That’s
where poetry’s so fine; it tells us what is not, and what’s not only
better than what is, but much more like the truth, ‘cannot choose but
love,’—it might want not to, but it can’t help it.” She was silent
again, then all at once she started and got up. “Come along. Meidanov’s
indoors with mamma, he brought me his poem, but I deserted him. His
feelings are hurt too now … I can’t help it! you’ll understand it all
some day … only don’t be angry with me!”
Zinaïda hurriedly pressed my hand and ran on ahead. We went back into
the lodge. Meidanov set to reading us his “Manslayer,” which had just
appeared in print, but I did not hear him. He screamed and drawled his
four-foot iambic lines, the alternating rhythms jingled like little
bells, noisy and meaningless, while I still watched Zinaïda and tried
to take in the import of her last words.
“Perchance some unknown rival
Has surprised and mastered thee?”
Meidanov bawled suddenly through his nose—and my eyes and Zinaïda’s
met. She looked down and faintly blushed. I saw her blush, and grew
cold with terror. I had been jealous before, but only at that instant
the idea of her being in love flashed upon my mind. “Good God! she is
in love!”
X
My real torments began from that instant. I racked my brains, changed
my mind, and changed it back again, and kept an unremitting, though, as
far as possible, secret watch on Zinaïda. A change had come over her,
that was obvious. She began going walks alone—and long walks. Sometimes
she would not see visitors; she would sit for hours together in her
room. This had never been a habit of hers till now. I suddenly
became—or fancied I had become—extraordinarily penetrating.
“Isn’t it he? or isn’t it he?” I asked myself, passing in inward
agitation from one of her admirers to another. Count Malevsky secretly
struck me as more to be feared than the others, though, for Zinaïda’s
sake, I was ashamed to confess it to myself.
My watchfulness did not see beyond the end of my nose, and its secrecy
probably deceived no one; any way, Doctor Lushin soon saw through me.
But he, too, had changed of late; he had grown thin, he laughed as
often, but his laugh seemed more hollow, more spiteful, shorter, an
involuntary nervous irritability took the place of his former light
irony and assumed cynicism.
“Why are you incessantly hanging about here, young man?” he said to me
one day, when we were left alone together in the Zasyekins’
drawing-room. (The young princess had not come home from a walk, and
the shrill voice of the old princess could be heard within; she was
scolding the maid.) “You ought to be studying, working—while you’re
young—and what are you doing?”
“You can’t tell whether I work at home,” I retorted with some
haughtiness, but also with some hesitation.
“A great deal of work you do! that’s not what you’re thinking about!
Well, I won’t find fault with that … at your age that’s in the natural
order of things. But you’ve been awfully unlucky in your choice. Don’t
you see what this house is?”
“I don’t understand you,” I observed.
“You don’t understand? so much the worse for you. I regard it as a duty
to warn you. Old bachelors, like me, can come here, what harm can it do
us! we’re tough, nothing can hurt us, what harm can it do us; but your
skin’s tender yet—this air is bad for you—believe me, you may get harm
from it.”
“How so?”
“Why, are you well now? Are you in a normal condition? Is what you’re
feeling—beneficial to you—good for you?”
“Why, what am I feeling?” I said, while in my heart I knew the doctor
was right.
“Ah, young man, young man,” the doctor went on with an intonation that
suggested that something highly insulting to me was contained in these
two words, “what’s the use of your prevaricating, when, thank God,
what’s in your heart is in your face, so far? But there, what’s the use
of talking? I shouldn’t come here myself, if … (the doctor compressed
his lips) … if I weren’t such a queer fellow. Only this is what
surprises me; how it is, you, with your intelligence, don’t see what is
going on around you?”
“And what is going on?” I put in, all on the alert.
The doctor looked at me with a sort of ironical compassion.
“Nice of me!” he said as though to himself, “as if he need know
anything of it. In fact, I tell you again,” he added, raising his
voice, “the atmosphere here is not fit for you. You like being here,
but what of that! it’s nice and sweet-smelling in a greenhouse—but
there’s no living in it. Yes! do as I tell you, and go back to your
Keidanov.”
The old princess came in, and began complaining to the doctor of her
toothache. Then Zinaïda appeared.
“Come,” said the old princess, “you must scold her, doctor. She’s
drinking iced water all day long; is that good for her, pray, with her
delicate chest?”
“Why do you do that?” asked Lushin.
“Why, what effect could it have?”
“What effect? You might get a chill and die.”
“Truly? Do you mean it? Very well—so much the better.”
“A fine idea!” muttered the doctor. The old princess had gone out.
“Yes, a fine idea,” repeated Zinaïda. “Is life such a festive affair?
Just look about you…. Is it nice, eh? Or do you imagine I don’t
understand it, and don’t feel it? It gives me pleasure—drinking iced
water; and can you seriously assure me that such a life is worth too
much to be risked for an instant’s pleasure—happiness I won’t even talk
about.”
“Oh, very well,” remarked Lushin, “caprice and irresponsibility…. Those
two words sum you up; your whole nature’s contained in those two
words.”
Zinaïda laughed nervously.
“You’re late for the post, my dear doctor. You don’t keep a good
look-out; you’re behind the times. Put on your spectacles. I’m in no
capricious humour now. To make fools of you, to make a fool of myself …
much fun there is in that!—and as for irresponsibility … M’sieu
Voldemar,” Zinaïda added suddenly, stamping, “don’t make such a
melancholy face. I can’t endure people to pity me.” She went quickly
out of the room.
“It’s bad for you, very bad for you, this atmosphere, young man,”
Lushin said to me once more.