In the middle of June Sasha suddenly felt bored and made up his
mind to return to Moscow.
"I can't exist in this town," he said gloomily. "No water supply,
no drains! It disgusts me to eat at dinner; the filth in the kitchen
is incredible. . . ."
"Wait a little, prodigal son!" Granny tried to persuade him, speaking
for some reason in a whisper, "the wedding is to be on the seventh."
"I don't want to."
"You meant to stay with us until September!"
"But now, you see, I don't want to. I must get to work."
The summer was grey and cold, the trees were wet, everything in the
garden looked dejected and uninviting, it certainly did make one
long to get to work. The sound of unfamiliar women's voices was
heard downstairs and upstairs, there was the rattle of a sewing
machine in Granny's room, they were working hard at the trousseau.
Of fur coats alone, six were provided for Nadya, and the cheapest
of them, in Granny's words, had cost three hundred roubles! The
fuss irritated Sasha; he stayed in his own room and was cross, but
everyone persuaded him to remain, and he promised not to go before
the first of July.
Time passed quickly. On St. Peter's day Andrey Andreitch went with
Nadya after dinner to Moscow Street to look once more at the house
which had been taken and made ready for the young couple some time
before. It was a house of two storeys, but so far only the upper
floor had been furnished. There was in the hall a shining floor
painted and parqueted, there were Viennese chairs, a piano, a violin
stand; there was a smell of paint. On the wall hung a big oil
painting in a gold frame--a naked lady and beside her a purple
vase with a broken handle.
"An exquisite picture," said Andrey Andreitch, and he gave a
respectful sigh. "It's the work of the artist Shismatchevsky."
Then there was the drawing-room with the round table, and a sofa
and easy chairs upholstered in bright blue. Above the sofa was a
big photograph of Father Andrey wearing a priest's velvet cap and
decorations. Then they went into the dining-room in which there was
a sideboard; then into the bedroom; here in the half dusk stood two
bedsteads side by side, and it looked as though the bedroom had
been decorated with the idea that it would always be very agreeable
there and could not possibly be anything else. Andrey Andreitch led
Nadya about the rooms, all the while keeping his arm round her
waist; and she felt weak and conscience-stricken. She hated all the
rooms, the beds, the easy chairs; she was nauseated by the naked
lady. It was clear to her now that she had ceased to love Andrey
Andreitch or perhaps had never loved him at all; but how to say
this and to whom to say it and with what object she did not understand,
and could not understand, though she was thinking about it all day
and all night. . . . He held her round the waist, talked so
affectionately, so modestly, was so happy, walking about this house
of his; while she saw nothing in it all but vulgarity, stupid,
naïve, unbearable vulgarity, and his arm round her waist felt as
hard and cold as an iron hoop. And every minute she was on the point
of running away, bursting into sobs, throwing herself out of a
window. Andrey Andreitch led her into the bathroom and here he
touched a tap fixed in the wall and at once water flowed.
"What do you say to that?" he said, and laughed. "I had a tank
holding two hundred gallons put in the loft, and so now we shall
have water."
They walked across the yard and went out into the street and took
a cab. Thick clouds of dust were blowing, and it seemed as though
it were just going to rain.
"You are not cold?" said Andrey Andreitch, screwing up his eyes at
the dust.
She did not answer.
"Yesterday, you remember, Sasha blamed me for doing nothing," he
said, after a brief silence. "Well, he is right, absolutely right!
I do nothing and can do nothing. My precious, why is it? Why is it
that the very thought that I may some day fix a cockade on my cap
and go into the government service is so hateful to me? Why do I
feel so uncomfortable when I see a lawyer or a Latin master or a
member of the Zemstvo? O Mother Russia! O Mother Russia! What a
burden of idle and useless people you still carry! How many like
me are upon you, long-suffering Mother!"
And from the fact that he did nothing he drew generalizations,
seeing in it a sign of the times.
"When we are married let us go together into the country, my precious;
there we will work! We will buy ourselves a little piece of land
with a garden and a river, we will labour and watch life. Oh, how
splendid that will be!"
He took off his hat, and his hair floated in the wind, while she
listened to him and thought: "Good God, I wish I were home!"
When they were quite near the house they overtook Father Andrey.
"Ah, here's father coming," cried Andrey Andreitch, delighted, and
he waved his hat. "I love my dad really," he said as he paid the
cabman. "He's a splendid old fellow, a dear old fellow."
Nadya went into the house, feeling cross and unwell, thinking that
there would be visitors all the evening, that she would have to
entertain them, to smile, to listen to the fiddle, to listen to all
sorts of nonsense, and to talk of nothing but the wedding.
Granny, dignified, gorgeous in her silk dress, and haughty as she
always seemed before visitors, was sitting before the samovar.
Father Andrey came in with his sly smile.
"I have the pleasure and blessed consolation of seeing you in
health," he said to Granny, and it was hard to tell whether he was
joking or speaking seriously.