glasses for half an hour; others, especially some who had drunk a good
deal at dinner, would not leave the table, and kept on drinking glass
after glass, so that Olga Mihalovna scarcely had time to fill them. One
jocular young man sipped his tea through a lump of sugar, and kept
saying, "Sinful man that I am, I love to indulge myself with the Chinese
herb." He kept asking with a heavy sigh: "Another tiny dish of tea more,
if you please." He drank a great deal, nibbled his sugar, and thought it
all very amusing and original, and imagined that he was doing a clever
imitation of a Russian merchant. None of them understood that these
trifles were agonizing to their hostess, and, indeed, it was hard to
understand it, as Olga Mihalovna went on all the time smiling affably
and talking nonsense.
But she felt ill. . . . She was irritated by the crowd of people, the
laughter, the questions, the jocular young man, the footmen harassed and
run off their legs, the children who hung round the table; she was
irritated at Vata's being like Nata, at Kolya's being like Mitya, so
that one could not tell which of them had had tea and which of them had
not. She felt that her smile of forced affability was passing into an
expression of anger, and she felt every minute as though she would burst
into tears.
"Rain, my friends," cried some one.
Every one looked at the sky.
"Yes, it really is rain . . ." Pyotr Dmitritch assented, and wiped his
cheek.
Only a few drops were falling from the sky--the real rain had not begun
yet; but the company abandoned their tea and made haste to get off. At
first they all wanted to drive home in the carriages, but changed their
minds and made for the boats. On the pretext that she had to hasten home
to give directions about the supper, Olga Mihalovna asked to be excused
for leaving the others, and went home in the carriage.
When she got into the carriage, she first of all let her face rest from
smiling. With an angry face she drove through the village, and with an
angry face acknowledged the bows of the peasants she met. When she got
home, she went to the bedroom by the back way and lay down on her
husband's bed.
"Merciful God!" she whispered. "What is all this hard labour for? Why do
all these people hustle each other here and pretend that they are
enjoying themselves? Why do I smile and lie? I don't understand it."
She heard steps and voices. The visitors had come back.
"Let them come," thought Olga Mihalovna; "I shall lie a little longer."
But a maid-servant came and said:
"Marya Grigoryevna is going, madam."
Olga Mihalovna jumped up, tidied her hair and hurried out of the room.
"Marya Grigoryevna, what is the meaning of this?" she began in an
injured voice, going to meet Marya Grigoryevna. "Why are you in such a
hurry?"
"I can't help it, darling! I've stayed too long as it is; my children
are expecting me home."
"It's too bad of you! Why didn't you bring your children with you?"
"If you will let me, dear, I will bring them on some ordinary day, but
to-day . . ."
"Oh, please do," Olga Mihalovna interrupted; "I shall be delighted! Your
children are so sweet! Kiss them all for me. . . . But, really, I am
offended with you! I don't understand why you are in such a hurry!"
"I really must, I really must. . . . Good-bye, dear. Take care of
yourself. In your condition, you know . . ."
And the ladies kissed each other. After seeing the departing guest to
her carriage, Olga Mihalovna went in to the ladies in the drawing-room.
There the lamps were already lighted and the gentlemen were sitting down
to cards. IV
The party broke up after supper about a quarter past twelve. Seeing her
visitors off, Olga Mihalovna stood at the door and said:
"You really ought to take a shawl! It's turning a little chilly. Please
God, you don't catch cold!"
"Don't trouble, Olga Mihalovna," the ladies answered as they got into
the carriage. "Well, good-bye. Mind now, we are expecting you; don't
play us false!"
"Wo-o-o!" the coachman checked the horses.
"Ready, Denis! Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna!"
"Kiss the children for me!"
The carriage started and immediately disappeared into the darkness. In
the red circle of light cast by the lamp in the road, a fresh pair or
trio of impatient horses, and the silhouette of a coachman with his
hands held out stiffly before him, would come into view. Again there
began kisses, reproaches, and entreaties to come again or to take a
shawl. Pyotr Dmitritch kept running out and helping the ladies into
their carriages.
"You go now by Efremovshtchina," he directed the coachman; "it's nearer
through Mankino, but the road is worse that way. You might have an
upset. . . . Good-bye, my charmer. Mille compliments to your artist!"
"Good-bye, Olga Mihalovna, darling! Go indoors, or you will catch cold!
It's damp!"
"Wo-o-o! you rascal!"
"What horses have you got here?" Pyotr Dmitritch asked.
"They were bought from Haidorov, in Lent," answered the coachman.
"Capital horses. . . ."
And Pyotr Dmitritch patted the trace horse on the haunch.
"Well, you can start! God give you good luck!"
The last visitor was gone at last; the red circle on the road quivered,
moved aside, contracted and went out, as Vassily carried away the lamp
from the entrance. On previous occasions when they had seen off their
visitors, Pyotr Dmitritch and Olga Mihalovna had begun dancing about the
drawing-room, facing each other, clapping their hands and singing:
"They've gone! They've gone!" But now Olga Mihalovna was not equal to
that. She went to her bedroom, undressed, and got into bed.
She fancied she would fall asleep at once and sleep soundly. Her legs
and her shoulders ached painfully, her head was heavy from the strain of
talking, and she was conscious, as before, of discomfort all over her
body. Covering her head over, she lay still for three or four minutes,
then peeped out from under the bed-clothes at the lamp before the ikon,
listened to the silence, and smiled.
"It's nice, it's nice," she whispered, curling up her legs, which felt
as if they had grown longer from so much walking. "Sleep, sleep . . . ."
Her legs would not get into a comfortable position; she felt uneasy all
over, and she turned on the other side. A big fly blew buzzing about the
bedroom and thumped against the ceiling. She could hear, too, Grigory
and Vassily stepping cautiously about the drawing-room, putting the
chairs back in their places; it seemed to Olga Mihalovna that she could
not go to sleep, nor be comfortable till those sounds were hushed. And
again she turned over on the other side impatiently.
She heard her husband's voice in the drawing-room. Some one must be
staying the night, as Pyotr Dmitritch was addressing some one and
speaking loudly:
"I don't say that Count Alexey Petrovitch is an impostor. But he can't
help seeming to be one, because all of you gentlemen attempt to see in
him something different from what he really is. His craziness is looked
upon as originality, his familiar manners as good-nature, and his
complete absence of opinions as Conservatism. Even granted that he is a
Conservative of the stamp of '84, what after all is Conservatism?"
Pyotr Dmitritch, angry with Count Alexey Petrovitch, his visitors, and
himself, was relieving his heart. He abused both the Count and his
visitors, and in his vexation with himself was ready to speak out and to
hold forth upon anything. After seeing his guest to his room, he walked
up and down the drawing-room, walked through the dining-room, down the
corridor, then into his study, then again went into the drawing-room,
and came into the bedroom. Olga Mihalovna was lying on her back, with
the bed-clothes only to her waist (by now she felt hot), and with an
angry face, watched the fly that was thumping against the ceiling.
"Is some one staying the night?" she asked.
"Yegorov."
Pyotr Dmitritch undressed and got into his bed.
Without speaking, he lighted a cigarette, and he, too, fell to watching
the fly. There was an uneasy and forbidding look in his eyes. Olga
Mihalovna looked at his handsome profile for five minutes in silence. It
seemed to her for some reason that if her husband were suddenly to turn
facing her, and to say, "Olga, I am unhappy," she would cry or laugh,
and she would be at ease. She fancied that her legs were aching and her
body was uncomfortable all over because of the strain on her feelings.
"Pyotr, what are you thinking of?" she said.
"Oh, nothing . . ." her husband answered.
"You have taken to having secrets from me of late: that's not right."
"Why is it not right?" answered Pyotr Dmitritch drily and not at once.
"We all have our personal life, every one of us, and we are bound to
have our secrets."
"Personal life, our secrets . . . that's all words! Understand you are
wounding me!" said Olga Mihalovna, sitting up in bed. "If you have a
load on your heart, why do you hide it from me? And why do you find it
more suitable to open your heart to women who are nothing to you,
instead of to your wife? I overheard your outpourings to Lubotchka by
the bee-house to-day."
"Well, I congratulate you. I am glad you did overhear it."
This meant "Leave me alone and let me think." Olga Mihalovna was
indignant. Vexation, hatred, and wrath, which had been accumulating
within her during the whole day, suddenly boiled over; she wanted at
once to speak out, to hurt her husband without putting it off till to-
morrow, to wound him, to punish him. . . . Making an effort to control
herself and not to scream, she said:
"Let me tell you, then, that it's all loathsome, loathsome, loathsome!
I've been hating you all day; you see what you've done."
Pyotr Dmitritch, too, got up and sat on the bed.
"It's loathsome, loathsome, loathsome," Olga Mihalovna went on,
beginning to tremble all over. "There's no need to congratulate me; you
had better congratulate yourself! It's a shame, a disgrace. You have
wrapped yourself in lies till you are ashamed to be alone in the room
with your wife! You are a deceitful man! I see through you and
understand every step you take!"
"Olya, I wish you would please warn me when you are out of humour. Then
I will sleep in the study."
Saying this, Pyotr Dmitritch picked up his pillow and walked out of the
bedroom. Olga Mihalovna had not foreseen this. For some minutes she
remained silent with her mouth open, trembling all over and looking at
the door by which her husband had gone out, and trying to understand
what it meant. Was this one of the devices to which deceitful people
have recourse when they are in the wrong, or was it a deliberate insult
aimed at her pride? How was she to take it? Olga Mihalovna remembered
her cousin, a lively young officer, who often used to tell her,
laughing, that when "his spouse nagged at him" at night, he usually
picked up his pillow and went whistling to spend the night in his study,
leaving his wife in a foolish and ridiculous position. This officer was
married to a rich, capricious, and foolish woman whom he did not respect
but simply put up with.
Olga Mihalovna jumped out of bed. To her mind there was only one thing
left for her to do now; to dress with all possible haste and to leave
the house forever. The house was her own, but so much the worse for
Pyotr Dmitritch. Without pausing to consider whether this was necessary
or not, she went quickly to the study to inform her husband of her
intention ("Feminine logic!" flashed through her mind), and to say
something wounding and sarcastic at parting. . . .
Pyotr Dmitritch was lying on the sofa and pretending to read a
newspaper. There was a candle burning on a chair near him. His face
could not be seen behind the newspaper.
"Be so kind as to tell me what this means? I am asking you."
"Be so kind . . ." Pyotr Dmitritch mimicked her, not showing his face.
"It's sickening, Olga! Upon my honour, I am exhausted and not up to it.
. . . Let us do our quarrelling to-morrow."
"No, I understand you perfectly!" Olga Mihalovna went on. "You hate me!
Yes, yes! You hate me because I am richer than you! You will never
forgive me for that, and will always be lying to me!" ("Feminine logic!"
flashed through her mind again.) "You are laughing at me now. . . . I am
convinced, in fact, that you only married me in order to have property
qualifications and those wretched horses. . . . Oh, I am miserable!"
Pyotr Dmitritch dropped the newspaper and got up. The unexpected insult
overwhelmed him. With a childishly helpless smile he looked desperately
at his wife, and holding out his hands to her as though to ward off
blows, he said imploringly:
"Olya!"
And expecting her to say something else awful, he leaned back in his
chair, and his huge figure seemed as helplessly childish as his smile.
"Olya, how could you say it?" he whispered.
Olga Mihalovna came to herself. She was suddenly aware of her passionate
love for this man, remembered that he was her husband, Pyotr Dmitritch,
without whom she could not live for a day, and who loved her
passionately, too. She burst into loud sobs that sounded strange and
unlike her, and ran back to her bedroom.
She fell on the bed, and short hysterical sobs, choking her and making
her arms and legs twitch, filled the bedroom. Remembering there was a
visitor sleeping three or four rooms away, she buried her head under the
pillow to stifle her sobs, but the pillow rolled on to the floor, and
she almost fell on the floor herself when she stooped to pick it up. She
pulled the quilt up to her face, but her hands would not obey her, but
tore convulsively at everything she clutched.
She thought that everything was lost, that the falsehood she had told to
wound her husband had shattered her life into fragments. Her husband
would not forgive her. The insult she had hurled at him was not one that
could be effaced by any caresses, by any vows. . . . How could she
convince her husband that she did not believe what she had said?
"It's all over, it's all over!" she cried, not noticing that the pillow
had slipped on to the floor again. "For God's sake, for God's sake!"
Probably roused by her cries, the guest and the servants were now awake;
next day all the neighbourhood would know that she had been in hysterics
and would blame Pyotr Dmitritch. She made an effort to restrain herself,
but her sobs grew louder and louder every minute.
"For God's sake," she cried in a voice not like her own, and not knowing
why she cried it. "For God's sake!"
She felt as though the bed were heaving under her and her feet were
entangled in the bed-clothes. Pyotr Dmitritch, in his dressing-gown,
with a candle in his hand, came into the bedroom.
"Olya, hush!" he said.
She raised herself, and kneeling up in bed, screwing up her eyes at the
light, articulated through her sobs:
"Understand . . . understand! . . . ."
She wanted to tell him that she was tired to death by the party, by his
falsity, by her own falsity, that it had all worked together, but she
could only articulate:
"Understand . . . understand!"
"Come, drink!" he said, handing her some water.
She took the glass obediently and began drinking, but the water splashed
over and was spilt on her arms, her throat and knees.
"I must look horribly unseemly," she thought.
Pyotr Dmitritch put her back in bed without a word, and covered her with
the quilt, then he took the candle and went out.
"For God's sake!" Olga Mihalovna cried again. "Pyotr, understand,
understand!"
Suddenly something gripped her in the lower part of her body and back
with such violence that her wailing was cut short, and she bit the
pillow from the pain. But the pain let her go again at once, and she
began sobbing again.
The maid came in, and arranging the quilt over her, asked in alarm:
"Mistress, darling, what is the matter?"
"Go out of the room," said Pyotr Dmitritch sternly, going up to the bed.
"Understand . . . understand! . . ." Olga Mihalovna began.
"Olya, I entreat you, calm yourself," he said. "I did not mean to hurt
you. I would not have gone out of the room if I had known it would have
hurt you so much; I simply felt depressed. I tell you, on my honour . .
."
"Understand! . . . You were lying, I was lying. . . ."
"I understand. . . . Come, come, that's enough! I understand," said
Pyotr Dmitritch tenderly, sitting down on her bed. "You said that in
anger; I quite understand. I swear to God I love you beyond anything on
earth, and when I married you I never once thought of your being rich. I
loved you immensely, and that's all . . . I assure you. I have never
been in want of money or felt the value of it, and so I cannot feel the
difference between your fortune and mine. It always seemed to me we were
equally well off. And that I have been deceitful in little things, that
. . . of course, is true. My life has hitherto been arranged in such a
frivolous way that it has somehow been impossible to get on without
paltry lying. It weighs on me, too, now. . . . Let us leave off talking
about it, for goodness' sake!"
Olga Mihalovna again felt in acute pain, and clutched her husband by the
sleeve.
"I am in pain, in pain, in pain . . ." she said rapidly. "Oh, what
pain!"
"Damnation take those visitors!" muttered Pyotr Dmitritch, getting up.
"You ought not to have gone to the island to-day!" he cried. "What an
idiot I was not to prevent you! Oh, my God!"
He scratched his head in vexation, and, with a wave of his hand, walked
out of the room.
Then he came into the room several times, sat down on the bed beside
her, and talked a great deal, sometimes tenderly, sometimes angrily, but
she hardly heard him. Her sobs were continually interrupted by fearful
attacks of pain, and each time the pain was more acute and prolonged. At
first she held her breath and bit the pillow during the pain, but then
she began screaming on an unseemly piercing note. Once seeing her
husband near her, she remembered that she had insulted him, and without
pausing to think whether it were really Pyotr Dmitritch or whether she
were in delirium, clutched his hand in both hers and began kissing it.
"You were lying, I was lying . . ." she began justifying herself.
"Understand, understand. . . . They have exhausted me, driven me out of
all patience."
"Olya, we are not alone," said Pyotr Dmitritch.
Olga Mihalovna raised her head and saw Varvara, who was kneeling by the
chest of drawers and pulling out the bottom drawer. The top drawers were
already open. Then Varvara got up, red from the strained position, and
with a cold, solemn face began trying to unlock a box.
"Marya, I can't unlock it!" she said in a whisper. "You unlock it, won't
you?"
Marya, the maid, was digging a candle end out of the candlestick with a
pair of scissors, so as to put in a new candle; she went up to Varvara
and helped her to unlock the box.
"There should be nothing locked . . ." whispered Varvara. "Unlock this
basket, too, my good girl. Master," she said, "you should send to Father
Mihail to unlock the holy gates! You must!"
"Do what you like," said Pyotr Dmitritch, breathing hard, "only, for
God's sake, make haste and fetch the doctor or the midwife! Has Vassily
gone? Send some one else. Send your husband!"
"It's the birth," Olga Mihalovna thought. "Varvara," she moaned, "but he
won't be born alive!"
"It's all right, it's all right, mistress," whispered Varvara. "Please
God, he will be alive! he will be alive!"
When Olga Mihalovna came to herself again after a pain she was no longer
sobbing nor tossing from side to side, but moaning. She could not
refrain from moaning even in the intervals between the pains. The
candles were still burning, but the morning light was coming through the
blinds. It was probably about five o'clock in the morning. At the round
table there was sitting some unknown woman with a very discreet air,
wearing a white apron. From her whole appearance it was evident she had
been sitting there a long time. Olga Mihalovna guessed that she was the
midwife.
"Will it soon be over?" she asked, and in her voice she heard a peculiar
and unfamiliar note which had never been there before. "I must be dying
in childbirth," she thought.
Pyotr Dmitritch came cautiously into the bedroom, dressed for the day,
and stood at the window with his back to his wife. He lifted the blind
and looked out of window.
"What rain!" he said.
"What time is it?" asked Olga Mihalovna, in order to hear the unfamiliar
note in her voice again.
"A quarter to six," answered the midwife.
"And what if I really am dying?" thought Olga Mihalovna, looking at her
husband's head and the window-panes on which the rain was beating. "How
will he live without me? With whom will he have tea and dinner, talk in
the evenings, sleep?"
And he seemed to her like a forlorn child; she felt sorry for him and
wanted to say something nice, caressing and consolatory. She remembered
how in the spring he had meant to buy himself some harriers, and she,
thinking it a cruel and dangerous sport, had prevented him from doing
it.
"Pyotr, buy yourself harriers," she moaned.
He dropped the blind and went up to the bed, and would have said
something; but at that moment the pain came back, and Olga Mihalovna
uttered an unseemly, piercing scream.
The pain and the constant screaming and moaning stupefied her. She
heard, saw, and sometimes spoke, but hardly understood anything, and was
only conscious that she was in pain or was just going to be in pain. It
seemed to her that the nameday party had been long, long ago--not
yesterday, but a year ago perhaps; and that her new life of agony had
lasted longer than her childhood, her school-days, her time at the
University, and her marriage, and would go on for a long, long time,
endlessly. She saw them bring tea to the midwife, and summon her at
midday to lunch and afterwards to dinner; she saw Pyotr Dmitritch grow
used to coming in, standing for long intervals by the window, and going
out again; saw strange men, the maid, Varvara, come in as though they
were at home. . . . Varvara said nothing but, "He will, he will," and
was angry when any one closed the drawers and the chest. Olga Mihalovna
saw the light change in the room and in the windows: at one time it was
twilight, then thick like fog, then bright daylight as it had been at
dinner-time the day before, then again twilight . . . and each of these
changes lasted as long as her childhood, her school-days, her life at
the University. . . .
In the evening two doctors--one bony, bald, with a big red beard; the
other with a swarthy Jewish face and cheap spectacles--performed some
sort of operation on Olga Mihalovna. To these unknown men touching her
body she felt utterly indifferent. By now she had no feeling of shame,
no will, and any one might do what he would with her. If any one had
rushed at her with a knife, or had insulted Pyotr Dmitritch, or had
robbed her of her right to the little creature, she would not have said
a word.
They gave her chloroform during the operation. When she came to again,
the pain was still there and insufferable. It was night. And Olga
Mihalovna remembered that there had been just such a night with the
stillness, the lamp, with the midwife sitting motionless by the bed,
with the drawers of the chest pulled out, with Pyotr Dmitritch standing
by the window, but some time very, very long ago. . . . V
"I am not dead . . ." thought Olga Mihalovna when she began to
understand her surroundings again, and when the pain was over.
A bright summer day looked in at the widely open windows; in the garden
below the windows, the sparrows and the magpies never ceased chattering
for one instant.
The drawers were shut now, her husband's bed had been made. There was no
sign of the midwife or of the maid, or of Varvara in the room, only
Pyotr Dmitritch was standing, as before, motionless by the window
looking into the garden. There was no sound of a child's crying, no one
was congratulating her or rejoicing, it was evident that the little
creature had not been born alive.
"Pyotr!"
Olga Mihalovna called to her husband.
Pyotr Dmitritch looked round. It seemed as though a long time must have
passed since the last guest had departed and Olga Mihalovna had insulted
her husband, for Pyotr Dmitritch was perceptibly thinner and hollow-
eyed.
"What is it?" he asked, coming up to the bed.
He looked away, moved his lips and smiled with childlike helplessness.
"Is it all over?" asked Olga Mihalovna.
Pyotr Dmitritch tried to make some answer, but his lips quivered and his
mouth worked like a toothless old man's, like Uncle Nikolay
Nikolaitch's.