disgusting summer holiday rains which, when they have begun, last a long
time-for weeks, till the frozen holiday maker grows used to it, and
sinks into complete apathy. It was cold; there was a feeling of raw,
unpleasant dampness. The mother-in-law of a lawyer, called Kvashin, and
his wife, Nadyezhda Filippovna, dressed in waterproofs and shawls, were
sitting over the dinner table in the dining-room. It was written on the
countenance of the elder lady that she was, thank God, well-fed, well-
clothed and in good health, that she had married her only daughter to a
good man, and now could play her game of patience with an easy
conscience; her daughter, a rather short, plump, fair young woman of
twenty, with a gentle an?ic face, was reading a book with her elbows
on the table; judging from her eyes she was not so much reading as
thinking her own thoughts, which were not in the book. Neither of them
spoke. There was the sound of the pattering rain, and from the kitchen
they could hear the prolonged yawns of the cook.
Kvashin himself was not at home. On rainy days he did not come to the
summer villa, but stayed in town; damp, rainy weather affected his
bronchitis and prevented him from working. He was of the opinion that
the sight of the grey sky and the tears of rain on the windows deprived
one of energy and induced the spleen. In the town, where there was
greater comfort, bad weather was scarcely noticed.
After two games of patience, the old lady shuffled the cards and took a
glance at her daughter.
"I have been trying with the cards whether it will be fine to-morrow,
and whether our Alexey Stepanovitch will come," she said. "It is five
days since he was here. . . . The weather is a chastisement from God."
Nadyezhda Filippovna looked indifferently at her mother, got up, and
began walking up and down the room.
"The barometer was rising yesterday," she said doubtfully, "but they say
it is falling again to-day."
The old lady laid out the cards in three long rows and shook her head.
"Do you miss him?" she asked, glancing at her daughter.
"Of course."
"I see you do. I should think so. He hasn't been here for five days. In
May the utmost was two, or at most three days, and now it is serious,
five days! I am not his wife, and yet I miss him. And yesterday, when I
heard the barometer was rising, I ordered them to kill a chicken and
prepare a carp for Alexey Stepanovitch. He likes them. Your poor father
couldn't bear fish, but he likes it. He always eats it with relish."
"My heart aches for him," said the daughter. "We are dull, but it is
duller still for him, you know, mamma."
"I should think so! In the law-courts day in and day out, and in the
empty flat at night alone like an owl."
"And what is so awful, mamma, he is alone there without servants; there
is no one to set the samovar or bring him water. Why didn't he engage a
valet for the summer months? And what use is the summer villa at all if
he does not care for it? I told him there was no need to have it, but
no, 'It is for the sake of your health,' he said, and what is wrong with
my health? It makes me ill that he should have to put up with so much on
my account."
Looking over her mother's shoulder, the daughter noticed a mistake in
the patience, bent down to the table and began correcting it. A silence
followed. Both looked at the cards and imagined how their Alexey
Stepanovitch, utterly forlorn, was sitting now in the town in his
gloomy, empty study and working, hungry, exhausted, yearning for his
family. . . .
"Do you know what, mamma?" said Nadyezhda Filippovna suddenly, and her
eyes began to shine. "If the weather is the same to-morrow I'll go by
the first train and see him in town! Anyway, I shall find out how he is,
have a look at him, and pour out his tea."
And both of them began to wonder how it was that this idea, so simple
and easy to carry out, had not occurred to them before. It was only half
an hour in the train to the town, and then twenty minutes in a cab. They
said a little more, and went off to bed in the same room, feeling more
contented.
"Oho-ho-ho. . . . Lord, forgive us sinners!" sighed the old lady when
the clock in the hall struck two. "There is no sleeping."
"You are not asleep, mamma?" the daughter asked in a whisper. "I keep
thinking of Alyosha. I only hope he won't ruin his health in town.
Goodness knows where he dines and lunches. In restaurants and taverns."
"I have thought of that myself," sighed the old lady. "The Heavenly
Mother save and preserve him. But the rain, the rain!"
In the morning the rain was not pattering on the panes, but the sky was
still grey. The trees stood looking mournful, and at every gust of wind
they scattered drops. The footprints on the muddy path, the ditches and
the ruts were full of water. Nadyezhda Filippovna made up her mind to
go.
"Give him my love," said the old lady, wrapping her daughter up. "Tell
him not to think too much about his cases. . . . And he must rest. Let
him wrap his throat up when he goes out: the weather-God help us! And
take him the chicken; food from home, even if cold, is better than at a
restaurant."
The daughter went away, saying that she would come back by an evening
train or else next morning.
But she came back long before dinner-time, when the old lady was sitting
on her trunk in her bedroom and drowsily thinking what to cook for her
son-in-law's supper.
Going into the room her daughter, pale and agitated, sank on the bed
without uttering a word or taking off her hat, and pressed her head into
the pillow.
"But what is the matter," said the old lady in surprise, "why back so
soon? Where is Alexey Stepanovitch?"
Nadyezhda Filippovna raised her head and gazed at her mother with dry,
imploring eyes.
"He is deceiving us, mamma," she said.
"What are you saying? Christ be with you!" cried the old lady in alarm,
and her cap slipped off her head. "Who is going to deceive us? Lord,
have mercy on us!"
"He is deceiving us, mamma!" repeated her daughter, and her chin began
to quiver.
"How do you know?" cried the old lady, turning pale.
"Our flat is locked up. The porter tells me that Alyosha has not been
home once for these five days. He is not living at home! He is not at
home, not at home!"
She waved her hands and burst into loud weeping, uttering nothing but:
"Not at home! Not at home!"
She began to be hysterical.
"What's the meaning of it?" muttered the old woman in horror. "Why, he
wrote the day before yesterday that he never leaves the flat! Where is
he sleeping? Holy Saints!"
Nadyezhda Filippovna felt so faint that she could not take off her hat.
She looked about her blankly, as though she had been drugged, and
convulsively clutched at her mother's arms.
"What a person to trust: a porter!" said the old lady, fussing round her
daughter and crying. "What a jealous girl you are! He is not going to
deceive you, and how dare he? We are not just anybody. Though we are of
the merchant class, yet he has no right, for you are his lawful wife! We
can take proceedings! I gave twenty thousand roubles with you! You did
not want for a dowry!"
And the old lady herself sobbed and gesticulated, and she felt faint,
too, and lay down on her trunk. Neither of them noticed that patches of
blue had made their appearance in the sky, that the clouds were more
transparent, that the first sunbeam was cautiously gliding over the wet
grass in the garden, that with renewed gaiety the sparrows were hopping
about the puddles which reflected the racing clouds.
Towards evening Kvashin arrived. Before leaving town he had gone to his
flat and had learned from the porter that his wife had come in his
absence.
"Here I am," he said gaily, coming into his mother-in-law's room and
pretending not to notice their stern and tear-stained faces. "Here I am!
It's five days since we have seen each other!"
He rapidly kissed his wife's hand and his mother-in-law's, and with the
air of a man delighted at having finished a difficult task, he lolled in
an arm-chair.
"Ough!" he said, puffing out all the air from his lungs. "Here I have
been worried to death. I have scarcely sat down. For almost five days
now I have been, as it were, bivouacking. I haven't been to the flat
once, would you believe it? I have been busy the whole time with the
meeting of Shipunov's and Ivantchikov's creditors; I had to work in
Galdeyev's office at the shop. . . . I've had nothing to eat or to
drink, and slept on a bench, I was chilled through . . . . I hadn't a
free minute. I hadn't even time to go to the flat. That's how I came not
to be at home, Nadyusha. . . And Kvashin, holding his sides as though
his back were aching, glanced stealthily at his wife and mother-in-law
to see the effect of his lie, or as he called it, diplomacy. The mother-
in-law and wife were looking at each other in joyful astonishment, as
though beyond all hope and expectation they had found something
precious, which they had lost. . . . Their faces beamed, their eyes
glowed. . . .
"My dear man," cried the old lady, jumping up, "why am I sitting here?
Tea! Tea at once! Perhaps you are hungry?"
"Of course he is hungry," cried his wife, pulling off her head a bandage
soaked in vinegar. "Mamma, bring the wine, and the savouries. Natalya,
lay the table! Oh, my goodness, nothing is ready!"
And both of them, frightened, happy, and bustling, ran about the room.
The old lady could not look without laughing at her daughter who had
slandered an innocent man, and the daughter felt ashamed. . . .
The table was soon laid. Kvashin, who smelt of madeira and liqueurs and
who could scarcely breathe from repletion, complained of being hungry,
forced himself to munch and kept on talking of the meeting of Shipunov's
and Ivantchikov's creditors, while his wife and mother-in-law could not
take their eyes off his face, and both thought:
"How clever and kind he is! How handsome!"
"All serene," thought Kvashin, as he lay down on the well-filled feather
bed. "Though they are regular tradesmen's wives, though they are
Philistines, yet they have a charm of their own, and one can spend a day
or two of the week here with enjoyment. . . ."
He wrapped himself up, got warm, and as he dozed off, he said to
himself:
"All serene!" A GENTLEMAN FRIEND
THE charming Vanda, or, as she was described in her passport, the
"Honourable Citizen Nastasya Kanavkin," found herself, on leaving the
hospital, in a position she had never been in before: without a home to
go to or a farthing in her pocket. What was she to do?
The first thing she did was to visit a pawn-broker's and pawn her
turquoise ring, her one piece of jewellery. They gave her a rouble for
the ring . . . but what can you get for a rouble? You can't buy for that
sum a fashionable short jacket, nor a big hat, nor a pair of bronze
shoes, and without those things she had a feeling of being, as it were,
undressed. She felt as though the very horses and dogs were staring and
laughing at the plainness of her dress. And clothes were all she thought
about: the question what she should eat and where she should sleep did
not trouble her in the least.
"If only I could meet a gentleman friend," she thought to herself, "I
could get some money. . . . There isn't one who would refuse me, I know.
. ."
But no gentleman she knew came her way. It would be easy enough to meet
them in the evening at the "Renaissance," but they wouldn't let her in
at the "Renaissance" in that shabby dress and with no hat. What was she
to do?
After long hesitation, when she was sick of walking and sitting and
thinking, Vanda made up her mind to fall back on her last resource: to
go straight to the lodgings of some gentleman friend and ask for money.
She pondered which to go to. "Misha is out of the question; he's a
married man. . . . The old chap with the red hair will be at his office
at this time. . ."
Vanda remembered a dentist, called Finkel, a converted Jew, who six
months ago had given her a bracelet, and on whose head she had once
emptied a glass of beer at the supper at the German Club. She was
awfully pleased at the thought of Finkel.
"He'll be sure to give it me, if only I find him at home," she thought,
as she walked in his direction. "If he doesn't, I'll smash all the lamps
in the house."
Before she reached the dentist's door she thought out her plan of
action: she would run laughing up the stairs, dash into the dentist's
room and demand twenty-five roubles. But as she touched the bell, this
plan seemed to vanish from her mind of itself. Vanda began suddenly
feeling frightened and nervous, which was not at all her way. She was
bold and saucy enough at drinking parties, but now, dressed in everyday
clothes, feeling herself in the position of an ordinary person asking a
favour, who might be refused admittance, she felt suddenly timid and
humiliated. She was ashamed and frightened.
"Perhaps he has forgotten me by now," she thought, hardly daring to pull
the bell. "And how can I go up to him in such a dress, looking like a
beggar or some working girl?"
And she rang the bell irresolutely.
She heard steps coming: it was the porter.
"Is the doctor at home?" she asked.
She would have been glad now if the porter had said "No," but the
latter, instead of answering ushered her into the hall, and helped her
off with her coat. The staircase impressed her as luxurious, and
magnificent, but of all its splendours what caught her eye most was an
immense looking-glass, in which she saw a ragged figure without a
fashionable jacket, without a big hat, and without bronze shoes. And it
seemed strange to Vanda that, now that she was humbly dressed and looked
like a laundress or sewing girl, she felt ashamed, and no trace of her
usual boldness and sauciness remained, and in her own mind she no longer
thought of herself as Vanda, but as the Nastasya Kanavkin she used to be
in the old days. . . .
"Walk in, please," said a maidservant, showing her into the consulting-
room. "The doctor will be here in a minute. Sit down."
Vanda sank into a soft arm-chair.
"I'll ask him to lend it me," she thought; "that will be quite proper,
for, after all, I do know him. If only that servant would go. I don't
like to ask before her. What does she want to stand there for?"
Five minutes later the door opened and Finkel came in. He was a tall,
dark Jew, with fat cheeks and bulging eyes. His cheeks, his eyes, his
chest, his body, all of him was so well fed, so loathsome and repellent!
At the "Renaissance" and the German Club he had usually been rather
tipsy, and would spend his money freely on women, and be very long-
suffering and patient with their pranks (when Vanda, for instance,
poured the beer over his head, he simply smiled and shook his finger at
her): now he had a cross, sleepy expression and looked solemn and frigid
like a police captain, and he kept chewing something.
"What can I do for you?" he asked, without looking at Vanda.
Vanda looked at the serious countenance of the maid and the smug figure
of Finkel, who apparently did not recognize her, and she turned red.
"What can I do for you?" repeated the dentist a little irritably.
"I've got toothache," murmured Vanda.
"Aha! . . . Which is the tooth? Where?"
Vanda remembered she had a hole in one of her teeth.
"At the bottom . . . on the right . . ." she said.
"Hm! . . . Open your mouth."
Finkel frowned and, holding his breath, began examining the tooth.
"Does it hurt?" he asked, digging into it with a steel instrument.
"Yes," Vanda replied, untruthfully.
"Shall I remind him?" she was wondering. "He would be sure to remember
me. But that servant! Why will she stand there?"
Finkel suddenly snorted like a steam-engine right into her mouth, and
said:
"I don't advise you to have it stopped. That tooth will never be worth
keeping anyhow."
After probing the tooth a little more and soiling Vanda's lips and gums
with his tobacco-stained fingers, he held his breath again, and put
something cold into her mouth. Vanda suddenly felt a sharp pain, cried
out, and clutched at Finkel's hand.
"It's all right, it's all right," he muttered; "don't you be frightened!
That tooth would have been no use to you, anyway . . . you must be
brave. . ."
And his tobacco-stained fingers, smeared with blood, held up the tooth
to her eyes, while the maid approached and put a basin to her mouth.
"You wash out your mouth with cold water when you get home, and that
will stop the bleeding," said Finkel.
He stood before her with the air of a man expecting her to go, waiting
to be left in peace.
"Good-day," she said, turning towards the door.
"Hm! . . . and how about my fee?" enquired Finkel, in a jesting tone.
"Oh, yes!" Vanda remembered, blushing, and she handed the Jew the rouble
that had been given her for her ring.
When she got out into the street she felt more overwhelmed with shame
than before, but now it was not her poverty she was ashamed of. She was
unconscious now of not having a big hat and a fashionable jacket. She
walked along the street, spitting blood, and brooding on her life, her
ugly, wretched life, and the insults she had endured, and would have to
endure to-morrow, and next week, and all her life, up to the very day of
her death.
"Oh! how awful it is! My God, how fearful!"
Next day, however, she was back at the "Renaissance," and dancing there.
She had on an enormous new red hat, a new fashionable jacket, and bronze
shoes. And she was taken out to supper by a young merchant up from
Kazan. A TRIVIAL INCIDENT
IT was a sunny August midday as, in company with a Russian prince who
had come down in the world, I drove into the immense so-called Shabelsky
pine-forest where we were intending to look for woodcocks. In virtue of
the part he plays in this story my poor prince deserves a detailed
description. He was a tall, dark man, still youngish, though already
somewhat battered by life; with long moustaches like a police captain's;
with prominent black eyes, and with the manners of a retired army man.
He was a man of Oriental type, not very intelligent, but straightforward
and honest, not a bully, not a fop, and not a rake-virtues which, in the
eyes of the general public, are equivalent to a certificate of being a
nonentity and a poor creature. People generally did not like him (he was
never spoken of in the district, except as "the illustrious duffer"). I
personally found the poor prince extremely nice with his misfortunes and
failures, which made up indeed his whole life. First of all he was poor.
He did not play cards, did not drink, had no occupation, did not poke
his nose into anything, and maintained a perpetual silence but yet he
had somehow succeeded in getting through thirty to forty thousand
roubles left him at his father's death. God only knows what had become
of the money. All that I can say is that owing to lack of supervision a
great deal was stolen by stewards, bailiffs, and even footmen; a great
deal went on lending money, giving bail, and standing security. There
were few landowners in the district who did not owe him money. He gave
to all who asked, and not so much from good nature or confidence in
people as from exaggerated gentlemanliness as though he would say: "Take
it and feel how comme il faut I am!" By the time I made his acquaintance
he had got into debt himself, had learned what it was like to have a
second mortgage on his land, and had sunk so deeply into difficulties
that there was no chance of his ever getting out of them again. There
were days when he had no dinner, and went about with an empty cigar-
holder, but he was always seen clean and fashionably dressed, and always
smelt strongly of ylang-ylang.
The prince's second misfortune was his absolute solitariness. He was not
married, he had no friends nor relations. His silent and reserved
character and his comme il faut deportment, which became the more
conspicuous the more anxious he was to conceal his poverty, prevented
him from becoming intimate with people. For love affairs he was too
heavy, spiritless, and cold, and so rarely got on with women. . . .
When we reached the forest this prince and I got out of the chaise and
walked along a narrow woodland path which was hidden among huge ferns.
But before we had gone a hundred paces a tall, lank figure with a long
oval face, wearing a shabby reefer jacket, a straw hat, and patent
leather boots, rose up from behind a young fir-tree some three feet
high, as though he had sprung out of the ground. The stranger held in
one hand a basket of mushrooms, with the other he playfully fingered a
cheap watch-chain on his waistcoat. On seeing us he was taken aback,
smoothed his waistcoat, coughed politely, and gave an agreeable smile,
as though he were delighted to see such nice people as us. Then, to our
complete surprise, he came up to us, scraping with his long feet on the
grass, bending his whole person, and, still smiling agreeably, lifted
his hat and pronounced in a sugary voice with the intonations of a
whining dog:
"Aie, aie . . . gentlemen, painful as it is, it is my duty to warn you
that shooting is forbidden in this wood. Pardon me for venturing to
disturb you, though unacquainted, but . . . allow me to present myself.
I am Grontovsky, the head clerk on Madame Kandurin's estate."
"Pleased to make your acquaintance, but why can't we shoot?"
"Such is the wish of the owner of this forest!"
The prince and I exchanged glances. A moment passed in silence. The
prince stood looking pensively at a big fly agaric at his feet, which he
had crushed with his stick. Grontovsky went on smiling agreeably. His
whole face was twitching, exuding honey, and even the watch-chain on his
waistcoat seemed to be smiling and trying to impress us all with its
refinement. A shade of embarrassment passed over us like an angel
passing; all three of us felt awkward.
"Nonsense!" I said. "Only last week I was shooting here!"
"Very possible!" Grontovsky sniggered through his teeth. "As a matter of
fact everyone shoots here regardless of the prohibition. But once I have
met you, it is my duty . . . my sacred duty to warn you. I am a man in a
dependent position. If the forest were mine, on the word of honour of a
Grontovsky, I should not oppose your agreeable pleasure. But whose fault
is it that I am in a dependent position?"
The lanky individual sighed and shrugged his shoulders. I began arguing,
getting hot and protesting, but the more loudly and impressively I spoke
the more mawkish and sugary Grontovsky's face became. Evidently the
consciousness of a certain power over us afforded him the greatest
gratification. He was enjoying his condescending tone, his politeness,
his manners, and with peculiar relish pronounced his sonorous surname,
of which he was probably very fond. Standing before us he felt more than
at ease, but judging from the confused sideway glances he cast from time
to time at his basket, only one thing was spoiling his satisfaction-the
mushrooms, womanish, peasantish, prose, derogatory to his dignity.
"We can't go back!" I said. "We have come over ten miles!"
"What's to be done?" sighed Grontovsky. "If you had come not ten but a
hundred thousand miles, if the king even had come from America or from
some other distant land, even then I should think it my duty . . .
sacred, so to say, obligation . . ."
"Does the forest belong to Nadyezhda Lvovna?" asked the prince.
"Yes, Nadyezhda Lvovna . . ."
"Is she at home now?"
"Yes . . . I tell you what, you go to her, it is not more than half a
mile from here; if she gives you a note, then I. . . . I needn't say!
Ha-ha . . . he-he-!"
"By all means," I agreed. "It's much nearer than to go back. . . . You
go to her, Sergey Ivanitch," I said, addressing the prince. "You know
her."
The prince, who had been gazing the whole time at the crushed agaric,
raised his eyes to me, thought a minute, and said:
"I used to know her at one time, but . . . it's rather awkward for me to
go to her. Besides, I am in shabby clothes. . . . You go, you don't know
her. . . . It's more suitable for you to go."
I agreed. We got into our chaise and, followed by Grontovsky's smiles,
drove along the edge of the forest to the manor house. I was not
acquainted with Nadyezhda Lvovna Kandurin, née Shabelsky. I had never
seen her at close quarters, and knew her only by hearsay. I knew that
she was incredibly wealthy, richer than anyone else in the province.
After the death of her father, Shabelsky, who was a landowner with no
other children, she was left with several estates, a stud farm, and a
lot of money. I had heard that, though she was only twenty-five or
twenty-six, she was ugly, uninteresting, and as insignificant as
anybody, and was only distinguished from the ordinary ladies of the
district by her immense wealth.