amazed at the wealth and luxury with which Bugrov had surrounded
himself. Velvet hangings, fearfully expensive chairs. . . . One was
positively ashamed to step on the carpet. Groholsky had seen many rich
men in his day, but he had never seen such frenzied luxury. . . . And
the higgledy-piggledy muddle he saw when, with an inexplicable tremor,
he walked into the drawing-room--plates with bits of bread on them were
lying about on the grand piano, a glass was standing on a chair, under
the table there was a basket with a filthy rag in it. . . . Nut shells
were strewn about in the windows. Bugrov himself was not quite in his
usual trim when Groholsky walked in . . . . With a red face and uncombed
locks he was pacing about the room in deshabille, talking to himself,
apparently much agitated. Mishutka was sitting on the sofa there in the
drawing-room, and was making the air vibrate with a piercing scream.
"It's awful, Grigory Vassilyevitch!" Bugrov began on seeing Groholsky,
"such disorder . . . such disorder . . . Please sit down. You must
excuse my being in the costume of Adam and Eve. . . . It's of no
consequence. . . . Horrible disorderliness! I don't understand how
people can exist here, I don't understand it! The servants won't do what
they are told, the climate is horrible, everything is expensive. . . .
Stop your noise," Bugrov shouted, suddenly coming to a halt before
Mishutka; "stop it, I tell you! Little beast, won't you stop it?"
And Bugrov pulled Mishutka's ear.
"That's revolting, Ivan Petrovitch," said Groholsky in a tearful voice.
"How can you treat a tiny child like that? You really are. . ."
"Let him stop yelling then. . . . Be quiet--I'll whip you!"
"Don't cry, Misha darling. . . . Papa won't touch you again. Don't beat
him, Ivan Petrovitch; why, he is hardly more than a baby. . . . There,
there. . . . Would you like a little horse? I'll send you a little
horse. . . . You really are hard-hearted. . . ."
Groholsky paused, and then asked:
"And how are your ladies getting on, Ivan Petrovitch?"
"Not at all. I've turned them out without ceremony. I might have gone on
keeping them, but it's awkward. . . . The boy will grow up . . . . A
father's example. . . . If I were alone, then it would be a different
thing. . . . Besides, what's the use of my keeping them? Poof . . . it's
a regular farce! I talk to them in Russian, and they answer me in
French. They don't understand a thing--you can't knock anything into
their heads."
"I've come to you about something, Ivan Petrovitch, to talk things over.
. . . H'm. . . . It's nothing very particular. But just . . . two or
three words. . . . In reality, I have a favour to ask of you."
"What's that?"
"Would you think it possible, Ivan Petrovitch, to go away? We are
delighted that you are here; it's very agreeable for us, but it's
inconvenient, don't you know. . . . You will understand me. It's awkward
in a way. . . . Such indefinite relations, such continual awkwardness in
regard to one another. . . . We must part. . . . It's essential in fact.
Excuse my saying so, but . . . you must see for yourself, of course,
that in such circumstances to be living side by side leads to . . .
reflections . . . that is . . . not to reflections, but there is a
certain awkward feeling. . . ."
"Yes. . . . That is so, I have thought of it myself. Very good, I will
go away."
"We shall be very grateful to you. . . . Believe me, Ivan Petrovitch, we
shall preserve the most flattering memory of you. The sacrifice which
you. . ."
"Very good. . . . Only what am I to do with all this? I say, you buy
this furniture of mine! What do you say? It's not expensive, eight
thousand . . . ten. . . . The furniture, the carriage, the grand piano.
. . ."
"Very good. . . . I will give you ten thousand. . . ."
"Well, that is capital! I will set off to-morrow. I shall go to Moscow.
It's impossible to live here. Everything is so dear! Awfully dear! The
money fairly flies. . . . You can't take a step without spending a
thousand! I can't go on like that. I have a child to bring up. . . .
Well, thank God that you will buy my furniture. . . . That will be a
little more in hand, or I should have been regularly bankrupt. . . ."
Groholsky got up, took leave of Bugrov, and went home rejoicing. In the
evening he sent him ten thousand roubles.
Early next morning Bugrov and Mishutka were already at Feodosia. III
Several months had passed; spring had come. With spring, fine bright
days had come too. Life was not so dull and hateful, and the earth was
more fair to look upon. . . . There was a warm breeze from the sea and
the open country. . . . The earth was covered with fresh grass, fresh
leaves were green upon the trees. Nature had sprung into new life, and
had put on new array.
It might be thought that new hopes and new desires would surge up in man
when everything in nature is renewed, and young and fresh . . . but it
is hard for man to renew life. . . .
Groholsky was still living in the same villa. His hopes and desires,
small and unexacting, were still concentrated on the same Liza, on her
alone, and on nothing else! As before, he could not take his eyes off
her, and gloated over the thought: how happy I am! The poor fellow
really did feel awfully happy. Liza sat as before on the verandah, and
unaccountably stared with bored eyes at the villa opposite and the trees
near it through which there was a peep at the dark blue sea. . . . As
before, she spent her days for the most part in silence, often in tears
and from time to time in putting mustard plasters on Groholsky. She
might be congratulated on one new sensation, however. There was a worm
gnawing at her vitals. . . . That worm was misery. . . . She was
fearfully miserable, pining for her son, for her old, her cheerful
manner of life. Her life in the past had not been particularly cheerful,
but still it was livelier than her present existence. When she lived
with her husband she used from time to time to go to a theatre, to an
entertainment, to visit acquaintances. But here with Groholsky it was
all quietness and emptiness. . . . Besides, here there was one man, and
he with his ailments and his continual mawkish kisses, was like an old
grandfather for ever shedding tears of joy.
It was boring! Here she had not Mihey Sergeyitch who used to be fond of
dancing the mazurka with her. She had not Spiridon Nikolaitch, the son
of the editor of the Provincial News. Spiridon Nikolaitch sang well and
recited poetry. Here she had not a table set with lunch for visitors.
She had not Gerasimovna, the old nurse who used to be continually
grumbling at her for eating too much jam. . . . She had no one! There
was simply nothing for her but to lie down and die of depression.
Groholsky rejoiced in his solitude, but . . . he was wrong to rejoice in
it. All too soon he paid for his egoism. At the beginning of May when
the very air seemed to be in love and faint with happiness, Groholsky
lost everything; the woman he loved and. . .
That year Bugrov, too, visited the Crimea. He did not take the villa
opposite, but pottered about, going from one town to another with
Mishutka. He spent his time eating, drinking, sleeping, and playing
cards. He had lost all relish for fishing, shooting and the French
women, who, between ourselves, had robbed him a bit. He had grown thin,
lost his broad and beaming smiles, and had taken to dressing in canvas.
Ivan Petrovitch from time to time visited Groholsky's villa. He brought
Liza jam, sweets, and fruit, and seemed trying to dispel her ennui.
Groholsky was not troubled by these visits, especially as they were
brief and infrequent, and were apparently paid on account of Mishutka,
who could not under any circumstances have been altogether deprived of
the privilege of seeing his mother. Bugrov came, unpacked his presents,
and after saying a few words, departed. And those few words he said not
to Liza but to Groholsky . . . . With Liza he was silent and Groholsky's
mind was at rest; but there is a Russian proverb which he would have
done well to remember: "Don't fear the dog that barks, but fear the dog
that's quiet. . . ." A fiendish proverb, but in practical life sometimes
indispensable.
As he was walking in the garden one day, Groholsky heard two voices in
conversation. One voice was a man's, the other was a woman's. One
belonged to Bugrov, the other to Liza. Groholsky listened, and turning
white as death, turned softly towards the speakers. He halted behind a
lilac bush, and proceeded to watch and listen. His arms and legs turned
cold. A cold sweat came out upon his brow. He clutched several branches
of the lilac that he might not stagger and fall down. All was over!
Bugrov had his arm round Liza's waist, and was saying to her:
"My darling! what are we to do? It seems it was God's will. . . . I am a
scoundrel. . . . I sold you. I was seduced by that Herod's money, plague
take him, and what good have I had from the money? Nothing but anxiety
and display! No peace, no happiness, no position . . . . One sits like a
fat invalid at the same spot, and never a step forwarder. . . . Have you
heard that Andrushka Markuzin has been made a head clerk? Andrushka,
that fool! While I stagnate. . . . Good heavens! I have lost you, I have
lost my happiness. I am a scoundrel, a blackguard, how do you think I
shall feel at the dread day of judgment?"
"Let us go away, Vanya," wailed Liza. "I am dull. . . . I am dying of
depression."
"We cannot, the money has been taken. . . ."
"Well, give it back again."
"I should be glad to, but . . . wait a minute. I have spent it all. We
must submit, my girl. God is chastising us. Me for my covetousness and
you for your frivolity. Well, let us be tortured. . . . It will be the
better for us in the next world."
And in an access of religious feeling, Bugrov turned up his eyes to
heaven.
"But I cannot go on living here; I am miserable."
"Well, there is no help for it. I'm miserable too. Do you suppose I am
happy without you? I am pining and wasting away! And my chest has begun
to be bad! . . . You are my lawful wife, flesh of my flesh . . . one
flesh. . . . You must live and bear it! While I . . . will drive over .
. . visit you."
And bending down to Liza, Bugrov whispered, loudly enough, however, to
be heard several yards away:
"I will come to you at night, Lizanka. . . . Don't worry. . . . I am
staying at Feodosia close by. . . . I will live here near you till I
have run through everything . . . and I soon shall be at my last
farthing! A-a-ah, what a life it is! Dreariness, ill . . . my chest is
bad, and my stomach is bad."
Bugrov ceased speaking, and then it was Liza's turn. . . . My God, the
cruelty of that woman! She began weeping, complaining, enumerating all
the defects of her lover and her own sufferings. Groholsky as he
listened to her, felt that he was a villain, a miscreant, a murderer.
"He makes me miserable. . . ." Liza said in conclusion.
After kissing Liza at parting, and going out at the garden gate, Bugrov
came upon Groholsky, who was standing at the gate waiting for him.
"Ivan Petrovitch," said Groholsky in the tone of a dying man, "I have
seen and heard it all. . . It's not honourable on your part, but I do
not blame you. . . . You love her too, but you must understand that she
is mine. Mine! I cannot live without her! How is it you don't understand
that? Granted that you love her, that you are miserable. . . . Have I
not paid you, in part at least, for your sufferings? For God's sake, go
away! For God's sake, go away! Go away from here for ever, I implore
you, or you will kill me. . . ."
"I have nowhere to go," Bugrov said thickly.
"H'm, you have squandered everything. . . . You are an impulsive man.
Very well. . . . Go to my estate in the province of Tchernigov. If you
like I will make you a present of the property. It's a small estate, but
a good one. . . . On my honour, it's a good one!"
Bugrov gave a broad grin. He suddenly felt himself in the seventh
heaven.
"I will give it you. . . . This very day I will write to my steward and
send him an authorisation for completing the purchase. You must tell
everyone you have bought it. . . . Go away, I entreat you."
"Very good, I will go. I understand."
"Let us go to a notary . . . at once," said Groholsky, greatly cheered,
and he went to order the carriage.
On the following evening, when Liza was sitting on the garden seat where
her rendezvous with Ivan Petrovitch usually took place, Groholsky went
quietly to her. He sat down beside her, and took her hand.
"Are you dull, Lizotchka?" he said, after a brief silence. "Are you
depressed? Why shouldn't we go away somewhere? Why is it we always stay
at home? We want to go about, to enjoy ourselves, to make acquaintances.
. . . Don't we?"
"I want nothing," said Liza, and turned her pale, thin face towards the
path by which Bugrov used to come to her.
Groholsky pondered. He knew who it was she expected, who it was she
wanted.
"Let us go home, Liza," he said, "it is damp here. . . ."
"You go; I'll come directly."
Groholsky pondered again.
"You are expecting him?" he asked, and made a wry face as though his
heart had been gripped with red-hot pincers.
"Yes. . . . I want to give him the socks for Misha. . . ."
"He will not come."
"How do you know?"
"He has gone away. . . ."
Liza opened her eyes wide. . . .
"He has gone away, gone to the Tchernigov province. I have given him my
estate. . . ."
Liza turned fearfully pale, and caught at Groholsky's shoulder to save
herself from falling.
"I saw him off at the steamer at three o'clock."
Liza suddenly clutched at her head, made a movement, and falling on the
seat, began shaking all over.
"Vanya," she wailed, "Vanya! I will go to Vanya. . . . Darling!"
She had a fit of hysterics. . . .
And from that evening, right up to July, two shadows could be seen in
the park in which the summer visitors took their walks. The shadows
wandered about from morning till evening, and made the summer visitors
feel dismal. . . . After Liza's shadow invariably walked the shadow of
Groholsky. . . . I call them shadows because they had both lost their
natural appearance. They had grown thin and pale and shrunken, and
looked more like shadows than living people. . . . Both were pining away
like fleas in the classic anecdote of the Jew who sold insect powder.
At the beginning of July, Liza ran away from Groholsky, leaving a note
in which she wrote that she was going for a time to "her son" . . . For
a time! She ran away by night when Groholsky was asleep . . . . After
reading her letter Groholsky spent a whole week wandering round about
the villa as though he were mad, and neither ate nor slept. In August,
he had an attack of recurrent fever, and in September he went abroad.
There he took to drink. . . . He hoped in drink and dissipation to find
comfort. . . . He squandered all his fortune, but did not succeed, poor
fellow, in driving out of his brain the image of the beloved woman with
the kittenish face . . . . Men do not die of happiness, nor do they die
of misery. Groholsky's hair went grey, but he did not die: he is alive
to this day. . . . He came back from abroad to have "just a peep" at
Liza . . . . Bugrov met him with open arms, and made him stay for an
indefinite period. He is staying with Bugrov to this day.
This year I happened to be passing through Groholyovka, Bugrov's estate.
I found the master and the mistress of the house having supper. . . .
Ivan Petrovitch was highly delighted to see me, and fell to pressing
good things upon me. . . . He had grown rather stout, and his face was a
trifle puffy, though it was still rosy and looked sleek and well-
nourished. . . . He was not bald. Liza, too, had grown fatter. Plumpness
did not suit her. Her face was beginning to lose the kittenish look, and
was, alas! more suggestive of the seal. Her cheeks were spreading
upwards, outwards, and to both sides. The Bugrovs were living in first-
rate style. They had plenty of everything. The house was overflowing
with servants and edibles. . . .
When we had finished supper we got into conversation. Forgetting that
Liza did not play, I asked her to play us something on the piano.
"She does not play," said Bugrov; "she is no musician. . . . Hey, you
there! Ivan! call Grigory Vassilyevitch here! What's he doing there?"
And turning to me, Bugrov added, "Our musician will come directly; he
plays the guitar. We keep the piano for Mishutka--we are having him
taught. . . ."
Five minutes later, Groholsky walked into the room--sleepy, unkempt, and
unshaven. . . . He walked in, bowed to me, and sat down on one side.
"Why, whoever goes to bed so early?" said Bugrov, addressing him. "What
a fellow you are really! He's always asleep, always asleep . . . The
sleepy head! Come, play us something lively. . . ."
Groholsky turned the guitar, touched the strings, and began singing:
"Yesterday I waited for my dear one. . . ."
I listened to the singing, looked at Bugrov's well-fed countenance, and
thought: "Nasty brute!" I felt like crying. . . . When he had finished
singing, Groholsky bowed to us, and went out.
"And what am I to do with him?" Bugrov said when he had gone away. "I do
have trouble with him! In the day he is always brooding and brooding. .
. . And at night he moans. . . . He sleeps, but he sighs and moans in
his sleep. . . . It is a sort of illness. . . . What am I to do with
him, I can't think! He won't let us sleep. . . . I am afraid that he
will go out of his mind. People think he is badly treated here. . . . In
what way is he badly treated? He eats with us, and he drinks with us. .
. . Only we won't give him money. If we were to give him any he would
spend it on drink or waste it . . . . That's another trouble for me!
Lord forgive me, a sinner!"
They made me stay the night. When I woke next morning, Bugrov was giving
some one a lecture in the adjoining room. . . .
"Set a fool to say his prayers, and he will crack his skull on the
floor! Why, who paints oars green! Do think, blockhead! Use your sense!
Why don't you speak?"
"I . . . I . . . made a mistake," said a husky tenor apologetically.
The tenor belonged to Groholsky.
Groholsky saw me to the station.
"He is a despot, a tyrant," he kept whispering to me all the way. "He is
a generous man, but a tyrant! Neither heart nor brain are developed in
him. . . . He tortures me! If it were not for that noble woman, I should
have gone away long ago. I am sorry to leave her. It's somehow easier to
endure together."
Groholsky heaved a sigh, and went on:
"She is with child. . . . You notice it? It is really my child. . . .
Mine. . . . She soon saw her mistake, and gave herself to me again. She
cannot endure him. . . ."
"You are a rag," I could not refrain from saying to Groholsky.
"Yes, I am a man of weak character. . . . That is quite true. I was born
so. Do you know how I came into the world? My late papa cruelly
oppressed a certain little clerk--it was awful how he treated him! He
poisoned his life. Well . . . and my late mama was tender-hearted. She
came from the people, she was of the working class. . . . She took that
little clerk to her heart from pity. . . . Well . . . and so I came into
the world. . . . The son of the ill-treated clerk. How could I have a
strong will? Where was I to get it from? But that's the second bell. . .
. Good-bye. Come and see us again, but don't tell Ivan Petrovitch what I
have said about him."
I pressed Groholsky's hand, and got into the train. He bowed towards the
carriage, and went to the water-barrel--I suppose he was thirsty!
THE DOCTOR
IT was still in the drawing-room, so still that a house-fly that had
flown in from outside could be distinctly heard brushing against the
ceiling. Olga Ivanovna, the lady of the villa, was standing by the
window, looking out at the flower-beds and thinking. Dr. Tsvyetkov, who
was her doctor as well as an old friend, and had been sent for to treat
her son Misha, was sitting in an easy chair and swinging his hat, which
he held in both hands, and he too was thinking. Except them, there was
not a soul in the drawing-room or in the adjoining rooms. The sun had
set, and the shades of evening began settling in the corners under the
furniture and on the cornices.
The silence was broken by Olga Ivanovna.
"No misfortune more terrible can be imagined," she said, without turning
from the window. "You know that life has no value for me whatever apart
from the boy."
"Yes, I know that," said the doctor.
"No value whatever," said Olga Ivanovna, and her voice quivered. "He is
everything to me. He is my joy, my happiness, my wealth. And if, as you
say, I cease to be a mother, if he . . . dies, there will be nothing
left of me but a shadow. I cannot survive it."
Wringing her hands, Olga Ivanovna walked from one window to the other
and went on:
"When he was born, I wanted to send him away to the Foundling Hospital,
you remember that, but, my God, how can that time be compared with now?
Then I was vulgar, stupid, feather-headed, but now I am a mother, do you
understand? I am a mother, and that's all I care to know. Between the
present and the past there is an impassable gulf."
Silence followed again. The doctor shifted his seat from the chair to
the sofa and impatiently playing with his hat, kept his eyes fixed upon
Olga Ivanovna. From his face it could be seen that he wanted to speak,
and was waiting for a fitting moment.
"You are silent, but still I do not give up hope," said the lady,
turning round. "Why are you silent?"
"I should be as glad of any hope as you, Olga, but there is none,"
Tsvyetkov answered, "we must look the hideous truth in the face. The boy
has a tumour on the brain, and we must try to prepare ourselves for his
death, for such cases never recover."
"Nikolay, are you certain you are not mistaken?"
"Such questions lead to nothing. I am ready to answer as many as you
like, but it will make it no better for us."
Olga Ivanovna pressed her face into the window curtains, and began
weeping bitterly. The doctor got up and walked several times up and down
the drawing-room, then went to the weeping woman, and lightly touched
her arm. Judging from his uncertain movements, from the expression of
his gloomy face, which looked dark in the dusk of the evening, he wanted
to say something.
"Listen, Olga," he began. "Spare me a minute's attention; there is
something I must ask you. You can't attend to me now, though. I'll come
later, afterwards. . . ." He sat down again, and sank into thought. The
bitter, imploring weeping, like the weeping of a little girl, continued.
Without waiting for it to end, Tsvyetkov heaved a sigh and walked out of
the drawing-room. He went into the nursery to Misha. The boy was lying
on his back as before, staring at one point as though he were listening.
The doctor sat down on his bed and felt his pulse.
"Misha, does your head ache?" he asked.
Misha answered, not at once: "Yes. I keep dreaming."
"What do you dream?"
"All sorts of things. . . ."
The doctor, who did not know how to talk with weeping women or with
children, stroked his burning head, and muttered:
"Never mind, poor boy, never mind. . . . One can't go through life
without illness. . . . Misha, who am I--do you know me?"
Misha did not answer.
"Does your head ache very badly?"
"Ve-ery. I keep dreaming."
After examining him and putting a few questions to the maid who was
looking after the sick child, the doctor went slowly back to the
drawing-room. There it was by now dark, and Olga Ivanovna, standing by
the window, looked like a silhouette.
"Shall I light up?" asked Tsvyetkov.
No answer followed. The house-fly was still brushing against the
ceiling. Not a sound floated in from outside as though the whole world,
like the doctor, were thinking, and could not bring itself to speak.
Olga Ivanovna was not weeping now, but as before, staring at the flower-
bed in profound silence. When Tsvyetkov went up to her, and through the
twilight glanced at her pale face, exhausted with grief, her expression
was such as he had seen before during her attacks of acute, stupefying,
sick headache.
"Nikolay Trofimitch!" she addressed him, "and what do you think about a
consultation?"
"Very good; I'll arrange it to-morrow."
From the doctor's tone it could be easily seen that he put little faith
in the benefit of a consultation. Olga Ivanovna would have asked him
something else, but her sobs prevented her. Again she pressed her face
into the window curtain. At that moment, the strains of a band playing
at the club floated in distinctly. They could hear not only the wind
instruments, but even the violins and the flutes.
"If he is in pain, why is he silent?" asked Olga Ivanovna. "All day
long, not a sound, he never complains, and never cries. I know God will
take the poor boy from us because we have not known how to prize him.
Such a treasure!"
The band finished the march, and a minute later began playing a lively
waltz for the opening of the ball.
"Good God, can nothing really be done?" moaned Olga Ivanovna. "Nikolay,
you are a doctor and ought to know what to do! You must understand that
I can't bear the loss of him! I can't survive it."