his dark eyes. "You will fall in love and suffer. You will fall out of
love; you'll be deceived, for there is no woman who will not deceive;
you will suffer, will be brought to despair, and will be faithless too.
But the time will come when all this will be a memory, and when you will
reason about it coldly and look upon it as utterly trivial. . . ."
Laptev, tired, a little drunk, looked at his handsome head, his clipped
black beard, and seemed to understand why women so loved this pampered,
conceited, and physically handsome creature.
After supper Panaurov did not stay in the house, but went off to his
other lodgings. Laptev went out to see him on his way. Panaurov was the
only man in the town who wore a top-hat, and his elegant, dandified
figure, his top-hat and tan gloves, beside the grey fences, the pitiful
little houses, with their three windows and the thickets of nettles,
always made a strange and mournful impression.
After saying good-bye to him Laptev returned home without hurrying. The
moon was shining brightly; one could distinguish every straw on the
ground, and Laptev felt as though the moonlight were caressing his bare
head, as though some one were passing a feather over his hair.
"I love!" he pronounced aloud, and he had a sudden longing to run to
overtake Panaurov, to embrace him, to forgive him, to make him a present
of a lot of money, and then to run off into the open country, into a
wood, to run on and on without looking back.
At home he saw lying on the chair the parasol Yulia Sergeyevna had
forgotten; he snatched it up and kissed it greedily. The parasol was a
silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic. The handle was a
cheap one, of white bone. Laptev opened it over him, and he felt as
though there were the fragrance of happiness about him.
He settled himself more comfortably in his chair, and still keeping hold
of the parasol, began writing to Moscow to one of his friends:
"DEAR PRECIOUS KOSTYA,
"Here is news for you: I'm in love again! I say _again_, because six
years ago I fell in love with a Moscow actress, though I didn't even
succeed in making her acquaintance, and for the last year and a half I
have been living with a certain person you know--a woman neither young
nor good-looking. Ah, my dear boy, how unlucky I am in love. I've never
had any success with women, and if I say _again_ it's simply because
it's rather sad and mortifying to acknowledge even to myself that my
youth has passed entirely without love, and that I'm in love in a real
sense now for the first time in my life, at thirty-four. Let it stand
that I love _again_.
"If only you knew what a girl she was! She couldn't be called a beauty--
she has a broad face, she is very thin, but what a wonderful expression
of goodness she has when she smiles! When she speaks, her voice is as
clear as a bell. She never carries on a conversation with me--I don't
know her; but when I'm beside her I feel she's a striking, exceptional
creature, full of intelligence and lofty aspirations. She is religious,
and you cannot imagine how deeply this touches me and exalts her in my
eyes. On that point I am ready to argue with you endlessly. You may be
right, to your thinking; but, still, I love to see her praying in
church. She is a provincial, but she was educated in Moscow. She loves
our Moscow; she dresses in the Moscow style, and I love her for that--
love her, love her . . . . I see you frowning and getting up to read me
a long lecture on what love is, and what sort of woman one can love, and
what sort one cannot, and so on, and so on. But, dear Kostya, before I
was in love I, too, knew quite well what love was.
"My sister thanks you for your message. She often recalls how she used
to take Kostya Kotchevoy to the preparatory class, and never speaks of
you except as _poor Kostya_, as she still thinks of you as the little
orphan boy she remembers. And so, poor orphan, I'm in love. While it's a
secret, don't say anything to a 'certain person.' I think it will all
come right of itself, or, as the footman says in Tolstoy, will 'come
round.'"
When he had finished his letter Laptev went to bed. He was so tired that
he couldn't keep his eyes open, but for some reason he could not get to
sleep; the noise in the street seemed to prevent him. The cattle were
driven by to the blowing of a horn, and soon afterwards the bells began
ringing for early mass. At one minute a cart drove by creaking; at the
next, he heard the voice of some woman going to market. And the sparrows
twittered the whole time.
II
The next morning was a cheerful one; it was a holiday. At ten o'clock
Nina Fyodorovna, wearing a brown dress and with her hair neatly
arranged, was led into the drawing-room, supported on each side. There
she walked about a little and stood by the open window, and her smile
was broad and naïve, and, looking at her, one recalled a local artist,
a great drunkard, who wanted her to sit to him for a picture of the
Russian carnival. And all of them--the children, the servants, her
brother, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and she herself-- were suddenly convinced,
that she was certainly going to get well. With shrieks of laughter the
children ran after their uncle, chasing him and catching him, and
filling the house with noise.
People called to ask how she was, brought her holy bread, told her that
in almost all the churches they were offering up prayers for her that
day. She had been conspicuous for her benevolence in the town, and was
liked. She was very ready with her charity, like her brother Alexey, who
gave away his money freely, without considering whether it was necessary
to give it or not. Nina Fyodorovna used to pay the school fees for poor
children; used to give away tea, sugar, and jam to old women; used to
provide trousseaux for poor brides; and if she picked up a newspaper,
she always looked first of all to see if there were any appeals for
charity or a paragraph about somebody's being in a destitute condition.
She was holding now in her hand a bundle of notes, by means of which
various poor people, her protégés, had procured goods from a grocer's
shop.
They had been sent her the evening before by the shopkeeper with a
request for the payment of the total--eighty-two roubles.
"My goodness, what a lot they've had! They've no conscience!" she said,
deciphering with difficulty her ugly handwriting. "It's no joke! Eighty-
two roubles! I declare I won't pay it."
"I'll pay it to-day," said Laptev.
"Why should you? Why should you?" cried Nina Fyodorovna in agitation.
"It's quite enough for me to take two hundred and fifty every month from
you and our brother. God bless you!" she added, speaking softly, so as
not to be overheard by the servants.
"Well, but I spend two thousand five hundred a month," he said. "I tell
you again, dear: you have just as much right to spend it as I or Fyodor.
Do understand that, once for all. There are three of us, and of every
three kopecks of our father's money, one belongs to you."
But Nina Fyodorovna did not understand, and her expression looked as
though she were mentally solving some very difficult problem. And this
lack of comprehension in pecuniary matters, always made Laptev feel
uneasy and troubled. He suspected that she had private debts in addition
which worried her and of which she scrupled to tell him.
Then came the sound of footsteps and heavy breathing; it was the doctor
coming up the stairs, dishevelled and unkempt as usual.
"Ru-ru-ru," he was humming. "Ru-ru."
To avoid meeting him, Laptev went into the dining-room, and then went
downstairs to his own room. It was clear to him that to get on with the
doctor and to drop in at his house without formalities was impossible;
and to meet the "old brute," as Panaurov called him, was distasteful.
That was why he so rarely saw Yulia. He reflected now that the father
was not at home, that if he were to take Yulia Sergeyevna her parasol,
he would be sure to find her at home alone, and his heart ached with
joy. Haste, haste!
He took the parasol and, violently agitated, flew on the wings of love.
It was hot in the street. In the big courtyard of the doctor's house,
overgrown with coarse grass and nettles, some twenty urchins were
playing ball. These were all the children of working-class families who
tenanted the three disreputable-looking lodges, which the doctor was
always meaning to have done up, though he put it off from year to year.
The yard resounded with ringing, healthy voices. At some distance on one
side, Yulia Sergeyevna was standing at her porch, her hands folded,
watching the game.
"Good-morning!" Laptev called to her.
She looked round. Usually he saw her indifferent, cold, or tired as she
had been the evening before. Now her face looked full of life and
frolic, like the faces of the boys who were playing ball.
"Look, they never play so merrily in Moscow," she said, going to meet
him. "There are no such big yards there, though; they've no place to run
there. Papa has only just gone to you," she added, looking round at the
children.
"I know; but I've not come to see him, but to see you," said Laptev,
admiring her youthfulness, which he had not noticed till then, and
seemed only that day to have discovered in her; it seemed to him as
though he were seeing her slender white neck with the gold chain for the
first time. "I've come to see you . . ." he repeated. "My sister has
sent you your parasol; you forgot it yesterday."
She put out her hand to take the parasol, but he pressed it to his bosom
and spoke passionately, without restraint, yielding again to the sweet
ecstasy he had felt the night before, sitting under the parasol.
"I entreat you, give it me. I shall keep it in memory of you . . . of
our acquaintance. It's so wonderful!"
"Take it," she said, and blushed; "but there's nothing wonderful about
it."
He looked at her in ecstasy, in silence, not knowing what to say.
"Why am I keeping you here in the heat?" she said after a brief pause,
laughing. "Let us go indoors."
"I am not disturbing you?"
They went into the hall. Yulia Sergeyevna ran upstairs, her white dress
with blue flowers on it rustling as she went.
"I can't be disturbed," she answered, stopping on the landing. "I never
do anything. Every day is a holiday for me, from morning till night."
"What you say is inconceivable to me," he said, going up to her. "I grew
up in a world in which every one without exception, men and women alike,
worked hard every day."
"But if one has nothing to do?" she asked.
"One has to arrange one's life under such conditions, that work is
inevitable. There can be no clean and happy life without work."
Again he pressed the parasol to his bosom, and to his own surprise spoke
softly, in a voice unlike his own:
"If you would consent to be my wife I would give everything--I would
give everything. There's no price I would not pay, no sacrifice I would
not make."
She started and looked at him with wonder and alarm.
"What are you saying!" she brought out, turning pale. "It's impossible,
I assure you. Forgive me."
Then with the same rustle of her skirts she went up higher, and vanished
through the doorway.
Laptev grasped what this meant, and his mood was transformed,
completely, abruptly, as though a light in his soul had suddenly been
extinguished. Filled with the shame of a man humiliated, of a man who is
disdained, who is not liked, who is distasteful, perhaps disgusting, who
is shunned, he walked out of the house.
"I would give everything," he thought, mimicking himself as he went home
through the heat and recalled the details of his declaration. "I would
give everything--like a regular tradesman. As though she wanted your
_everything_!"
All he had just said seemed to him repulsively stupid. Why had he lied,
saying that he had grown up in a world where every one worked, without
exception? Why had he talked to her in a lecturing tone about a clean
and happy life? It was not clever, not interesting; it was false--false
in the Moscow style. But by degrees there followed that mood of
indifference into which criminals sink after a severe sentence. He began
thinking that, thank God! everything was at an end and that the terrible
uncertainty was over; that now there was no need to spend whole days in
anticipation, in pining, in thinking always of the same thing. Now
everything was clear; he must give up all hope of personal happiness,
live without desires, without hopes, without dreams, or expectations,
and to escape that dreary sadness which he was so sick of trying to
soothe, he could busy himself with other people's affairs, other
people's happiness, and old age would come on imperceptibly, and life
would reach its end--and nothing more was wanted. He did not care, he
wished for nothing, and could reason about it coolly, but there was a
sort of heaviness in his face especially under his eyes, his forehead
felt drawn tight like elastic--and tears were almost starting into his
eyes. Feeling weak all over, he lay down on his bed, and in five minutes
was sound asleep.
III
The proposal Laptev had made so suddenly threw Yulia Sergeyevna into
despair.
She knew Laptev very little, had made his acquaintance by chance; he was
a rich man, a partner in the well-known Moscow firm of "Fyodor Laptev
and Sons"; always serious, apparently clever, and anxious about his
sister's illness. It had seemed to her that he took no notice of her
whatever, and she did not care about him in the least --and then all of
a sudden that declaration on the stairs, that pitiful, ecstatic face. .
. .
The offer had overwhelmed her by its suddenness and by the fact that the
word wife had been uttered, and by the necessity of rejecting it. She
could not remember what she had said to Laptev, but she still felt
traces of the sudden, unpleasant feeling with which she had rejected
him. He did not attract her; he looked like a shopman; he was not
interesting; she could not have answered him except with a refusal, and
yet she felt uncomfortable, as though she had done wrong.
"My God! without waiting to get into the room, on the stairs," she said
to herself in despair, addressing the ikon which hung over her pillow;
"and no courting beforehand, but so strangely, so oddly. . . ."
In her solitude her agitation grew more intense every hour, and it was
beyond her strength to master this oppressive feeling alone. She needed
some one to listen to her story and to tell her that she had done right.
But she had no one to talk to. She had lost her mother long before; she
thought her father a queer man, and could not talk to him seriously. He
worried her with his whims, his extreme readiness to take offence, and
his meaningless gestures; and as soon as one began to talk to him, he
promptly turned the conversation on himself. And in her prayer she was
not perfectly open, because she did not know for certain what she ought
to pray for.
The samovar was brought in. Yulia Sergeyevna, very pale and tired,
looking dejected, came into the dining-room to make tea--it was one of
her duties--and poured out a glass for her father. Sergey Borisovitch,
in his long coat that reached below his knees, with his red face and
unkempt hair, walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets,
pacing, not from corner to corner, but backwards and forwards at random,
like a wild beast in its cage. He would stand still by the table, sip
his glass of tea with relish, and pace about again, lost in thought.
"Laptev made me an offer to-day," said Yulia Sergeyevna, and she flushed
crimson.
The doctor looked at her and did not seem to understand.
"Laptev?" he queried. "Panaurov's brother-in-law?"
He was fond of his daughter; it was most likely that she would sooner or
later be married, and leave him, but he tried not to think about that.
He was afraid of being alone, and for some reason fancied, that if he
were left alone in that great house, he would have an apoplectic stroke,
but he did not like to speak of this directly.
"Well, I'm delighted to hear it," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I
congratulate you with all my heart. It offers you a splendid opportunity
for leaving me, to your great satisfaction. And I quite understand your
feelings. To live with an old father, an invalid, half crazy, must be
very irksome at your age. I quite understand you. And the sooner I'm
laid out and in the devil's clutches, the better every one will be
pleased. I congratulate you with all my heart."
"I refused him."
The doctor felt relieved, but he was unable to stop himself and went on:
"I wonder, I've long wondered, why I've not yet been put into a
madhouse--why I'm still wearing this coat instead of a strait-waistcoat?
I still have faith in justice, in goodness. I am a fool, an idealist,
and nowadays that's insanity, isn't it? And how do they repay me for my
honesty? They almost throw stones at me and ride rough-shod over me. And
even my nearest kith and kin do nothing but try to get the better of me.
It's high time the devil fetched an old fool like me. . . ."
"There's no talking to you like a rational being!" said Yulia.
She got up from the table impulsively, and went to her room in great
wrath, remembering how often her father had been unjust to her. But a
little while afterwards she felt sorry for her father, too, and when he
was going to the club she went downstairs with him, and shut the door
after him. It was a rough and stormy night; the door shook with the
violence of the wind, and there were draughts in all directions in the
passage, so that the candle was almost blown out. In her own domain
upstairs Yulia Sergeyevna went the round of all the rooms, making the
sign of the cross over every door and window; the wind howled, and it
sounded as though some one were walking on the roof. Never had it been
so dreary, never had she felt so lonely.
She asked herself whether she had done right in rejecting a man, simply
because his appearance did not attract her. It was true he was a man she
did not love, and to marry him would mean renouncing forever her dreams,
her conceptions of happiness in married life, but would she ever meet
the man of whom she dreamed, and would he love her? She was twenty-one
already. There were no eligible young men in the town. She pictured all
the men she knew--government clerks, schoolmasters, officers, and some
of them were married already, and their domestic life was conspicuous
for its dreariness and triviality; others were uninteresting,
colourless, unintelligent, immoral. Laptev was, anyway, a Moscow man,
had taken his degree at the university, spoke French. He lived in the
capital, where there were lots of clever, noble, remarkable people;
where there was noise and bustle, splendid theatres, musical evenings,
first-rate dressmakers, confectioners. . . . In the Bible it was written
that a wife must love her husband, and great importance was given to
love in novels, but wasn't there exaggeration in it? Was it out of the
question to enter upon married life without love? It was said, of
course, that love soon passed away, and that nothing was left but habit,
and that the object of married life was not to be found in love, nor in
happiness, but in duties, such as the bringing up of one's children, the
care of one's household, and so on. And perhaps what was meant in the
Bible was love for one's husband as one's neighbour, respect for him,
charity.
At night Yulia Sergeyevna read the evening prayers attentively, then
knelt down, and pressing her hands to her bosom, gazing at the flame of
the lamp before the ikon, said with feeling:
"Give me understanding, Holy Mother, our Defender! Give me
understanding, O Lord!"
She had in the course of her life come across elderly maiden ladies,
poor and of no consequence in the world, who bitterly repented and
openly confessed their regret that they had refused suitors in the past.
Would not the same thing happen to her? Had not she better go into a
convent or become a Sister of Mercy?
She undressed and got into bed, crossing herself and crossing the air
around her. Suddenly the bell rang sharply and plaintively in the
corridor.
"Oh, my God!" she said, feeling a nervous irritation all over her at the
sound. She lay still and kept thinking how poor this provincial life was
in events, monotonous and yet not peaceful. One was constantly having to
tremble, to feel apprehensive, angry or guilty, and in the end one's
nerves were so strained, that one was afraid to peep out of the
bedclothes.
A little while afterwards the bell rang just as sharply again. The
servant must have been asleep and had not heard. Yulia Sergeyevna
lighted a candle, and feeling vexed with the servant, began with a
shiver to dress, and when she went out into the corridor, the maid was
already closing the door downstairs.
"I thought it was the master, but it's some one from a patient," she
said.
Yulia Sergeyevna went back to her room. She took a pack of cards out of
the chest of drawers, and decided that if after shuffling the cards well
and cutting, the bottom card turned out to be a red one, it would mean
_yes_--that is, she would accept Laptev's offer; and that if it was a
black, it would mean _no_. The card turned out to be the ten of spades.
That relieved her mind--she fell asleep; but in the morning, she was
wavering again between _yes_ and _no_, and she was dwelling on the
thought that she could, if she chose, change her life. The thought
harassed her, she felt exhausted and unwell; but yet, soon after eleven,
she dressed and went to see Nina Fyodorovna. She wanted to see Laptev:
perhaps now he would seem more attractive to her; perhaps she had been
wrong about him hitherto. . . .
She found it hard to walk against the wind. She struggled along, holding
her hat on with both hands, and could see nothing for the dust.
IV
Going into his sister's room, and seeing to his surprise Yulia
Sergeyevna, Laptev had again the humiliating sensation of a man who
feels himself an object of repulsion. He concluded that if after what
had happened yesterday she could bring herself so easily to visit his
sister and meet him, it must be because she was not concerned about him,
and regarded him as a complete nonentity. But when he greeted her, and
with a pale face and dust under her eyes she looked at him mournfully
and remorsefully, he saw that she, too, was miserable.
She did not feel well. She only stayed ten minutes, and began saying
good-bye. And as she went out she said to Laptev:
"Will you see me home, Alexey Fyodorovitch?"
They walked along the street in silence, holding their hats, and he,
walking a little behind, tried to screen her from the wind. In the lane
it was more sheltered, and they walked side by side.
"Forgive me if I was not nice yesterday;" and her voice quavered as
though she were going to cry. "I was so wretched! I did not sleep all
night."
"I slept well all night," said Laptev, without looking at her; "but that
doesn't mean that I was happy. My life is broken. I'm deeply unhappy,
and after your refusal yesterday I go about like a man poisoned. The
most difficult thing was said yesterday. To-day I feel no embarrassment
and can talk to you frankly. I love you more than my sister, more than
my dead mother. . . . I can live without my sister, and without my
mother, and I have lived without them, but life without you--is
meaningless to me; I can't face it. . . ."
And now too, as usual, he guessed her intention.
He realised that she wanted to go back to what had happened the day
before, and with that object had asked him to accompany her, and now was
taking him home with her. But what could she add to her refusal? What
new idea had she in her head? From everything, from her glances, from
her smile, and even from her tone, from the way she held her head and
shoulders as she walked beside him, he saw that, as before, she did not
love him, that he was a stranger to her. What more did she want to say?
Doctor Sergey Borisovitch was at home.
"You are very welcome. I'm always glad to see you, Fyodor Alexeyitch,"
he said, mixing up his Christian name and his father's. "Delighted,
delighted!"