We walked through the wood.
The pines were dull in their silent monotony. They all grow in the
same way, one like the others, and at every season of the year they
retain the same appearance, knowing neither death nor the renewal of
spring. Still, they are attractive in their moroseness: immovable,
soundless they seem to think mournful thoughts.
“Hadn't we better turn back?” the Count suggested.
This question received no reply. It was all the same to the Pole where
he was. Urbenin did not consider his voice decisive, and I was too
much delighted with the coolness of the forest and its resinous air to
wish to turn back. Besides, it was necessary to kill time till night,
even by a simple walk. The thoughts of the approaching wild night were
accompanied by a sweet sinking of the heart. I am afraid to confess
that I thought of it, and had already mentally a foretaste of its
enjoyments. Judging by the impatience with which the Count constantly
looked at his watch, it was evident that he, too, was tormented by
expectations. We felt that we understood each other.
Near the forester's house, which nestled between pines on a small
square open space, we were met by the loud-sounding bark of two small
fiery-yellow dogs, of a breed that was unknown to me; they were as
glossy and supple as eels. Recognizing Urbenin, they joyfully wagged
their tails and ran towards him, from which one could deduce that the
bailiff often visited the forester's house. Here, too, near the house,
we were met by a lad without boots or cap, with large freckles on his
astonished face. For a moment he looked at us in silence with staring
eyes, then, evidently recognizing the Count, he gave an exclamation
and rushed headlong into the house.
“I know what he's gone for,” the Count said, laughing. “I remember
him. . . . It's Mit'ka.”
The Count was not mistaken. In less than a minute Mit'ka came out of
the house carrying a tray with a glass of vodka and a tumbler half
full of water.
“For your good health, your Excellency!” he said, a broad grin
suffusing the whole of his stupid, astonished face.
The Count drank off the vodka, washed it down with water in lieu of a
snack, but this time he made no wry face. A hundred paces from the
house there was an iron seat, as old as the pines above it. We sat
down on it and contemplated the May evening in all its tranquil
beauty. . . . The frightened crows flew cawing above our heads, the
song of nightingales was borne towards us from all sides; these were
the only sounds that broke the pervading stillness.
The Count does not know how to be silent, even on such a calm spring
evening, when the voice of man is the least agreeable sound.
“I don't know if you will be satisfied?” he said to me. “I have
ordered a fish-soup and game for supper. With the vodka we shall have
cold sturgeon and sucking-pig with horse-radish.”
As if angered at this prosaic observation, the poetical pines suddenly
shook their tops and a gentle rustle passed through the wood. A fresh
breeze swept over the glade and played with the grass.
“Down, down!” Urbenin cried to the flame-coloured dogs, who were
preventing him from lighting his cigarette with their caresses. “I
think we shall have rain before night. I feel it in the air. It was so
terribly hot to-day that it does not require a learned professor to
prophesy rain. It will be a good thing for the corn.”
“What's the use of corn to you,” I thought, “if the Count will spend
it all on drink? The rain need not trouble about it.”
Once more a light breeze passed over the forest, but this time it was
stronger. The pines and the grass rustled louder.
“Let us go home.”
We rose and strolled lazily back towards the little house.
“It is better to be this fair-haired Olenka,” I said, addressing
myself to Urbenin, “and to live here with the beasts than to be a
magistrate and live among men. . . . It's more peaceful. Is it not so,
Pëtr Egorych?”
“It's all the same what one is, Sergey Petrovich, if only the soul is
at peace.”
“Is pretty Olenka's soul at peace?”
“God alone knows the secrets of other people's souls, but I think she
has nothing to trouble her. She has not much to worry her, and no more
sins than an infant. . . . She's a very good girl! Ah, now the sky is
at last beginning to talk of rain. . . .”
A rumble was heard, somewhat like the sound of a distant vehicle or
the rattle of a game of skittles. Somewhere, far beyond the forest,
there was a peal of thunder. Mit'ka, who had been watching us the
whole time, shuddered and crossed himself.
“A thunderstorm!” the Count exclaimed with a start. “What a surprise!
The rain will overtake us on our way home. . . . How dark it is! I
said we ought to have turned back! And you wouldn't, and went on and
on.”
“We might wait in the cottage till the storm is over,” I suggested.
“Why in the cottage?” Urbenin said hastily, and his eyes blinked in a
strange manner. “It will rain all night, so you'll have to remain all
night in the cottage! Please, don't trouble. . . . Go quietly on, and
Mit'ka shall run on and order your carriage to come to meet you.”
“Never mind, perhaps it won't rain all night. . . . Storm clouds
usually pass by quickly. . . . Besides, I don't know the new forester
as yet, and I'd also like to have a chat with this Olenka . . . and
find out what sort of a dickey bird she is. . . .”
“I've no objections!” the Count agreed.
“How can you go there, if—if the place is not—not in order?” Urbenin
mumbled anxiously. “Why should your Excellency sit there in a stuffy
room when you could be at home? I don't understand what pleasure that
can be! . . . How can you get to know the forester if he is
ill? . . .”
It was very evident that the bailiff strongly objected to our going
into the forester's house. He even spread his arms as if he wanted to
bar the way. . . . I understood by his face that he had reasons for
preventing us from going in. I respect other people's reasons and
secrets, but on this occasion my curiosity was greatly excited. I
persisted, and we entered the house.
“Walk into the drawing-room, please,” bare-footed Mit'ka spluttered
almost choking with delight.
Try to imagine the very smallest drawing-room in the world, with
unpainted deal walls. These walls are hung all over with oleographs
from the “Niva,” photographs in frames made of shells, and
testimonials. One testimonial is from a certain baron, expressing his
gratitude for many years of service; all the others are for horses.
Here and there ivy climbs up the wall. . . . In a corner a small lamp,
whose tiny blue flame is faintly reflected on the silver mounting,
burns peacefully before a little icon. Chairs that have evidently been
only recently bought are pressed close together round the walls. Too
many had been purchased, and they had been squeezed together, as there
was nowhere else to put them. . . . Here, also, there are armchairs
and a sofa in snow-white covers with flounces and laces, crowded up
with a polished round table. A tame hare dozes on the sofa. . . . The
room is cosy, clean and warm. . . . The presence of a woman can be
noticed everywhere. Even the whatnot with books has a look of
innocence and womanliness; it appears to be anxious to say that there
is nothing on its shelves but wishy-washy novels and mawkish
verse. . . . The charm of such warm, cosy rooms is not so much felt in
spring as in autumn, when you look for a refuge from the cold and
dampness.
After much loud snivelling, blowing, and noisy striking of matches,
Mit'ka lit two candles and placed them on the table as carefully as if
they had been milk. We sat down in the arm-chairs, looked at each
other, and laughed.
“Nikolai Efimych is ill in bed,” Urbenin said, to explain the absence
of the master, “and Olga Nikolaevna has probably gone to accompany my
children. . . .”
“Mit'ka, are the doors shut?” we heard a weak tenor voice asking from
the next room.
“They're all shut, Nikolai Efimych!” Mit'ka shouted hoarsely, and he
rushed headlong into the next room.
“That's right! See that they are all shut,” the same weak voice said
again. “And locked—firmly locked. . . . If thieves break in, you must
tell me. . . . I'll shoot the villains with my gun . . . the
scoundrels!”
“Certainly, Nikolai Efimych!”
We laughed and looked inquiringly at Urbenin. He grew very red, and in
order to hide his confusion he began to arrange the curtains of the
windows. . . . What does this dream mean? We again looked at each
other.
We had no time for perplexity. Hasty steps were heard outside, then a
noise in the porch and the slamming of doors. And the “girl in red”
rushed into the room.
“I love the thunder in early May,” she sang in a loud, shrill soprano
voice, and she cut short her song with a burst of laughter, but when
she saw us she suddenly stood still and was silent,—she became
embarrassed, and went as quietly as a lamb into the room in which the
voice of Nikolai Efimych, her father, had been heard.
“She did not expect to see you,” Urbenin said, laughing.
A few minutes later she again came quietly into the room, sat down on
the chair nearest the door and began to examine us. She stared at us
boldly, not as if we were new people for her, but as if we were
animals in the Zoological Gardens. For a minute we too looked at her
in silence without moving. . . . I would have agreed to sit still and
look at her for a whole hour in this way—she was so lovely that
evening. As fresh as the air, rosy, breathing rapidly, her bosom
rising and falling, her curls scattered wildly on her forehead, on her
shoulders, and on her right hand that was raised to arrange her
collar; with large, sparkling eyes. . . . And all this was found on
one little body that a single glance could envelop. If you glanced for
a moment at this small object you saw more than you would if you
looked for a whole century at the endless horizon. . . . She looked at
me seriously, from my feet upwards, inquiringly; when her eyes left me
and passed to the Count or to the Pole I began to read in them the
contrary: a glance that passed from the head to the feet, and
laughter. . . .