For three days I wandered about my rooms from corner to corner like a
wolf in a cage, trying with all the strength of my unstable will to
prevent myself from leaving the house. I did not touch the pile of
papers that were lying on the table patiently awaiting my attention; I
received nobody; I quarrelled with Polycarp; I was irritable. . . . I
did not allow myself to go to the Count's estate, and this obstinacy
cost me great nervous labour. A thousand times I took up my hat and as
often threw it down again. . . . Sometimes I decided to defy the whole
world and go to Olga, whatever it might cost; at others I drenched
myself with the cold decision to remain at home. . . .
My reason told me not to go to the Count's estate. Since I had sworn
to the Count never to set foot in his house again, could I sacrifice
my self-love and pride? What would that moustachioed coxcomb think if,
after our stupid conversation, I went to him as if nothing had
happened? Would it not be a confession of my own injustice?
Besides, as an honest man I ought to break off all connexion with
Olga. All further intercourse with her could only lead to her ruin.
She had made a mistake in marrying Urbenin; in falling in love with me
she had made another mistake. If she had a secret lover while living
with her old husband, would she not be like a depraved doll? To say
nothing about how abominable in principle, such a life is, it was
necessary also to think of the consequences.
What a coward I am! I was afraid of the consequences, of the present,
of the past. . . . An ordinary man will laugh at my reasoning. He
would not have paced from corner to corner, he would not have seized
his head in both hands, he would not have made all sorts of plans, but
he would have left all to life which grinds into flour even
mill-stones. Life would have digested everything without asking for
his aid or permission. . . . But I am fearsome almost to cowardice.
Pacing from corner to corner, I suffered from compassion for Olga, and
at the same time I feared she would understand the proposal I had made
her in a moment of passion, and would appear in my house to stay as I
had promised her, _for ever_. What would have happened if she had
listened to me and had come home with me? How long would that _for
ever_ have lasted, and what would life with me have given poor Olga? I
would not have given her family life and would consequently not have
given her happiness. No, I ought not to go to Olga!
At the same time my soul was drawn frantically towards her. I was as
melancholy as a boy, in love for the first time, who is refused a
rendezvous. Tempted by what had occurred in the grotto, I yearned for
another meeting, and the alluring vision of Olga, who, as I well knew,
was also expecting me, and was pining away from longing, never left my
mind for a moment.
The Count sent me letter after letter, each one more rueful and
humiliating than the last. . . . He implored me to “forget everything”
and come to him; he apologized for Pshekhotsky, he begged me to
forgive that “kind, simple, but somewhat shallow man,” he was
surprised that owing to trifles I had decided to break off old and
friendly connexions. In one of his last letters he promised to come to
me and, if I wished it, to bring Pshekhotsky with him, who would ask
my pardon, “although he did not feel that he was at all in fault.” I
read the letters and in answer begged each messenger to leave me in
peace. I knew well how to be capricious!
At the very height of my nervous agitation, when I, standing at the
window, was deciding to go away somewhere—anywhere except to the
Count's estate—when I was tormenting myself with arguments,
self-reproaches, and visions of love that awaited me with Olga, my
door opened quietly, I heard light footsteps behind me, and soon my
neck was encircled by two pretty little arms.
“Olga, is that you?” I asked and looked round.
I recognized her by her hot breath, by the manner in which she hung on
my neck, and even by her scent. Pressing her head to my cheek, she
appeared to me extraordinarily happy. . . . From happiness she could
not say a word. . . . I pressed her to my breast and—where had the
melancholy, and all the questions with which I had been tormenting
myself during the whole of three days, disappeared? I laughed and
jumped about with joy like the veriest schoolboy.
Olga was in a blue silk dress, which suited her pale face and splendid
flaxen hair very well. The dress was in the latest fashion and must
have been very expensive. It probably cost Urbenin a quarter of his
yearly salary.
“How lovely you are to-day!” I said, lifting Olga up in my arms and
kissing her neck. “Well, what? How are you? Quite well?”
“Why, you haven't much of a place here!” she said, casting her eyes
round my study. “You're a rich man, you receive a high salary, and yet
. . . you live quite poorly.”
“Not everybody can live as luxuriously as the Count, my darling,” I
said. “But let us leave my wealth in peace. What good genius has
brought you into my den?”
“Stop, Serezha! You'll tumble my frock. . . . Put me down. . . . I've
only come to you for a moment, darling! I told everybody at home I was
going to Akat'ikha, the Count's washerwoman, who lives here only three
doors off. Let me go, darling! . . . It's awkward. Why haven't you
been to see me for so long?”
I answered something, placed her on a chair opposite me, and began to
contemplate her beauty. For a minute we looked at each other in
silence.
“You are very pretty, Olia!” I sighed. “It's a pity and an insult that
you're so pretty!”
“Why is it a pity?”
“The devil only knows who's got you.”
“But what do you want more? Am not I yours? Here I am. . . . Listen,
Serezha! . . . Will you tell me the truth if I ask you?”
“Of course, only the truth.”
“Would you have married me if I had not married Pëtr Egorych?”
“Probably not,” I wanted to say, but why should I probe the painful
wound in poor Olia's heart that was already so troubled?
“Certainly,” I said in the tone of a man speaking the truth.
Olia sighed and cast her eyes down.
“What a mistake I've made! What a mistake! And what's worst of all it
can't be rectified! I suppose I can't get divorced from him?”
“You can't.”
“I can't understand why I was in such a hurry! We girls are so silly
and giddy. . . . There's nobody to whip us! However, one can't undo
the past, and to reason about it is useless. . . . Neither reasoning
nor tears are of any good. Serezha, I cried all last night! He was
there . . . lying next to me, and I was thinking of you. . . . I
couldn't sleep. . . . I wanted to run away in the night, even into the
wood to father. . . . It is better to live with a mad father than with
this—what's his name.”
“Reasoning won't help. . . . Olia, you ought to have reasoned when you
drove home with me from Tenevo, and were so happy at getting married
to a rich man. . . . It's too late to practice eloquence now. . . .”
“Too late. . . . Then let it be so!” Olga said with a decisive wave of
the hand. “It will be possible to live, if it is no worse. . . .
Good-bye, I must be off. . . .”
“No, not good-bye. . . .”
I drew Olia towards me and covered her face with kisses, as if I were
trying to reward myself for the lost three days. She pressed close
against me like a cold lamb and warmed my face with her hot
breath. . . . There was stillness in the room. . . .
“The husband killed his wife!” bawled my parrot.
Olia shivered, released herself from my embraces, and looked
inquiringly at me.
“It's only the parrot, my soul,” I said. “Calm yourself.”
“The husband killed his wife!” Ivan Dem'yanych repeated again.
Olia rose, put on her hat in silence, and gave me her hand. Dread was
written on her face.
“What if Urbenin gets to know?” she asked, looking at me with
wide-open eyes. “He is capable of killing me.”
“What nonsense!” I said, laughing. “What sort of a fellow would I be
if I allowed him to kill you? He's hardly capable of such an unusual
act as a murder. . . . Are you going? Well, then, good-bye, my
child! . . . I will wait. . . . To-morrow, in the wood, near the house
where you lived. . . . Shall we meet there?” . . .
After seeing Olia off, I returned to my study, where I found Polycarp.
He was standing in the middle of the room, he looked sternly at me and
shook his head contemptuously.
“Sergei Petrovich, see that this sort of thing does not happen here
again; I won't have it,” he said in the tone of a severe parent. “I
don't wish it. . . .”
“What's ‘it’?”
“That thing. . . . You think I did not see? I saw everything. . . .
See that she doesn't dare to come here again. This is no house for
that sort of philandering. There are other places for that. . . .”
I was in the best of humours, so Polycarp's spying and mentorial tone
did not make me angry. I only laughed and sent him to the kitchen.
I had hardly had time to collect my thoughts after Olga's visit when
another guest arrived. A carriage rattled up to my door and Polycarp,
spitting to each side and with mumbled abuse announced the arrival of
“that there fellow, may he be . . .!” etc., etc. It was the Count,
whom he hated with the whole strength of his soul. The Count entered,
looked tearfully at me, and shook his head.
“You turn away. . . . You don't want to speak. . . .”
“I don't turn away,” I said.
“I am so fond of you, Serezha, and you . . . for a trifle! Why do you
wound me? Why?”
The Count sat down, sighed, and shook his head.
“Well, you've played the fool long enough!” I said. “All right!”
I had a strong influence upon this weak, puny little man; it was as
strong as my contempt for him. . . . My contemptuous tone never
offended him; on the contrary.
When he heard my “All right!” he jumped up and embraced me.
“I have brought him with me. . . . He is sitting in the
carriage. . . . Do you wish him to apologize?”
“Do you know his fault?”
“No. . . .”
“So much the better. He needn't apologize, but you had better warn him
that if ever a similar thing occurs, I'll not get excited, but I will
take my own measures.”
“Then, Serezha, it's peace? Excellent! That ought to have been long
ago; the deuce only knows what you quarrelled about! Like two
schoolgirls! Oh, by-the-by, golubchek, haven't you got half a glass of
vodka? My throat is terribly dry!”
I ordered vodka to be served. The Count drank two glasses, sprawled
himself out on the sofa, and began to chatter.
“I say, brother, I just met Olia. . . . A fine girl! I must tell you,
I'm beginning to detest Urbenin. . . . That means that Olenka is
beginning to please me. . . . She's devilish pretty! I think of making
up to her.”
“One ought not to touch the married ones!” I said with a sigh.
“Come now, he's an old man. . . . It's no sin to juggle Pëtr Egorych
out of his wife. . . . She's no mate for him. . . . He's like a dog;
he can't eat it himself, and won't let others have it. . . . I'm going
to begin my siege to-day; I'll begin systematically. . . . She's such
a ducky—h'm!—quite chic, brother! One licks one's chops!”
The Count drank a third glass and continued:
“Of the girls here, do you know who pleases me too? Nadenka, that fool
Kalinin's daughter. . . . A burning brunette, you know the sort, pale,
with wonderful eyes. . . . I must also cast my line there. . . . I'm
giving a party at Whitsuntide, a musical, vocal, literary evening on
purpose to invite her. . . . As it turns out, it's not so bad here;
quite jolly! There's society, and women . . . and. . . . May I have
five winks here . . . only a moment?”
“You may. . . . But how about Pshekhotsky in the carriage?”
“He may wait, the devil take him! . . . Brother, I myself don't like
him.”
The Count raised himself on his elbow and said mysteriously:
“I keep him only from necessity . . . because I must. . . . May the
devil take him!”
The Count's elbow gave way, his head sank on the cushion. A minute
later snores were heard.
In the evening after the Count had left, I had another visitor; the
doctor, Pavil Ivanovich. He came to inform me of Nadezhda Nikolaevna's
illness and also that she had definitely refused him her hand. The
poor fellow was downhearted and went about like a drenched hen.