“I am going,” I said.
She nodded her head.
“Am I to go away? Yes?” I asked, trying to read the truth in her
lovely, blushing little face. “Yes?”
With the very slightest movement of her long black eyelashes she
answered “Yes.”
“You have considered well?”
She turned away from me, as one turns away from an annoying wind. She
did not want to speak. Why should she speak? It is impossible to
answer a long subject briefly, and there was neither time nor place
for long speeches.
I took up my hat and left the room without taking leave. Afterwards,
Olga told me that immediately after my departure, as soon as the sound
of my steps became mingled with the noise of the wind in the garden,
the drunken Count was pressing her in his embrace. And she, closing
her eyes and stopping up her mouth and nostrils, was scarcely able to
keep her feet from a feeling of disgust. There was even a moment when
she had almost torn herself away from his embraces and rushed into the
lake. There were moments when she tore her hair and wept. It is not
easy to sell oneself.
When I left the house and went towards the stables, I had to pass the
bailiff's house. I looked in at the window. Pëtr Egorych was seated at
a table by the dim light of a smoking oil lamp that had been turned up
too high. I did not see his face. It was covered by his hands. But the
whole of his robust, awkward figure displayed so much sorrow, anguish
and despair that it was not necessary to see the face to understand
the condition of his soul. Two bottles stood before him; one was
empty, the other only just begun. They were both vodka bottles. The
poor devil was seeking peace not in himself, nor in other people, but
in alcohol.
Five minutes later I was riding home. The darkness was terrible. The
lake blustered wrathfully and seemed to be angry that I, such a
sinner, who had just been the witness of a sinful deed, should dare to
infringe its austere peace. I could not see the lake for the darkness.
It seemed as if an unseen monster was roaring, that the very darkness
which enveloped me was roaring too.
I pulled up Zorka, closed my eyes, and meditated to the roaring of the
monster.
“What if I returned at once and destroyed them?”
Terrible wrath raged in my soul. . . . All the little of goodness and
honesty that remained in me after long years of a depraved life, all
that corruption had left, all that I guarded and cherished, that I was
proud of, was insulted, spat upon, splashed with filth!
I had known venal women before, I had bought them, studied them, but
they had not had the innocent rosy cheeks and sincere blue eyes that I
had seen on the May morning when I walked through the wood to the
Tenevo fair. . . . I myself, corrupt to the marrow of my bones, had
forgiven, had preached tolerance of everything vicious, and I was
indulgent to weakness. . . . I was convinced that it was impossible to
demand of dirt that it should not be dirt, and that one cannot blame
those ducats which from the force of circumstances have fallen into
the mire. But I had not known before that ducats could melt in the
mire and be blended with it into a single mass. Consequently gold
could also dissolve!
A strong gust of wind blew off my hat and bore it into the surrounding
darkness. In its flight my hat touched Zorka's head. She took fright,
reared on her hind legs and galloped off along the familiar road.
When I reached home I threw myself on the bed. Polycarp suggested that
I should undress, and he got sworn at and called a “devil” for no
earthly reason.
“Devil yourself!” Polycarp grumbled as he went away from my bed.
“What did you say? What did you say?” I shouted.
“None so deaf as those who will not hear!”
“Oh, ho! . . . You dare to be impudent!” I thundered and poured out
all my bile on my poor lackey. “Get out! That no trace of you be left,
scoundrel! Out with you!”
And without waiting for my man to leave the room, I fell on the bed
and began to sob like a boy. My overstrained nerves could bear no
more. Powerless wrath, wounded feelings, jealousy—all had to have vent
in one way or another.
“The husband killed his wife!” squalled my parrot, raising his yellow
feathers.
Under the influence of this cry the thought entered my head that
Urbenin might really kill his wife.
Falling asleep, I dreamed of murders. My nightmare was suffocating and
painful. . . . It appeared to me that my hands were stroking something
cold, and I had only to open my eyes to see a corpse. I dreamed that
Urbenin was standing at the head of my bed, looking at me with
imploring eyes.