It was a fine August day.
The sun warmed as in summer, and the blue sky fondly enticed you to
wander far afield, but the air already bore presages of autumn. In the
green foliage of the pensive forest the worn-out leaves were already
assuming golden tints and the darkening fields looked melancholy and
sad.
A dull presentiment of inevitable autumn weighed heavily on us all. It
was not difficult to foresee the nearness of a catastrophe. The roll
of thunder and the rain must soon come to refresh the sultry
atmosphere. It is sultry before a thunderstorm when dark leaden clouds
approach in the sky, and moral sultriness was oppressing us all. It
was apparent in everything—in our movements, in our smiles, in our
speech.
I was driving in a light wagonette. The daughter of the Justice of the
Peace, Nadinka, was sitting beside me. She was white as snow, her chin
and lips trembled as they do before tears, her deep eyes were full of
sorrow, while all the time she laughed and tried to appear very gay.
In front and behind us a number of vehicles of all sorts, of all
times, of all sizes were moving in the same direction. Ladies and men
on horseback were riding on either side. Count Karnéev, clad in a
green shooting costume that looked more like a buffoon's than a
sportsman's, bending slightly forward and to one side, galloped about
unmercifully on his black horse. Looking at his bent body and at the
expression of pain that constantly appeared on his lean face, one
could have thought that he was riding for the first time. A new
double-barrelled gun was slung across his back, and at his side he had
a game-bag in which a wounded woodcock tossed about.
Olga Urbenin was the ornament of the cavalcade. Seated on a black
horse, which the Count had given her, dressed in a black riding-habit,
with a white feather in her hat, she no longer resembled that “girl in
red” who had met us in the wood only a few months before. Now there
was something majestic, something of the _grande dame_ in her figure.
Each flourish of her whip, each smile was calculated to look
aristocratic and majestic. In her movements, in her smiles there was
something provocative, something incendiary. She held her head high in
a foppishly arrogant manner, and from the height of her mount poured
contempt on the whole company, as if in disdain of the loud remarks
that were sent after her by our virtuous ladies. Coquetting with her
impudence and her position “at the Count's,” she seemed to defy
everybody, just as if she did not know that the Count was already
tired of her, and was only awaiting the moment when he could
disentangle himself from her.
“The Count wants to send me away!” she said to me with a loud laugh
when the cavalcade rode out of the yard. Therefore she knew her
position and she understood it.
But why that loud laugh? I looked at her and was perplexed. Where
could this dweller in the forests have found so much push? When had
she found time to sit her horse with so much grace, to move her
nostrils proudly, and to show off with commanding gestures?
“A depraved woman is like a swine,” Doctor Pavel Ivanovich said to me.
“If you set her down to table she puts her legs on it.”
But his explanation was too simple. Nobody could be more infatuated
with Olga than I was, and I was the first to be ready to throw stones
at her; still, the uneasy voice of truth whispered to me that this was
not push nor the swagger of a prosperous and satisfied woman, but the
despairing presentiment of the near and inevitable catastrophe.
We were returning from the shoot to which we had gone early in the
morning. The sport had been bad. Near the marshes, on which we had set
great hopes, we met a party of sportsmen, who told us the game was
wild. Three woodcocks and one duckling was all the game we were able
to send to the other world as the whole result of ten guns. At last
one of the lady riders had an attack of toothache and we were obliged
to hurry back. We returned along a good road that passed through the
fields on which the sheaves of newly reaped rye were looking yellow
against the background of the dark, gloomy forests. . . . Near the
horizon the church and houses of the Count's estate gleamed white. To
their right the mirror-like surface of the lake stretched out wide,
and to the left the “Stone Grave” rose darkly. . . .
“What a terrible woman!” Nadinka whispered to me every time Olga came
up to our wagonette. “What a terrible woman! She's as bad as she's
pretty! . . . How long ago is it since you were best man at her
wedding? She has not had time to wear out her wedding shoes, and she
is already wearing another man's silk and is flaunting in another
man's diamonds. If she has such instincts it would have been more
tactful had she waited a year or two. . . .”
“She's in a hurry to live! She has no time to wait!” I sighed.
“Do you know what has become of her husband?”
“I hear he is drinking. . . .”
“Yes. . . . The day before yesterday father was in town and saw him
driving in a droshky. His head was hanging to one side, he was without
a hat, and his face was dirty. . . . He's a lost man! He's terribly
poor, I hear; they have nothing to eat, the flat is not paid for. Poor
little Sasha is for days without food. Father described all this to
the Count. . . . You know the Count! He is honest, kind, but he is not
fond of thinking about anything, or reasoning. ‘I'll send him a
hundred roubles,’ he said. And he did it at once. I don't think he
could have insulted Urbenin more than by sending this money. . . .
He'll feel insulted by the Count's gift and will drink all the more.”
“Yes, the Count is stupid,” I said. “He might have sent him the money
through me, and in my name.”
“He had no right to send him money! Have I the right to feed you if I
am strangling you, and you hate me?”
“That is quite true. . . .”
We were silent and pensive. . . . The thought of Urbenin's fate was
always very painful to me; now when his ruined wife was caracoling
before my eyes, this thought aroused in me a whole train of sad
reflections. . . . What would become of him and of his children? In
what way would she end? In what moral puddle would this pitiful, puny
Count end his days?
The creature seated next to me was the only one who was respectable
and worthy of esteem. There were only two people in our district whom
I was capable of liking and respecting, and who alone had the right of
turning from me because they stood higher than I did. . . . These were
Nadezhda Kalinin and Doctor Pavil Ivanovich. . . . What awaited them?
“Nadezhda Nikolaevna,” I said to her, “quite without wishing it, I
have caused you no little sorrow, and less than anybody else have I
the right to expect your confidence. But I swear to you nobody will
understand you as well as I can. Your sorrow is my sorrow, your joy is
my joy. If I ask you a question, don't suspect it is from idle
curiosity. Tell me, my dear, why do you allow this pigmy Count to
approach you? What prevents you from sending him away and not
listening to his abominable amiabilities? His courting is no honour to
a respectable woman! Why do you give these scandalmongers the right to
couple your name with his?”
Nadinka looked at me with her bright eyes, and evidently reading
sincerity in my face, she smiled gaily.
“What do they say?” she asked.
“They say your papa and you are trying to catch the Count, and that in
the end you'll find the Count is only pulling your leg.”
“They speak so because they don't know the Count!” Nadinka flared up.
“The shameless slanderers! They are used to seeing only the bad side
of people. . . . The good is inaccessible for their understanding.”
“And have you found the good in him?”
“Yes, I have found it! You are the first who ought to know. I would
not have let him approach me if I had not been certain of his
honourable intentions!”
“Consequently your affairs have already reached ‘honourable
intentions,’” I said with astonishment. “Soon! . . . And on what are
they based—these honourable intentions?”
“Do you wish to know?” she asked, and her eyes sparkled. “Those
scandalmongers do not lie: I wish to marry him! Don't look so
surprised, and don't laugh! You will say that to get married without
love is dishonest and so on. It has already been said a thousand
times, but . . . what am I to do? To feel that one is a useless bit
of furniture in this world is very hard. . . . It's hard to live
without an object. . . . When this man, whom you dislike so much, will
have made me his wife, I shall have an object in life. . . . I will
improve him, I will teach him to leave off drinking, I will teach him
to work. . . . Look at him! He does not look like a man now, and I
will make a man of him.”
“Et cetera, et cetera,” I said. “You will take care of his enormous
fortune, you will do acts of charity. . . . The whole of the district
will bless you, and will look upon you as a good angel sent down to
comfort the miserable. . . . You will be the mother and the educator
of his children. . . . Yes, a great work indeed! You are a clever
girl, but you reason like a schoolgirl!”
“My idea may be worthless, it may be ludicrous and naïve, but I live
by it. . . . Under its influence I have become well and gay. . . . Do
not disenchant me! Let me disenchant myself, but not now, at some
other time . . . afterwards, in the distant future. . . . Let us
change the subject!”
“Just one more indiscreet question! Do you expect him to propose?”
“Yes. . . . To judge by the note I received from him to-day, my fate
will be decided this evening . . . to-day. . . . He writes that he
has something very important to say to me. . . . The happiness of the
whole of his life depends upon my answer.”
“Thank you for your frankness,” I said.
The meaning of the note that Nadia had received was quite clear to me.
A base proposal awaited the poor girl. I decided to save her from that
ordeal.
“We have already arrived at our wood,” the Count said, coming up to
our wagonette. “Nadezhda Nikolaevna, would you not wish to make a halt
here?”
And without waiting for an answer he clapped his hands and ordered in
a loud, shaky voice:
“Ha‑a‑lt!”
We settled ourselves down in the skirts of the wood. The sun had sunk
behind the trees, illuminating with purple and gold only the summits
of the very highest alders and playing on the golden cross of the
Count's church that could be seen in the distance. Flocks of
frightened orioles and sparrow hawks soared over our heads. One of the
men fired into them, alarming this feathered kingdom, still more,
which aroused an indefatigable bird concert. This sort of concert has
its charms in the spring and summer, but when you feel the approach of
the cold autumn, in the air, it only irritates the nerves and reminds
one of their near migration.
The coolness of evening spread from the dense forest. The ladies'
noses became blue and the chilly Count began rubbing his hands.
Nothing at that moment could be more appropriate than the odour of
charcoal in the samovars and the clatter of the tea service. One-eyed
Kuz'ma, puffing and panting and stumbling about in the long grass,
dragged forward a case of cognac. We began to warm ourselves.
A long outing in the fresh cool air acts on the appetite better than
any appetising drops, and after it the balyk,* the caviar, the roast
partridge and the other viands were as caressing to the sight as roses
are on an early spring morning.
* Salted and smoked sturgeon.
“You are wise to-day,” I said to the Count as I helped myself to a
slice of balyk. “Wise as you have never been before. It would have
been difficult to arrange things better. . . .”
“We have arranged it together, the Count and I,” Kalinin said with a
giggle as he winked towards the coachmen, who were getting the hampers
and baskets of provisions, wines and crockery out of the vehicles.
“The little picnic will be a great success. . . . Towards the end
there will be champagne!”
On this occasion the face of the Justice of the Peace shone with
satisfaction as it had never shone before. Did he not expect that in
the evening his Nadinka would have a proposal made to her? Did he not
have the champagne prepared in order to drink the health of the young
couple? I looked attentively at his face and, as usual, I could read
nothing there but careless satisfaction, satiety, and the stupid
self-importance that was suffused over the whole of his portly figure.
We fell upon the _hors d'œuvres_ gaily. Only two of the guests looked
with indifference on the luxurious viands that were spread out on
carpets before us: these two were Olga and Nadezhda Kalinin. The first
was standing to one side leaning against the back of a wagonette,
motionless and silently gazing at the game-bag that the Count had
thrown on the ground. In the game-bag a wounded woodcock was moving
about. Olga watched the movements of the unfortunate bird and seemed
to be expecting its death.
Nadia was sitting next to me and looked with indifference on the gaily
chewing mouths.
“When will all this be over?” her tired eyes said.
I offered her a sandwich with caviar. She thanked me and put it to one
side. She evidently did not wish to eat.
“Olga Nikolaevna, why don't you sit down?” the Count called to Olga.
Olga did not answer but continued to stare as immovable as a statue,
looking at the bird.
“What heartless people there are,” I said, going up to Olga. “Is it
possible that you, a woman, are capable of watching with indifference
the suffering of this woodcock? Instead of looking at his contortions,
it would be better if you ordered it to be dispatched.”
“Others suffer; let him suffer too,” Olga answered, frowning, without
looking at me.
“Who else is suffering?”
“Leave me in peace!” she said hoarsely. “I am not disposed to speak to
you to-day . . . nor with your friend, that fool the Count! Go away
from me!”
She glanced at me with eyes that were full of wrath and tears. Her
face was pale, her lips trembled.
“What a change!” I said as I lifted up the game-bag and wrung the
woodcock's neck. “What a tone! I am astounded! Quite astounded!”
“Leave me in peace, I tell you! I'm not in the humour for jokes!”
“What's the matter with you, my enchantress?”
Olga looked at me from head to foot and turned her back on me.
“Only depraved and venal women are spoken to in that tone,” she
continued. “You consider me such an one . . . well, then, go to those
saints! . . . I am worse and baser than any other here. . . . When you
were driving with that virtuous Nadinka you were afraid to look at
me. . . . Well, then, go to her! What are you waiting for? Go!”
“Yes, you are worse and baser than any other here,” I said, feeling
that I was gradually being mastered by rage. “Yes, you are depraved
and venal.”
“Yes, I remember how you offered me damned money. . . . Then I did not
know its meaning; now I understand. . . .”
Rage mastered me completely. And this rage was as strong as the love
had been that at one time was beginning to be born in me for “the girl
in red.” . . . And who could—what stone could have remained
indifferent? I saw before me beauty that had been cast by merciless
fate into the mire. No mercy was shown to either youth, beauty or
grace. . . . Now, when this woman appeared to me more beautiful than
ever, I felt what a loss nature had sustained in her person, and my
soul was filled with painful anger at the injustice of fate and the
order of things. . . .
In moments of anger I am unable to control myself. I do not know what
more Olga would have had to hear from me if she had not turned her
back upon me and gone away. She walked slowly towards the trees and
soon disappeared behind them. . . . It appeared to me that she was
crying. . . .
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I heard Kalinin making a speech. “On this day
when we all have met for . . . for . . . in order to unite . . . we
are assembled here, we are all acquainted with each other, we are all
enjoying ourselves and this long desired union we owe to nobody else
but to our luminary, to the star of our province. . . . Count, don't
get confused. . . . The ladies understand of whom I am speaking. . . .
He, he he! Well, ladies and gentlemen, let us continue. As we owe all
this to our enlightened, to our youthful . . . youthful . . . Count
Karnéev, I propose that we drink this glass to . . . But who is
driving this way? Who is it?”
A calash was driving from the direction of the Count's house towards
the clearing where we were seated.
“Who can it be?” the Count said in astonishment, turning his field
glass on the calash. “Hm! . . . strange! . . . It must be someone
passing by. . . . Oh, no! I see Kaetan Kazimirovich's face. . . . With
whom is he?”
Suddenly the Count sprang up as if he had been stung. His face became
deadly pale, and the field glass fell from his hand. His eyes strayed
around like the eyes of an entrapped mouse, and they rested sometimes
on me, sometimes on Nadia, as if looking for aid. Not everybody
noticed his confusion as the attention of most was directed on the
approaching calash.
“Serezha, come here for a minute!” he whispered to me, seizing hold of
my arm and leading me to one side. “Golubchek, I implore you as a
friend, as the best of men! . . . No questions, no interrogating
glances, no astonishment! I will tell you all afterwards! I swear that
not an iota will remain a secret from you! . . . It is such a
misfortune in my life, such a misfortune, that I am unable to find
words to express it! You will know all, but no questions now! Help
me!”
Meanwhile the calash came nearer and nearer. . . . At last it stopped,
and the Count's stupid secret became the property of the whole
district. Pshekhotsky, clad in a new unbleached silk suit, panting and
smiling, crawled out of the calash. After him a young lady of about
three-and-twenty sprang out adroitly. She was a tall, graceful, fair
woman with regular but not sympathetic features, and with dark blue
eyes. I only remember those dark blue expressionless eyes, a powdered
nose, a heavy, luxurious dress and several massive bracelets on each
arm. . . . I remember that the scent of the evening dampness and the
spilt cognac had to give way before the penetrating odour of some sort
of perfume.
“What a numerous party!” the stranger said in broken Russian. “It must
be very gay! How do you do, Alexis?”
She went up to Alexis and offered him her cheek, which the Count
smacked hastily and glanced uneasily at his guests.
“My wife, let me introduce her!” he mumbled. “And these, Zosia, are my
good friends. . . . Hm, hm! . . . I've a cough!”
“And I have only just arrived! Kaetan advised me to rest! But I said:
‘Why should I rest since I slept the whole way here! I would sooner go
to the shooting party!’ I dressed and here I am. . . . Kaetan, where
are my cigarettes?”
Pshekhotsky sprang forward and handed the fair lady her golden
cigarette case.
“And this is my wife's brother . . .” the Count continued to mumble,
pointing at Pshekhotsky. “Why don't you help me?” and he gave me a
poke in the ribs. “Help me out, for God's sake!”
I have been told that Kalinin fainted, and that Nadia, who wished to
help him, could not rise from her seat. I have been told many got into
their vehicles and drove away. All this I did not see. I remember that
I went into the wood, and searching for a footpath, without looking in
front, I went where my feet led me.*
* At this point of Kamyshev's manuscript a hundred lines have been
effaced.—A. Ch.
When I came out of the wood, bits of clay were hanging to my feet, and
I was covered with dirt. I had probably been obliged to jump over
brooks, but I could not remember this fact. It seemed to me as though
I had been severely beaten with sticks; I felt so weary and exhausted.
I ought to have gone to the Count's stable yard, mounted my Zorka and
ridden away. But I did not do so, and went home on foot. I could not
bring myself to see the Count or his accursed estate.*
* At this place of the manuscript, a pretty girl's face, with an
expression of horror on it, is drawn in pen and ink. All that is
written below it has been carefully blotted out. The upper half of
the next page is also scratched out and only one word: “temple,”
can be deciphered through the dense ink blots.—A. Ch.
My road led along the banks of the lake. That watery monster was
already beginning to roar out its evening song. High waves with white
crests covered the whole of its vast extent. In the air there was
noise and rumbling. A cold, damp wind penetrated to my very bones. To
the left lay the angry lake; from the right came the monotonous noise
of the austere forest. I felt myself alone with nature as if I had
been confronted with it. It appeared as if the whole of its wrath, the
whole of these noises and roars, was directed only on my head. In
other circumstances I might have felt timidity, but now I scarcely
noticed the giants that surrounded me. What was the wrath of nature
compared with the storm that was raging within me?*
* Here again there are erasures.—A. Ch.