II

Five hours had passed. The lieutenant's cousin, Alexey Ivanovitch

Kryukov was walking about the rooms of his country-house in his

dressing-gown and slippers, and looking impatiently out of window.

He was a tall, sturdy man, with a large black beard and a manly

face; and as the Jewess had truly said, he was handsome, though he

had reached the age when men are apt to grow too stout, puffy, and

bald. By mind and temperament he was one of those natures in which

the Russian intellectual classes are so rich: warm-hearted,

good-natured, well-bred, having some knowledge of the arts and

sciences, some faith, and the most chivalrous notions about honour,

but indolent and lacking in depth. He was fond of good eating and

drinking, was an ideal whist-player, was a connoisseur in women and

horses, but in other things he was apathetic and sluggish as a seal,

and to rouse him from his lethargy something extraordinary and quite

revolting was needed, and then he would forget everything in the

world and display intense activity; he would fume and talk of a

duel, write a petition of seven pages to a Minister, gallop at

breakneck speed about the district, call some one publicly "a

scoundrel," would go to law, and so on.

"How is it our Sasha's not back yet?" he kept asking his wife,

glancing out of window. "Why, it's dinner-time!"

After waiting for the lieutenant till six o'clock, they sat down

to dinner. When supper-time came, however, Alexey Ivanovitch was

listening to every footstep, to every sound of the door, and kept

shrugging his shoulders.

"Strange!" he said. "The rascally dandy must have stayed on at the

tenant's."

As he went to bed after supper, Kryukov made up his mind that the

lieutenant was being entertained at the tenant's, where after a

festive evening he was staying the night.

Alexandr Grigoryevitch only returned next morning. He looked extremely

crumpled and confused.

"I want to speak to you alone . . ." he said mysteriously to his

cousin.

They went into the study. The lieutenant shut the door, and he paced

for a long time up and down before he began to speak.

"Something's happened, my dear fellow," he began, "that I don't

know how to tell you about. You wouldn't believe it . . ."

And blushing, faltering, not looking at his cousin, he told what

had happened with the IOUs. Kryukov, standing with his feet wide

apart and his head bent, listened and frowned.

"Are you joking?" he asked.

"How the devil could I be joking? It's no joking matter!"

"I don't understand!" muttered Kryukov, turning crimson and flinging

up his hands. "It's positively . . . immoral on your part. Before

your very eyes a hussy is up to the devil knows what, a serious

crime, plays a nasty trick, and you go and kiss her!"

"But I can't understand myself how it happened!" whispered the

lieutenant, blinking guiltily. "Upon my honour, I don't understand

it! It's the first time in my life I've come across such a monster!

It's not her beauty that does for you, not her mind, but that . . .

you understand . . . insolence, cynicism. . . ."

"Insolence, cynicism . . . it's unclean! If you've such a longing

for insolence and cynicism, you might have picked a sow out of the

mire and have devoured her alive. It would have been cheaper, anyway!

Instead of two thousand three hundred!"

"You do express yourself elegantly!" said the lieutenant, frowning.

"I'll pay you back the two thousand three hundred!"

"I know you'll pay it back, but it's not a question of money! Damn

the money! What revolts me is your being such a limp rag . . . such

filthy feebleness! And engaged! With a fiancée!"

"Don't speak of it . . ." said the lieutenant, blushing. "I loathe

myself as it is. I should like to sink into the earth. It's sickening

and vexatious that I shall have to bother my aunt for that five

thousand. . . ."

Kryukov continued for some time longer expressing his indignation

and grumbling, then, as he grew calmer, he sat down on the sofa and

began to jeer at his cousin.

"You young officers!" he said with contemptuous irony. "Nice

bridegrooms."

Suddenly he leapt up as though he had been stung, stamped his foot,

and ran about the study.

"No, I'm not going to leave it like that!" he said, shaking his

fist. "I will have those IOUs, I will! I'll give it her! One doesn't

beat women, but I'll break every bone in her body. . . . I'll pound

her to a jelly! I'm not a lieutenant! You won't touch me with

insolence or cynicism! No-o-o, damn her! Mishka!" he shouted, "run

and tell them to get the racing droshky out for me!"

Kryukov dressed rapidly, and, without heeding the agitated lieutenant,

got into the droshky, and with a wave of his hand resolutely raced

off to Susanna Moiseyevna. For a long time the lieutenant gazed out

of window at the clouds of dust that rolled after his cousin's

droshky, stretched, yawned, and went to his own room. A quarter of

an hour later he was sound asleep.

At six o'clock he was waked up and summoned to dinner.

"How nice this is of Alexey!" his cousin's wife greeted him in the

dining-room. "He keeps us waiting for dinner."

"Do you mean to say he's not come back yet?" yawned the lieutenant.

"H'm! . . . he's probably gone round to see the tenant."

But Alexey Ivanovitch was not back by supper either. His wife and

Sokolsky decided that he was playing cards at the tenant's and would

most likely stay the night there. What had happened was not what

they had supposed, however.

Kryukov returned next morning, and without greeting any one, without

a word, dashed into his study.

"Well?" whispered the lieutenant, gazing at him round-eyed.

Kryukov waved his hand and gave a snort.

"Why, what's the matter? What are you laughing at?"

Kryukov flopped on the sofa, thrust his head in the pillow, and

shook with suppressed laughter. A minute later he got up, and looking

at the surprised lieutenant, with his eyes full of tears from

laughing, said:

"Close the door. Well . . . she _is_ a fe-e-male, I beg to inform

you!"

"Did you get the IOUs?"

Kryukov waved his hand and went off into a peal of laughter again.

"Well! she is a female!" he went on. "_Merci_ for the acquaintance,

my boy! She's a devil in petticoats. I arrived; I walked in like

such an avenging Jove, you know, that I felt almost afraid of myself

. . . . I frowned, I scowled, even clenched my fists to be more

awe-inspiring. . . . 'Jokes don't pay with me, madam!' said I, and

more in that style. And I threatened her with the law and with the

Governor. To begin with she burst into tears, said she'd been joking

with you, and even took me to the cupboard to give me the money.

Then she began arguing that the future of Europe lies in the hands

of the French, and the Russians, swore at women. . . . Like you, I

listened, fascinated, ass that I was. . . . She kept singing the

praises of my beauty, patted me on the arm near the shoulder, to

see how strong I was, and . . . and as you see, I've only just got

away from her! Ha, ha! She's enthusiastic about you!"

"You're a nice fellow!" laughed the lieutenant. "A married man!

highly respected. . . . Well, aren't you ashamed? Disgusted? Joking

apart though, old man, you've got your Queen Tamara in your own

neighbourhood. . . ."

"In my own neighbourhood! Why, you wouldn't find another such

chameleon in the whole of Russia! I've never seen anything like it

in my life, though I know a good bit about women, too. I have known

regular devils in my time, but I never met anything like this. It

is, as you say, by insolence and cynicism she gets over you. What

is so attractive in her is the diabolical suddenness, the quick

transitions, the swift shifting hues. . . . Brrr! And the IOU--

phew! Write it off for lost. We are both great sinners, we'll go

halves in our sin. I shall put down to you not two thousand three

hundred, but half of it. Mind, tell my wife I was at the tenant's."

Kryukov and the lieutenant buried their heads in the pillows, and

broke into laughter; they raised their heads, glanced at one another,

and again subsided into their pillows.

"Engaged! A lieutenant!" Kryukov jeered.

"Married!" retorted Sokolsky. "Highly respected! Father of a family!"

At dinner they talked in veiled allusions, winked at one another,

and, to the surprise of the others, were continually gushing with

laughter into their dinner-napkins. After dinner, still in the best

of spirits, they dressed up as Turks, and, running after one another

with guns, played at soldiers with the children. In the evening

they had a long argument. The lieutenant maintained that it was

mean and contemptible to accept a dowry with your wife, even when

there was passionate love on both sides. Kryukov thumped the table

with his fists and declared that this was absurd, and that a husband

who did not like his wife to have property of her own was an egoist

and a despot. Both shouted, boiled over, did not understand each

other, drank a good deal, and in the end, picking up the skirts of

their dressing-gowns, went to their bedrooms. They soon fell asleep

and slept soundly.

Life went on as before, even, sluggish and free from sorrow. The

shadows lay on the earth, thunder pealed from the clouds, from time

to time the wind moaned plaintively, as though to prove that nature,

too, could lament, but nothing troubled the habitual tranquillity

of these people. Of Susanna Moiseyevna and the IOUs they said

nothing. Both of them felt, somehow, ashamed to speak of the incident

aloud. Yet they remembered it and thought of it with pleasure, as

of a curious farce, which life had unexpectedly and casually played

upon them, and which it would be pleasant to recall in old age.

On the sixth or seventh day after his visit to the Jewess, Kryukov

was sitting in his study in the morning writing a congratulatory

letter to his aunt. Alexandr Grigoryevitch was walking to and fro

near the table in silence. The lieutenant had slept badly that

night; he woke up depressed, and now he felt bored. He paced up and

down, thinking of the end of his furlough, of his fiancée, who was

expecting him, of how people could live all their lives in the

country without feeling bored. Standing at the window, for a long

time he stared at the trees, smoked three cigarettes one after

another, and suddenly turned to his cousin.

"I have a favour to ask you, Alyosha," he said. "Let me have a

saddle-horse for the day. . . ."

Kryukov looked searchingly at him and continued his writing with a

frown.

"You will, then?" asked the lieutenant.

Kryukov looked at him again, then deliberately drew out a drawer

in the table, and taking out a thick roll of notes, gave it to his

cousin.

"Here's five thousand . . ." he said. "Though it's not my money,

yet, God bless you, it's all the same. I advise you to send for

post-horses at once and go away. Yes, really!"

The lieutenant in his turn looked searchingly at Kryukov and laughed.

"You've guessed right, Alyosha," he said, reddening. "It was to her

I meant to ride. Yesterday evening when the washerwoman gave me

that damned tunic, the one I was wearing then, and it smelt of

jasmine, why . . . I felt I must go!"

"You must go away."

"Yes, certainly. And my furlough's just over. I really will go

to-day! Yes, by Jove! However long one stays, one has to go in the

end. . . . I'm going!"

The post-horses were brought after dinner the same day; the lieutenant

said good-bye to the Kryukovs and set off, followed by their good

wishes.

Another week passed. It was a dull but hot and heavy day. From early

morning Kryukov walked aimlessly about the house, looking out of

window, or turning over the leaves of albums, though he was sick

of the sight of them already. When he came across his wife or

children, he began grumbling crossly. It seemed to him, for some

reason that day, that his children's manners were revolting, that

his wife did not know how to look after the servants, that their

expenditure was quite disproportionate to their income. All this

meant that "the master" was out of humour.

After dinner, Kryukov, feeling dissatisfied with the soup and the

roast meat he had eaten, ordered out his racing droshky. He drove

slowly out of the courtyard, drove at a walking pace for a quarter

of a mile, and stopped.

"Shall I . . . drive to her . . . that devil?" he thought, looking

at the leaden sky.

And Kryukov positively laughed, as though it were the first time

that day he had asked himself that question. At once the load of

boredom was lifted from his heart, and there rose a gleam of pleasure

in his lazy eyes. He lashed the horse. . . .

All the way his imagination was picturing how surprised the Jewess

would be to see him, how he would laugh and chat, and come home

feeling refreshed. . . .

"Once a month one needs something to brighten one up . . . something

out of the common round," he thought, "something that would give

the stagnant organism a good shaking up, a reaction . . . whether

it's a drinking bout, or . . . Susanna. One can't get on without

it."

It was getting dark when he drove into the yard of the vodka

distillery. From the open windows of the owner's house came sounds

of laughter and singing:

"'Brighter than lightning, more burning than flame. . . .'"

sang a powerful, mellow, bass voice.

"Aha! she has visitors," thought Kryukov.

And he was annoyed that she had visitors.

"Shall I go back?" he thought with his hand on the bell, but he

rang all the same, and went up the familiar staircase. From the

entry he glanced into the reception hall. There were about five men

there--all landowners and officials of his acquaintance; one, a

tall, thin gentleman, was sitting at the piano, singing, and striking

the keys with his long, thin fingers. The others were listening and

grinning with enjoyment. Kryukov looked himself up and down in the

looking-glass, and was about to go into the hall, when Susanna

Moiseyevna herself darted into the entry, in high spirits and wearing

the same black dress. . . . Seeing Kryukov, she was petrified for

an instant, then she uttered a little scream and beamed with delight.

"Is it you?" she said, clutching his hand. "What a surprise!"

"Here she is!" smiled Kryukov, putting his arm round her waist.

"Well! Does the destiny of Europe still lie in the hands of the

French and the Russians?"

"I'm so glad," laughed the Jewess, cautiously removing his arm.

"Come, go into the hall; they're all friends there. . . . I'll go

and tell them to bring you some tea. Your name's Alexey, isn't it?

Well, go in, I'll come directly. . . ."

She blew him a kiss and ran out of the entry, leaving behind her

the same sickly smell of jasmine. Kryukov raised his head and walked

into the hall. He was on terms of friendly intimacy with all the

men in the room, but scarcely nodded to them; they, too, scarcely

responded, as though the places in which they met were not quite

decent, and as though they were in tacit agreement with one another

that it was more suitable for them not to recognise one another.

From the hall Kryukov walked into the drawing-room, and from it

into a second drawing-room. On the way he met three or four other

guests, also men whom he knew, though they barely recognised him.

Their faces were flushed with drink and merriment. Alexey Ivanovitch

glanced furtively at them and marvelled that these men, respectable

heads of families, who had known sorrow and privation, could demean

themselves to such pitiful, cheap gaiety! He shrugged his shoulders,

smiled, and walked on.

"There are places," he reflected, "where a sober man feels sick,

and a drunken man rejoices. I remember I never could go to the

operetta or the gipsies when I was sober: wine makes a man more

good-natured and reconciles him with vice. . . ."

Suddenly he stood still, petrified, and caught hold of the door-post

with both hands. At the writing-table in Susanna's study was sitting

Lieutenant Alexandr Grigoryevitch. He was discussing something in

an undertone with a fat, flabby-looking Jew, and seeing his cousin,

flushed crimson and looked down at an album.

The sense of decency was stirred in Kryukov and the blood rushed

to his head. Overwhelmed with amazement, shame, and anger, he walked

up to the table without a word. Sokolsky's head sank lower than

ever. His face worked with an expression of agonising shame.

"Ah, it's you, Alyosha!" he articulated, making a desperate effort

to raise his eyes and to smile. "I called here to say good-bye,

and, as you see. . . . But to-morrow I am certainly going."

"What can I say to him? What?" thought Alexey Ivanovitch. "How can

I judge him since I'm here myself?"

And clearing his throat without uttering a word, he went out slowly.

"'Call her not heavenly, and leave her on earth. . . .'"

The bass was singing in the hall. A little while after, Kryukov's

racing droshky was bumping along the dusty road.