I
ALL Olga Ivanovna’s friends and acquaintances were at her wedding.
“Look at him; isn’t it true that there is something in him?” she said
to her friends, with a nod towards her husband, as though she wanted
to explain why she was marrying a simple, very ordinary, and in no way
remarkable man.
Her husband, Osip Stepanitch Dymov, was a doctor, and only of the rank
of a titular councillor. He was on the staff of two hospitals: in one a
ward-surgeon and in the other a dissecting demonstrator. Every day
from nine to twelve he saw patients and was busy in his ward, and
after twelve o’clock he went by tram to the other hospital, where he
dissected. His private practice was a small one, not worth more than
five hundred roubles a year. That was all. What more could one say about
him? Meanwhile, Olga Ivanovna and her friends and acquaintances were not
quite ordinary people. Every one of them was remarkable in some way, and
more or less famous; already had made a reputation and was looked upon
as a celebrity; or if not yet a celebrity, gave brilliant promise of
becoming one. There was an actor from the Dramatic Theatre, who was
a great talent of established reputation, as well as an elegant,
intelligent, and modest man, and a capital elocutionist, and who
taught Olga Ivanovna to recite; there was a singer from the opera, a
good-natured, fat man who assured Olga Ivanovna, with a sigh, that she
was ruining herself, that if she would take herself in hand and not
be lazy she might make a remarkable singer; then there were several
artists, and chief among them Ryabovsky, a very handsome, fair young
man of five-and-twenty who painted genre pieces, animal studies, and
landscapes, was successful at exhibitions, and had sold his last picture
for five hundred roubles. He touched up Olga Ivanovna’s sketches,
and used to say she might do something. Then a violoncellist, whose
instrument used to sob, and who openly declared that of all the ladies
of his acquaintance the only one who could accompany him was Olga
Ivanovna; then there was a literary man, young but already well known,
who had written stories, novels, and plays. Who else? Why, Vassily
Vassilyitch, a landowner and amateur illustrator and vignettist, with
a great feeling for the old Russian style, the old ballad and epic. On
paper, on china, and on smoked plates, he produced literally marvels.
In the midst of this free artistic company, spoiled by fortune, though
refined and modest, who recalled the existence of doctors only in times
of illness, and to whom the name of Dymov sounded in no way different
from Sidorov or Tarasov--in the midst of this company Dymov seemed
strange, not wanted, and small, though he was tall and broad-shouldered.
He looked as though he had on somebody else’s coat, and his beard was
like a shopman’s. Though if he had been a writer or an artist, they
would have said that his beard reminded them of Zola.
An artist said to Olga Ivanovna that with her flaxen hair and in her
wedding-dress she was very much like a graceful cherry-tree when it is
covered all over with delicate white blossoms in spring.
“Oh, let me tell you,” said Olga Ivanovna, taking his arm, “how it was
it all came to pass so suddenly. Listen, listen!... I must tell you that
my father was on the same staff at the hospital as Dymov. When my poor
father was taken ill, Dymov watched for days and nights together at his
bedside. Such self-sacrifice! Listen, Ryabovsky! You, my writer, listen;
it is very interesting! Come nearer. Such self-sacrifice, such genuine
sympathy! I sat up with my father, and did not sleep for nights, either.
And all at once--the princess had won the hero’s heart--my Dymov fell
head over ears in love. Really, fate is so strange at times! Well, after
my father’s death he came to see me sometimes, met me in the street, and
one fine evening, all at once he made me an offer... like snow upon
my head.... I lay awake all night, crying, and fell hellishly in love
myself. And here, as you see, I am his wife. There really is something
strong, powerful, bearlike about him, isn’t there? Now his face is
turned three-quarters towards us in a bad light, but when he turns
round look at his forehead. Ryabovsky, what do you say to that forehead?
Dymov, we are talking about you!” she called to her husband. “Come here;
hold out your honest hand to Ryabovsky.... That’s right, be friends.”
Dymov, with a naive and good-natured smile, held out his hand to
Ryabovsky, and said:
“Very glad to meet you. There was a Ryabovsky in my year at the medical
school. Was he a relation of yours?”