Now that I am writing these lines I am restrained by that dread of
appearing sentimental and ridiculous, in which I have been trained from
childhood; when I want to be affectionate or to say anything tender, I
don't know how to be natural. And it is that dread, together with lack
of practice, that prevents me from being able to express with perfect
clearness what was passing in my soul at that time.
I was not in love with Zinaida Fyodorovna, but in the ordinary human
feeling I had for her, there was far more youth, freshness, and
joyousness than in Orlov's love.
As I worked in the morning, cleaning boots or sweeping the rooms, I
waited with a thrill at my heart for the moment when I should hear her
voice and her footsteps. To stand watching her as she drank her coffee
in the morning or ate her lunch, to hold her fur coat for her in the
hall, and to put the goloshes on her little feet while she rested her
hand on my shoulder; then to wait till the hall porter rang up for me,
to meet her at the door, cold, and rosy, powdered with the snow, to
listen to her brief exclamations about the frost or the cabman--if only
you knew how much all that meant to me! I longed to be in love, to have
a wife and child of my own. I wanted my future wife to have just such a
face, such a voice. I dreamed of it at dinner, and in the street when I
was sent on some errand, and when I lay awake at night. Orlov rejected
with disgust children, cooking, copper saucepans, and feminine
knicknacks and I gathered them all up, tenderly cherished them in my
dreams, loved them, and begged them of destiny. I had visions of a wife,
a nursery, a little house with garden paths....
I knew that if I did love her I could never dare hope for the miracle of
her returning my love, but that reflection did not worry me. In my
quiet, modest feeling akin to ordinary affection, there was no jealousy
of Orlov or even envy of him, since I realised that for a wreck like me
happiness was only to be found in dreams.
When Zinaida Fyodorovna sat up night after night for her _George_,
looking immovably at a book of which she never turned a page, or when
she shuddered and turned pale at Polya's crossing the room, I suffered
with her, and the idea occurred to me to lance this festering wound as
quickly as possible by letting her know what was said here at supper on
Thursdays; but--how was it to be done? More and more often I saw her
tears. For the first weeks she laughed and sang to herself, even when
Orlov was not at home, but by the second month there was a mournful
stillness in our flat broken only on Thursday evenings.
She flattered Orlov, and to wring from him a counterfeit smile or kiss,
was ready to go on her knees to him, to fawn on him like a dog. Even
when her heart was heaviest, she could not resist glancing into a
looking-glass if she passed one and straightening her hair. It seemed
strange to me that she could still take an interest in clothes and go
into ecstasies over her purchases. It did not seem in keeping with her
genuine grief. She paid attention to the fashions and ordered expensive
dresses. What for? On whose account? I particularly remember one dress
which cost four hundred roubles. To give four hundred roubles for an
unnecessary, useless dress while women for their hard day's work get
only twenty kopecks a day without food, and the makers of Venice and
Brussels lace are only paid half a franc a day on the supposition that
they can earn the rest by immorality! And it seemed strange to me that
Zinaida Fyodorovna was not conscious of it; it vexed me. But she had
only to go out of the house for me to find excuses and explanations for
everything, and to be waiting eagerly for the hall porter to ring for
me.
She treated me as a flunkey, a being of a lower order. One may pat a
dog, and yet not notice it; I was given orders and asked questions, but
my presence was not observed. My master and mistress thought it unseemly
to say more to me than is usually said to servants; if when waiting at
dinner I had laughed or put in my word in the conversation, they would
certainly have thought I was mad and have dismissed me. Zinaida
Fyodorovna was favourably disposed to me, all the same. When she was
sending me on some errand or explaining to me the working of a new lamp
or anything of that sort, her face was extraordinarily kind, frank, and
cordial, and her eyes looked me straight in the face. At such moments I
always fancied she remembered with gratitude how I used to bring her
letters to Znamensky Street. When she rang the bell, Polya, who
considered me her favourite and hated me for it, used to say with a
jeering smile:
"Go along, _your_ mistress wants you."
Zinaida Fyodorovna considered me as a being of a lower order, and did
not suspect that if any one in the house were in a humiliating position
it was she. She did not know that I, a footman, was unhappy on her
account, and used to ask myself twenty times a day what was in store for
her and how it would all end. Things were growing visibly worse day by
day. After the evening on which they had talked of his official work,
Orlov, who could not endure tears, unmistakably began to avoid
conversation with her; whenever Zinaida Fyodorovna began to argue, or to
beseech him, or seemed on the point of crying, he seized some plausible
excuse for retreating to his study or going out. He more and more rarely
slept at home, and still more rarely dined there: on Thursdays he was
the one to suggest some expedition to his friends. Zinaida Fyodorovna
was still dreaming of having the cooking done at home, of moving to a
new flat, of travelling abroad, but her dreams remained dreams. Dinner
was sent in from the restaurant. Orlov asked her not to broach the
question of moving until after they had come back from abroad, and
apropos of their foreign tour, declared that they could not go till his
hair had grown long, as one could not go trailing from hotel to hotel
and serving the idea without long hair.
To crown it all, in Orlov's absence, Kukushkin began calling at the flat
in the evening. There was nothing exceptional in his behaviour, but I
could never forget the conversation in which he had offered to cut Orlov
out. He was regaled with tea and red wine, and he used to titter and,
anxious to say something pleasant, would declare that a free union was
superior in every respect to legal marriage, and that all decent people
ought really to come to Zinaida Fyodorovna and fall at her feet.