NEW YEAR'S EVE. Nellie, the daughter of a landowner and general, a
young and pretty girl, dreaming day and night of being married, was
sitting in her room, gazing with exhausted, half-closed eyes into
the looking-glass. She was pale, tense, and as motionless as the
looking-glass.
The non-existent but apparent vista of a long, narrow corridor with
endless rows of candles, the reflection of her face, her hands, of
the frame--all this was already clouded in mist and merged into
a boundless grey sea. The sea was undulating, gleaming and now and
then flaring crimson. . . .
Looking at Nellie's motionless eyes and parted lips, one could
hardly say whether she was asleep or awake, but nevertheless she
was seeing. At first she saw only the smile and soft, charming
expression of someone's eyes, then against the shifting grey
background there gradually appeared the outlines of a head, a face,
eyebrows, beard. It was he, the destined one, the object of long
dreams and hopes. The destined one was for Nellie everything, the
significance of life, personal happiness, career, fate. Outside
him, as on the grey background of the looking-glass, all was dark,
empty, meaningless. And so it was not strange that, seeing before
her a handsome, gently smiling face, she was conscious of bliss,
of an unutterably sweet dream that could not be expressed in speech
or on paper. Then she heard his voice, saw herself living under the
same roof with him, her life merged into his. Months and years flew
by against the grey background. And Nellie saw her future distinctly
in all its details.
Picture followed picture against the grey background. Now Nellie
saw herself one winter night knocking at the door of Stepan Lukitch,
the district doctor. The old dog hoarsely and lazily barked behind
the gate. The doctor's windows were in darkness. All was silence.
"For God's sake, for God's sake!" whispered Nellie.
But at last the garden gate creaked and Nellie saw the doctor's
cook.
"Is the doctor at home?"
"His honour's asleep," whispered the cook into her sleeve, as though
afraid of waking her master.
"He's only just got home from his fever patients, and gave orders
he was not to be waked."
But Nellie scarcely heard the cook. Thrusting her aside, she rushed
headlong into the doctor's house. Running through some dark and
stuffy rooms, upsetting two or three chairs, she at last reached
the doctor's bedroom. Stepan Lukitch was lying on his bed, dressed,
but without his coat, and with pouting lips was breathing into his
open hand. A little night-light glimmered faintly beside him. Without
uttering a word Nellie sat down and began to cry. She wept bitterly,
shaking all over.
"My husband is ill!" she sobbed out. Stepan Lukitch was silent. He
slowly sat up, propped his head on his hand, and looked at his
visitor with fixed, sleepy eyes. "My husband is ill!" Nellie
continued, restraining her sobs. "For mercy's sake come quickly.
Make haste. . . . Make haste!"
"Eh?" growled the doctor, blowing into his hand.
"Come! Come this very minute! Or . . . it's terrible to think! For
mercy's sake!"
And pale, exhausted Nellie, gasping and swallowing her tears, began
describing to the doctor her husband's illness, her unutterable
terror. Her sufferings would have touched the heart of a stone, but
the doctor looked at her, blew into his open hand, and--not a
movement.
"I'll come to-morrow!" he muttered.
"That's impossible!" cried Nellie. "I know my husband has typhus!
At once . . . this very minute you are needed!"
"I . . . er . . . have only just come in," muttered the doctor.
"For the last three days I've been away, seeing typhus patients,
and I'm exhausted and ill myself. . . . I simply can't! Absolutely!
I've caught it myself! There!"
And the doctor thrust before her eyes a clinical thermometer.
"My temperature is nearly forty. . . . I absolutely can't. I can
scarcely sit up. Excuse me. I'll lie down. . . ."
The doctor lay down.
"But I implore you, doctor," Nellie moaned in despair. "I beseech
you! Help me, for mercy's sake! Make a great effort and come! I
will repay you, doctor!"
"Oh, dear! . . . Why, I have told you already. Ah!"
Nellie leapt up and walked nervously up and down the bedroom. She
longed to explain to the doctor, to bring him to reason. . . . She
thought if only he knew how dear her husband was to her and how
unhappy she was, he would forget his exhaustion and his illness.
But how could she be eloquent enough?
"Go to the Zemstvo doctor," she heard Stepan Lukitch's voice.
"That's impossible! He lives more than twenty miles from here, and
time is precious. And the horses can't stand it. It is thirty miles
from us to you, and as much from here to the Zemstvo doctor. No,
it's impossible! Come along, Stepan Lukitch. I ask of you an heroic
deed. Come, perform that heroic deed! Have pity on us!"
"It's beyond everything. . . . I'm in a fever . . . my head's in a
whirl . . . and she won't understand! Leave me alone!"
"But you are in duty bound to come! You cannot refuse to come! It's
egoism! A man is bound to sacrifice his life for his neighbour, and
you . . . you refuse to come! I will summon you before the Court."
Nellie felt that she was uttering a false and undeserved insult,
but for her husband's sake she was capable of forgetting logic,
tact, sympathy for others. . . . In reply to her threats, the doctor
greedily gulped a glass of cold water. Nellie fell to entreating
and imploring like the very lowest beggar. . . . At last the doctor
gave way. He slowly got up, puffing and panting, looking for his
coat.
"Here it is!" cried Nellie, helping him. "Let me put it on to you.
Come along! I will repay you. . . . All my life I shall be grateful
to you. . . ."
But what agony! After putting on his coat the doctor lay down again.
Nellie got him up and dragged him to the hall. Then there was an
agonizing to-do over his goloshes, his overcoat. . . . His cap was
lost. . . . But at last Nellie was in the carriage with the doctor.
Now they had only to drive thirty miles and her husband would have
a doctor's help. The earth was wrapped in darkness. One could not
see one's hand before one's face. . . . A cold winter wind was
blowing. There were frozen lumps under their wheels. The coachman
was continually stopping and wondering which road to take.
Nellie and the doctor sat silent all the way. It was fearfully
jolting, but they felt neither the cold nor the jolts.
"Get on, get on!" Nellie implored the driver.
At five in the morning the exhausted horses drove into the yard.
Nellie saw the familiar gates, the well with the crane, the long
row of stables and barns. At last she was at home.
"Wait a moment, I will be back directly," she said to Stepan Lukitch,
making him sit down on the sofa in the dining-room. "Sit still and
wait a little, and I'll see how he is going on."
On her return from her husband, Nellie found the doctor lying down.
He was lying on the sofa and muttering.
"Doctor, please! . . . doctor!"
"Eh? Ask Domna!" muttered Stepan Lukitch.
"What?"
"They said at the meeting . . . Vlassov said . . . Who? . . . what?"
And to her horror Nellie saw that the doctor was as delirious as
her husband. What was to be done?
"I must go for the Zemstvo doctor," she decided.
Then again there followed darkness, a cutting cold wind, lumps of
frozen earth. She was suffering in body and in soul, and delusive
nature has no arts, no deceptions to compensate these sufferings. . . .
Then she saw against the grey background how her husband every
spring was in straits for money to pay the interest for the mortgage
to the bank. He could not sleep, she could not sleep, and both
racked their brains till their heads ached, thinking how to avoid
being visited by the clerk of the Court.
She saw her children: the everlasting apprehension of colds, scarlet
fever, diphtheria, bad marks at school, separation. Out of a brood
of five or six one was sure to die.
The grey background was not untouched by death. That might well be.
A husband and wife cannot die simultaneously. Whatever happened one
must bury the other. And Nellie saw her husband dying. This terrible
event presented itself to her in every detail. She saw the coffin,
the candles, the deacon, and even the footmarks in the hall made
by the undertaker.
"Why is it, what is it for?" she asked, looking blankly at her
husband's face.
And all the previous life with her husband seemed to her a stupid
prelude to this.
Something fell from Nellie's hand and knocked on the floor. She
started, jumped up, and opened her eyes wide. One looking-glass she
saw lying at her feet. The other was standing as before on the
table.
She looked into the looking-glass and saw a pale, tear-stained face.
There was no grey background now.
"I must have fallen asleep," she thought with a sigh of relief.