“But, Uncle, there’s really no need to do that! I will definitely finish work on those German economists…”
“Well, you’d better start work on them first. And be sure to remember: don’t come to me for any of that ‘filthy lucre’ while you’re totally in thrall to the charms of that ‘sublime bliss’.”
Chapter 4
Alexander’s life was split in two. In the morning he immersed himself in his work. He rooted around in dusty files, tried to make sense of details that meant absolutely nothing to him, and counted enormous sums of money that didn’t belong to him. But sometimes his head simply gave up thinking about matters irrelevant to him: his pen slipped from his fingers, and he gave himself up to that “sublime bliss” that so infuriated his uncle.
Then Alexander would lean back in his chair and let himself be transported to “green pastures”, that tranquil place where there were no papers, no inkwells, no strange faces, no uniforms, a cool place where peace, quiet and bliss reigned supreme, and where in an elegantly appointed salon scented with the fragrance of flowers, a piano was tinkling, a parrot prancing in a cage. In the garden, birch branches and clusters of lilac were gently swaying. And it was she, the queen who reigned over all this…
In the morning, Alexander, sitting at his desk in the office, in his imagination was already on one of the islands at the Lyubetskys’ dacha, but in the evening he was actually there in the flesh. Let us intrude on his blissful state and take a look.
St Petersburg was having one of its rare hot days. The sun brought the fields to life, but was having a deadening effect on the streets, heating the granite with its rays, bouncing off the stone and scorching passers-by. People were moving slowly with their heads down, and the dogs’ tongues were hanging out. St Petersburg resembled one of those fairy-tale cities where everything had suddenly been turned to stone with a wave of the wizard’s wand. The carriages rumbled over the cobbles. Blinds were lowered over the windows like eyes which had been closed. The wooden-block paving gleamed like parquet floors, and the heat underfoot burned the feet of pedestrians. The city was lifeless and sleepy.
Someone was wiping the sweat from his face and seeking shade. A stagecoach carrying six passengers crawled into the city, scarcely raising dust. At four o’clock, office workers were leaving their workplaces and quietly plodding their way home.
Alexander rushed out as if the ceiling were collapsing onto his head and looked at his watch – too late; he would never make it in time for dinner. He hurried to a restaurant.
“What do you have? I’m in a hurry!”
“Soupe julienne and à la reine, sauce à la provençale, à la maître d’hôtel.* Roast turkey, game bird and soufflé.”
“I’ll have soupe à la provençale, sauce julienne and the roast and the soufflé, and please make it quick!”
The waiter looked at him.
“Well, what is it?” he said impatiently.
The waiter rushed off and served up whatever entered his head.
Aduyev was very pleased. Without waiting for the dessert, he ran to the Neva embankment, where a boat with two oarsmen was awaiting him. After an hour he caught sight of his little plot of promised land, and strained to see into the distance. At first his eyes glazed over with apprehension and anxiety, which grew into doubt. Then suddenly his eyes lit up with joy like a sudden ray of sunlight. He made out a familiar dress by the garden fence: someone there had recognized him and was waving a scarf. Someone had been waiting for him, perhaps for a long time. The soles of his feet were practically burning with impatience.
“Ah, if only I could have walked here on the water,” he thought. “They invent all kinds of rubbish, but they haven’t come up with that!”
The oarsmen were rowing slowly and steadily like a machine. Sweat was pouring down their sunburnt faces; it didn’t matter to them that Alexander’s heart was beating wildly in his chest, and that without lowering his eyes from the spot on which they were trained, and without noticing what he was doing, he had already twice stretched one foot after another over the edge of the boat; they continued rowing just as phlegmatically as before, stopping from time to time to wipe the sweat from their faces with their sleeves.
“Speed up!” he said. “There’s fifty copecks in it for you for vodka.”
They set to work with a will, rising out of their seats from the effort, with not the slightest sign of the earlier fatigue. From where had they summoned this vigour? Their oars skimmed the water. The boat slipped through the water and covered five yards in a trice. Ten more strokes – the stern described an arc, and then slid gracefully alongside the riverbank. Alexander and Nadenka exchanged smiles at a distance, without taking their eyes off each other. Aduyev stepped off the boat, missing the bank with one foot and hitting the water instead. Nadenka burst out laughing.
“Take it easy, sir, just wait a moment and I’ll give you my hand!” said one of the oarsmen, but by that time Alexander was already on shore.
“Wait for me here!” Alexander told them, and ran towards to Nadenka. She smiled affectionately at him from a distance. As the boat had moved closer and closer to the shore, her breast had begun to rise and fall more and more rapidly.
“Nadezhda Alexandrovna!” said Aduyev, breathless with delight.
“Alexander Fyodorych!” she replied.
They rushed spontaneously towards each other, but stopped and looked at each other with a smile, moist eyes, unable to speak. They stood like that for several minutes.
Pyotr Ivanych cannot be blamed for failing to notice Nadenka the first time. She was no beauty, and did not command one’s immediate attention. But once someone had taken a longer look at her features, he would keep looking for a long time. Her face was rarely still for longer than two minutes. The thoughts and different kinds of sensations of her extraordinarily impressionable and restless nature passed across her face in rapid succession, and the shades of these sensations mingled kaleidoscopically, creating a new and unexpected expression from one moment to the next. Her eyes, for example, would suddenly flash like lightning, catch fire, and as suddenly would hide behind her long eyelashes, and her face would suddenly become lifeless and immobile – it was just as if it was a marble statue facing you. But the next thing you are expecting is the same kind of penetrating radiance – nothing of the kind! The eyes would open slowly and quietly, and you would be bathed in the light of a demure glow from her gaze, like that of the moon slowly gliding from behind a cloud. Your heart could not help missing a beat in response to that look. The same was true of her movements: they were very graceful, but it was not the grace of a sylph. It was a grace which contained a strong element of something unrestrained and impulsive, something which nature has given to us all, but every trace of which is subsequently eroded by the civilizing process, instead of merely being attenuated. It was these traces which could so often be detected in Nadenka’s movements.
She would sometimes sit as if posing for a picture, but suddenly, because of some unfathomable inner prompting, this pose would be interrupted by an entirely unexpected, and once again enchanting, gesture. The same unexpected twists and turns also occurred in her conversation – a firm opinion, followed by a pensive silence; a sudden sharp criticism followed by some childish prattle or subtle dissembling, all of which revealed her passionate, headstrong and fickle personality. Anyone would have been expected to fall for her head over heels, and Alexander was no exception. Pyotr Ivanych was a rare exception, and failed to succumb.
“You’ve been waiting for me – my God, how happy that makes me!” said Alexander.
“Was I? I didn’t give it a thought,” Nadenka replied, shaking her head. “You know I’m always in the garden.”
“Are you angry?” he asked meekly.
“Why should I be? What an idea!”
“Well, give me your hand!”
She stretched out her hand, but t
he moment he touched it she withdrew it, and her expression changed abruptly. Her smile vanished and was replaced by something akin to annoyance.
“What are you drinking, is it milk?” he asked.
Nadenka was holding a cup of milk and a rusk in her hands.
“It’s my dinner,” she replied.
“Dinner? But it’s six o’clock – and milk!”
“Well, of course, you must find it strange to see milk after a lavish dinner at your uncle’s, but here in the country, we live modestly.”
She broke off a few morsels of the rusk with her front teeth, and took a sip of the milk, pursing her lips endearingly.
“I didn’t have dinner at my uncle’s: I told him yesterday that I couldn’t,” Aduyev replied.
“That wasn’t very nice: how could you lie like that? And where have you been since then?”
“Today I was at work until four…”
“Well, it’s six now, so tell the truth and own up: you couldn’t resist going to some dinner in pleasant company, could you? I’m sure you had a wonderful time.
“Word of honour – I didn’t go to my uncle’s…” Alexander started to defend himself heatedly. “If I had, there’s no way I could have got here by now!”
“You call this early? Well, you could have arrived two hours later for all I care!” said Nadenka, doing a swift about-turn, and set off on the path back to the house. Alexander followed her.
“Keep away from me, keep away from me!” she said with a wave of her hand. “I can’t stand the sight of you.”
“Stop clowning, Nadezhda Alexandrovna!”
“I’m not clowning at all. I really want to know where you were before you came.”
“I left the office at four o’clock…” Aduyev began, “and it took me an hour to get here…”
“You see, you’re still lying!”
“I had a quick bite at a restaurant…”
“A quick bite! And only one hour,” she said. “You poor thing, you must be really hungry! Would you like some milk?”
“Please give me that cup…” said Alexander, and held out his hand.
She stopped suddenly, turned the cup upside down and, paying no attention to Alexander, watched with curiosity as the last drops spilt onto the sand.
“You have no pity!” he said. “How can you torment me like this?”
“Watch this, watch this, Alexander Fyodorych,” Nadenka suddenly broke in, interrupting him, totally absorbed in what she was doing. “See that bug, the one crawling along the path? Will I be able to hit it with a drop of the milk? Oh, I got it! Poor thing, it’s dying!” she said, and then carefully picked it up, placed it on her palm and started to breathe on it.
“What a fuss you’re making of that bug,” he said with annoyance.
“The poor thing – don’t you see it’s dying?” she said sadly. “What have I done?”
She held the bug on her palm for a short time, but when it started moving, and creeping up and down her arm, Nadenka shuddered, threw it on the ground, crushed it under her foot with the words “Nasty bug!” and then asked: “So where were you”?
“But I’ve already told you…”
“Oh yes, of course, at your uncle’s. Were there a lot of guests? Did you have champagne? I can even smell it from where I’m standing…”
“No, I wasn’t, I wasn’t at my uncle’s…” Alexander cut in in desperation. “Who told you that?”
“Why, you told me.”
“At my uncle’s, I would say that they’re sitting down to dinner just about now. You don’t know those dinners – do you really think they’re over in an hour?”
“You took two hours – between five and seven.”
“So when was it that I was travelling to get here?”
She made no attempt to reply, but jumped to pick a spray of acacia and then ran off along the path.
Aduyev followed her.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“Where? What do you mean, ‘where’? What a question! To Mummy.”
“But why? Maybe we’ll be bothering her.”
“No, of course we won’t.”
Maria Mikhailovna, Nadezhda Alexandrovna’s “mummy”, was one of those good-natured and uncomplicated mothers who think that everything their children do is wonderful. Maria Mikhailovna would, for example, order the carriage to be harnessed, and Nadenka would ask her where she wanted to go.
“Let’s go for a drive, the weather’s beautiful!” her mother would say.
“How can we? Alexander Fyodorych will be here.”
So the carriage would be unharnessed.
Another time, Maria Mikhailovna would sit down at her endless scarf and start sighing, take a pinch of snuff and start plying her bone knitting needles, or bury herself in a French novel.
“Maman, why aren’t you dressed to go out?” Nadenka would admonish her.
“Go out where?”
“But we’re going for a walk.”
“A walk?”
“Yes, Alexander Fyodorych is coming for us. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”
“Oh, I didn’t know.”
“How could you not know?” Nadenka would scold her.
So her mother would abandon the scarf or the book and go to get dressed. Nadenka enjoyed total freedom. She did whatever she wished and whenever she wished – and saw to it that her mother did too. However, she was a good and affectionate daughter, although you couldn’t call her an obedient one. It was her mother who did all the obeying, and was the obedient one.
“Go in to Mummy!” said Nadenka as they approached the door of the living room.
“What about you?”
“I’ll join you later.”
“Well, I’ll go in later too.”
“No, you go in first!”
Alexander went in, and immediately tiptoed out again.
“She’s dozing in her armchair,” he whispered.
“Don’t worry, let’s go in. Maman, maman!” she called.
“Wha!…”
“Alexander Fyodorych is here.”
“Wha!…”
“Monsieur Aduyev is here to see you.”
“Wha!…”
“You see, she’s sound asleep. Don’t wake her up!” Alexander tried to insist.
“No, I’m going to wake her. Maman!”
“Wha!…”
“Now, wake up, Alexander Fyodorych is here.”
“Where’s Alexander Fyodorych?” said Maria Mikhailovna, looking straight at him and adjusting her cap, which had slipped to one side.
“Oh, it’s you, Alexander Fyodorych? Welcome! And here I was just sitting here. I must have dozed off – I don’t know why; it must be the weather. My corn is beginning to act up for some reason – there’s going to be rain. I fell asleep, and dreamt that Ignaty was announcing guests, but I didn’t understand who. I heard a voice say that someone had come, but couldn’t make out who. Then I hear Nadenka calling out, and woke up right away. I’m a light sleeper. If someone makes the slightest sound, I’m awake and looking. Please sit down, Alexander Fyodorych, are you well?”
“Very well, thank you kindly.”
“And how is Pyotr Ivanych?”
“Very well, thank God. Thank you for asking.”
“Why does he never visit us? Only yesterday, I was thinking how nice it would be if he came to see us some time, but no; he’s busy no doubt?”
“Very busy,” said Alexander.
“Haven’t seen you for two days,” Maria Mikhailovna went on. “One day I woke up, and asked, ‘What’s Nadenka doing?’
“‘She’s still asleep,’ I was told.
“‘Well let her sleep, she’s spent the whole day outdoors – in the garden; the weather is fine, so she’ll be tired.�
�� Young people sleep soundly, but at my age, we don’t – such bad insomnia, you wouldn’t believe. I’m in very low spirits – it’s probably – who knows? When they bring me coffee, I always drink it in bed – while I’m drinking it, I’m thinking: ‘How come we don’t see Alexander Fyodorych, could it be that he’s sick?’
“Anyway, I get up, and I find that it’s past eleven o’clock – would you believe! The servants don’t even tell me! I go into Nadenka’s room – she’s still asleep. I wake her up. ‘Time to get up, my dear, it’s almost twelve, what’s the matter with you?’ I mean, I fuss over her the whole day like a nanny. I even let the governess go deliberately: we don’t want strangers around. I don’t think you can trust strangers: you can never tell what they’ll get up to. No! I brought her up myself, keep a close watch on her, never let her out of my sight, and I can say that she feels this, and there’s nothing she keeps from me – even what she’s thinking. I know her through and through… Then the cook came to see me and we talked for an hour or so. After that I read Mémoires du Diable for a while. It’s such a pleasure to read Soulié’s books!* He describes things so beautifully! Then our neighbour, Maria Ivanovna, stopped by with her husband – so, what with one thing and another, the morning went by, and I take a look and it’s already past four and time for dinner!… Oh yes, we expected you for dinner, why didn’t you come? We waited for you until five o’clock.”
“Until five?” said Alexander. “There was no way I could get here by then, Maria Mikhailovna, I had to be at work. Please don’t ever wait for me after four o’clock.”
“That’s just what I told Nadenka, but of course she said: ‘Let’s wait a little longer!’”
“I did? Oh Mummy, come on now! Wasn’t I the one who said: ‘Mummy, it’s time for dinner’? And you said: ‘No, let’s wait, Alexander Fyodorych hasn’t been here for a long time, and he’s coming here to dinner.’”
“Now, now!” Maria Mikhailovna put in, shaking her head. “That’s really not nice of you, putting your words in my mouth.”
Nadenka turned away and walked towards the flowers, and began to tease the parrot.
The Same Old Story Page 12
