“What I said was: ‘Where could Alexander Fyodorych be right now?’” Maria Mikhailovna went on. “It’s already half-past four. But no, she says: ‘Maman, we must wait – he’ll be here.’ I look and it’s now a quarter to five, so I say: ‘Well, if you like, Nadenka, but Alexander Fyodorych has probably been invited somewhere, and won’t be coming, and I’m hungry.’ But: ‘No,’ she says, ‘let’s wait a little longer – until five.’ And I’m starving to death because of her. Isn’t that right, young lady?”
Nadenka’s voice could be heard from behind the flowers, addressing the parrot: “Polly, Polly, where did you have dinner today – at your uncle’s?”
“So she’s hiding, is she?” said her mother. “Obviously afraid to show her face!”
“Not at all,” replied Nadenka, emerging from the shrubbery, and sat down by the window.
“And she still wouldn’t sit down at the table!” said Maria Mikhailovna. “She asked for a cup of milk and went into the garden, and never had any dinner. Now, look me straight in the eye, my girl!”
While Maria Mikhailovna was holding forth, Alexander maintained a stunned silence. He looked at Nadenka, but she had turned her back on him and was shredding a leaf of ivy.
“Nadezhda Alexandrovna!” he said. “Should I really be so happy that you were thinking of me?”
“Don’t come near me!” she cried, annoyed because her little act had been exposed. “Mummy was joking, and you were ready to believe her!”
“Then where are the berries you had picked for Alexander Fyodorych?” her mother asked.
“Berries?”
“Yes, the berries.”
“But you ate them at dinner…” Nadenka replied.
“I did what? Come clean, my dear: you hid them and wouldn’t give them to me. And she said, ‘Alexander Fyodorych will be coming, and I’ll give you some then.’ What do you think of a girl like that?”
Alexander gave Nadenka a sly but tender look. She blushed.
“She washed them herself, Alexander Fyodorych,” said her mother.
“Why are you making up such a story, maman? I washed two or three and ate them myself, and it was Vasilisa who…”
“Don’t believe her, don’t believe her, Alexander Fyodorych. This morning Vasilisa was sent into town. Why pretend? It will make Alexander Fyodorych happier to think that it was you who washed the berries and not Vasilisa.”
Nadenka smiled and disappeared once again among the flowers, then reappeared with a plateful of berries. She held out her hand with the berries to Aduyev. He kissed her hand and accepted the berries as if he were being awarded a field marshal’s baton.
“You don’t deserve them – after making us wait so long!” said Nadenka. “I waited for two hours by the fence, can you imagine! Someone was approaching, and I thought it was you, so I waved my scarf – it was some officer, and he waved back, what a nerve!”
In the evening, some guests came and went. It began to get dark, and just the three of them were left together. Gradually this trio too dispersed. Nadenka went into the garden, and the ill-matched duet of Maria Mikhailovna and Aduyev were left together. She went on for a long time, reeling off the events of the day and the day before, as well as what she would be doing the next day. Aduyev was overwhelmed by frustration and the sheer tedium of this litany. Night was beginning to fall, and he had not yet been able to say a single word to Nadenka in private. He was rescued by the cook: his benefactor had come to ask what to prepare for supper, and Aduyev was consumed with an impatience even greater than that he had suffered earlier that day in the boat. While they were discussing cutlets and sour cream, Aduyev was able to beat a stealthy retreat. How much manoeuvring was required just to get out of range of Maria Mikhailovna’s armchair! First he moved closer to the window and looked out into the courtyard, then somehow found his legs taking him towards the open door. Then slowly, barely restraining himself from making a mad dash for it, he crossed to the piano, fingered a few keys here and there and, trembling feverishly, took the music from the stand, gave it a quick look and put it back; he had enough self-control to sniff a couple of flowers and wake up the parrot. At this point he was seething with impatience; the door was so near, but it would have been awkward to walk out just like that – he needed to stand where he was for a couple of minutes before slipping out casually. But the cook had already taken a couple of steps back – one more word and he was off, and Lyubetskaya would inevitably turn to him. Alexander could stand it no longer and slithered through the door like a snake, flew down from the porch, taking several steps at a time, and after only a few strides found himself at the end of the path – on the riverbank near Nadenka.
“So you finally managed to remember me!” she reproached him, this time mildly.
“You’ve no idea how much trouble I had!” Alexander replied. “And you were no help!”
Nadenka showed him a book.
“I would have called you out to see this, if I had had to wait one more minute,” she said. “Sit down, maman won’t be coming out now, she’s afraid of the damp. I have so much – oh so much – to say to you!”
“Oh, I have too!”
But they had little or nothing to say to each other – except for the things they had already said to each other a dozen times over. The usual things: their dreams, the sky, the stars, their feelings, happiness. Their conversation proceeded in the language of looks, smiles and interjections. The book languished in the grass.
Night fell – but what a night! Are there such things as nights in St Petersburg? No, it was not a night, but… we need another name for it, yes – half-light. Quiet all around. It was as if the Neva were asleep; now and then, the river would stir as if in a doze, and a ripple would gently slap the shore and fall back silent. A late breeze arose from somewhere or other and drifted over the slumbering waters, unable to rouse them, but just rippling the surface, refreshing Nadenka and Alexander with its coolness, or bringing with it the sound of a distant song. It passed, and all returned to silence and tranquillity, the Neva as still as someone sleeping, someone who at the slightest sound would open his eyes for an instant and immediately close them, his eyelids now heavier, keeping them even more tightly closed. Then came the sound of a distant rumbling from the direction of the bridge followed by the barking of a watchdog from where men were fishing nearby. Then, once again, silence. The trees formed a dark vault, their branches stirring all but noiselessly. Lights twinkled from the dachas lining the riverbanks.
What was it – so special – that wafted on that warm breeze? What secret was it that coursed through the flowers, the trees, the grass, bringing such inexplicable balm to the soul? Why only then did thoughts and feelings arise in the heart so different from those which arise in the presence of noise and other people? What better setting for love in this dreamland of nature – alone in this dusk, surrounded by silent trees and flowers? How powerfully everything conspires to bring dreams to the mind and feelings to the heart which seem so irrelevant, inappropriate, absurd and aberrant amidst the strictures and constraints of everyday life… yes, irrelevant, but still, at these moments alone, the soul has a vague inkling of the possibility of the happiness which is so earnestly sought – but never found – at other times.
Alexander and Nadenka went down to the river and leant over the railing. Nadenka, lost in thought, looked into the distance and watched the river for a long time. Their souls were overflowing with happiness, but their aching hearts were beating together in bittersweet unison, their tongues silent.
Alexander quietly touched her waist. She quietly shifted his hand away with her elbow. He put his hand back, and she pushed it back, this time more gently, gazing all the while at the Neva. The third time she made no attempt to shift his hand. He took her hand; she didn’t attempt to remove it. He pressed her hand; she returned the pressure. They stood like that together in silence, but their feelings we
re another matter!
“Nadenka!” he said softly.
She remained silent.
He bent over her, his heart in a swoon. She felt his hot breath on her cheek and shuddered, and turned towards him – she did not step back in righteous indignation, and did not cry out! She was powerless to pretend and move away, the heady pull of love silenced reason – and when Alexander pressed his lips to hers, she returned his kiss so gingerly that it could barely be felt.
“How shocking!” a respectable mother would have scolded her. “Alone in the garden without her mother, kissing a young man!” Shocking, yes, but what can you do? There she was, responding to a kiss.
“Oh, how happy a man can be!” Alexander said to himself, and bent once again to meet her lips, this time for several seconds.
She stood there, pale and unmoving, tears glistening on her eyelashes, her breast heaving convulsively.
“It’s like a dream,” Alexander whispered.
Nadenka suddenly came to her senses after that moment of oblivion.
“What do you think you’re doing? Have you forgotten yourself?” she burst out, and moved away from him as fast as she could.
“I’m going to tell Mummy!”
Alexander fell back to earth.
“Nadezhda Alexandrovna! Don’t ruin my moment of bliss with reproaches,” he began, “don’t be like…”
She looked at him and, suddenly bursting into laughter, came back to him, to where she had been standing at the fence and trustingly laid her head and hand on his shoulder.
“You really love me so much?” she asked, wiping away the tear that was rolling down her cheek.
Alexander made a barely perceptible movement of his shoulders, and an expression appeared on his face that his uncle would have described as “idiotic” – and he would probably have been right, but the fact was that that stupid expression conveyed tremendous happiness!
Once again they found themselves gazing in silence at the water, at the sky and into the distance as if nothing had happened between them. They were simply afraid to look at each other; when they did finally look, they smiled and immediately turned away.
“Is there really unhappiness in the world?” said Nadenka, breaking her silence.
“So they say…” Aduyev replied pensively, “but I don’t believe…”
“What kind of unhappiness can there be?”
“Poverty, according to my uncle.”
“Poverty! But surely the poor must be able to feel the same way we do right now, so they can’t really be poor.”
“Uncle says they can’t, because they need to eat and drink.”
“Nonsense! Eat! Your uncle is wrong. You can be happy even without that; I haven’t eaten dinner today, and look how happy I am!”
He laughed.
“Yes, in return for this moment, if they were here right now, I would give everything away to the poor, everything! Oh, if only I could give them comfort and joy of some kind!”
“You’re an angel, an angel!” Alexander exclaimed ecstatically, squeezing her hand.
“Ouch! You’re hurting me!” Nadenka cried, frowning and removing her hand.
“But he grasped her hand again and covered it with passionate kisses.
“How hard I shall be praying to give thanks for this evening,” she continued, “today, tomorrow and for ever. I’m so happy – and you?…”
She broke off suddenly and lapsed into thought, and her eyes glinted with a sudden trace of alarm.
“You know,” she said, “people say that when something happens once, it will never be repeated. That means that this moment can never be repeated, right?”
“Oh no!” replied Alexander. “It’s not true; it will happen again, even better moments lie ahead; oh yes, I have the feeling!”
“She shook her head doubtfully. Suddenly his uncle’s homilies came to mind and he fell silent.
“No,” he said to himself, “that can’t be true; it’s because Uncle has never known such happiness himself that he is so censorious and distrustful of people. Poor man! I pity him for his cold, unfeeling heart which has never known the rapture of love – and that explains his jaundiced aversion to life. May God forgive him! If only he could have seen my happiness, he would not have tried to impair it, tarnish it with his mean-spirited suspicions. I pity him.”
“No, Nadenka, no, we will be happy!” he said to her. “Look around you, where everything is rejoicing in our love. God himself is giving us his blessing. How joyously we will walk through life hand in hand! How great will be our pride in our love for each other!”
“Oh, stop, please stop anticipating what lies ahead!” she cut in. “It gives me a terrible feeling when you do that. Right now, I’m actually feeling sad…”
“What are you afraid of? Do you really find it so hard to believe in yourself?”
“Yes, I do, I do!” she said, shaking her head.
He looked at her pensively for a moment.
“But why? What can possibly destroy the world of our happiness – who would want to intrude on it? It would be just the two of us: we’ll keep away from others; what would we need them for? What would they need from us? They won’t remember us: they’ll forget us, and then there’ll be no talk of sorrow or disaster to trouble us, just the way it is here and now in this garden, where there is no sound to disturb this precious silence…”
Suddenly they heard someone calling from the porch, “Nadenka! Alexander Fyodorych! Where are you?”
“Did you hear that?” said Nadenka, like the voice of doom. “Fate is trying to tell us something; this moment will never be repeated – I feel it…”
She grasped his hand, squeezed it, gave him a strange and sorrowful look and plunged into the darkness of the path.
He remained standing alone, deep in thought.
“Alexander Fyodorych!” The voice rang out again from the porch. “The meal has been waiting on the table for a long time now.”
He shrugged his shoulders and entered the room.
“In an instant what was unimaginable bliss has been replaced by – the meal on the table!” he said to Nadenka. “Is this the way life has to be?”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t get worse!” she replied cheerfully. “The dish we’re having is excellent, especially for someone who has had no dinner.”
She was buoyant with happiness. Her cheeks were burning. There was a rare sparkle in her eyes. How busily she played the hostess, how gaily she chattered! Not a trace of that momentary sign of sadness remained: she was jubilation itself.
Dawn was already covering half the sky when Aduyev boarded the boat. The oarsmen, in anticipation of the promised reward, were spitting on their hands and preparing to spring forward in their seats the way they had on the way over, and ply their oars with all their might.
“Slow down,” said Alexander, “and there’ll be another fifty copecks in it for you!”
They looked at him and then at each other. One scratched his chest, the other his back, and their oars hardly moved as they skimmed the surface of the water, and the boat glided through it like a swan.
“And Uncle is trying to make me believe that happiness is a chimera, and nothing one can reliably trust; that life is… remorseless! Why was he so bent on deceiving me so cruelly? No! This is life, just as I imagined it to be, life as it should be, life as it is and always will be! There’s no other way it can be!”
A fresh morning breeze was blowing gently from the south. Alexander was shivering a little, both from the breeze and from his memories. He yawned and, wrapping himself in his cloak, gave himself over to his dreams.
Chapter 5
Aduyev had reached the peak of his happiness. He had nothing more to wish for. His work, his articles for the journal were all forgotten, cast aside. He was passed over for promotion in his office. He ha
rdly noticed it himself, but was reminded of it by his uncle. Pyotr Ivanych advised him to stop fooling around, but when he heard the words “fooling around” he just shrugged his shoulders pityingly and said nothing. His uncle, seeing that his efforts were in vain, shrugged his shoulders pityingly in his turn, and contented himself with a single remark: “Have it your own way, it’s your business; just make sure not to ask me for any of that filthy lucre!”
“Don’t worry, Uncle,” Alexander retorted, “when there’s not enough money, that’s bad; a lot of money is something I don’t need, and what I have is just enough.”
“Well, congratulations!” added Pyotr Ivanych.
Alexander avoided him, understandably enough. He had lost all faith in his gloomy prognostications, and feared his cold view of love in general and his offensive insinuations about his relationship with Nadenka in particular. Alexander couldn’t stand hearing his uncle analysing his own love for Nadenka as if the identical laws applied to all without exception, and profaning what he believed to be a lofty and sacred value. His joy and his whole rose-tinted construct of happiness he kept hidden, because of his feeling that the moment his uncle’s cold analysis came into contact with it, it would crumble and turn to dust and ashes. To begin with, his uncle avoided him because he thought, “Here we go! That young man will get lazy, start pestering me for money and become a burden to me.” There was something triumphant, mysterious in Alexander’s manner, in the look in his eye and his whole bearing. He conducted himself with others humbly, but with dignity, but like a rich capitalist dealing with small-time traders on the stock exchange. He thought to himself: “You poor things! Which of you possesses a treasure as precious as mine? Which of you has a heart or soul capable of a feeling as powerful as mine?” – that sort of thing.
He was sure that he alone in the world could love as he did, and be loved as he was. Of course, it wasn’t just his uncle whom he avoided, but also the herd, as he called it. He was either worshipping at the altar of his divinity or stayed at home, in his study, alone, wallowing in bliss, analysing it, splitting it into smaller and smaller particles. He thought of this as “creating a special world of his own” and, in his seclusion, he did indeed construct for himself a world in which he spent most of his time, going rarely and reluctantly to his office, something which he thought of as a “dire necessity”, “a necessary evil” or “dismal prose”, and had any number of different ways of describing. He never saw his editor or his friends.
The Same Old Story Page 13
