“If this doesn’t work,” he thought, “then I give up! Come what may.”
Pyotr Ivanych strode resolutely to his wife and took her hand.
“You know, Liza,” he said, “what role I play in my department; I am considered the most effective official in the ministry. This year, I am being put up for promotion to privy councillor, and I am certain to get it. However, don’t think that this is as far as I will get in my career: I may go still higher… and I would have…” She looked at him in surprise, wondering where all this was leading.
“I have never doubted your abilities,” she said. “I am convinced that you won’t stop halfway, and will get to the very top…”
“No, I won’t; in a day or two, I am going to offer my resignation.”
“Your resignation?” she asked in astonishment, and sat up straight.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Listen to what I’m going to say! As you know, I have settled up with my partners, and I’m no longer the sole owner. It’s making me a clear profit of up to 40,000 with no effort on my part. It’s like a well-oiled machine.”
“Yes, I know, but what of it?” asked Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
“I’m going to sell it.”
“What are you talking about, Pyotr Ivanych? What’s got into you?” she said in growing astonishment, looking at him fearfully. “What’s all this about? I’m bewildered, I don’t understand…”
“You really don’t?”
“No!” Lizaveta Alexandrovna was perplexed.
“Can’t you understand that when I see how bored you are, and how your health is suffering… from the climate, I want to put my career and my factory to good use, and take you away from here, and devote the rest of my life to you?… Liza! Did you really think that I was incapable of self-sacrifice?” he added reproachfully.
“So this was all for my sake?” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna, now beginning to think clearly. “No, Pyotr Ivanych,” she said incisively, and sounding worried. “For God’s sake don’t make any sacrifices for me. I won’t accept them – do you hear me? Absolutely not! That you should stop working, stop succeeding, stop making money – and just for me! God forbid! I’m not worth it. Forgive me; I have never measured up to you, I’m too worthless, too weak to be able to appreciate and value your lofty goals and your noble achievements… I was not the right woman for you.”
“More magnanimity!” said Pyotr Ivanych, shrugging his shoulders. “My mind is made up, Liza.”
“Oh, God! What have I done! I was cast like a stone in your path – I stand in your way. What a strange fate is mine!” she added, almost in despair. “If I don’t want to, don’t need to live, why doesn’t God take pity on me and take me? To be an obstacle in your path…”
“You’re wrong to think that my sacrifice is a heavy one for me. I’ve had enough of this meaningless life! I want to rest, I want some tranquillity, and where can I find that except by your side? We are going to Italy.”
“Pyotr Ivanych!” she said, almost in tears. “You are a good, well-meaning man… and I know what you are doing now is putting on an act of feigned magnanimity… but perhaps this sacrifice is useless, perhaps it has come too late, and here you are throwing away everything that matters to you…”
“Spare me! Liza, don’t pursue that line of thought, otherwise you will discover that I am not made of iron,” Pyotr Ivanych cautioned her. “I repeat: I want to stop living only by my head, I’m not entirely dried up inside.”
She gave him a long, questioning look.
“But… do you really mean it?” she asked after the pause. “Do you truly want to rest, and you’re not giving it all up just for me?”
“No, for myself too.”
“Because if it’s for me, I’m not worth it, not worth it…”
“No, no! I’m not well, I’m tired… I need to rest.”
She gave him her hand. He kissed it with feeling.
“So we’re going to Italy then?” he asked.
“Very well, we’ll go,” she said tonelessly.
For Pyotr Ivanych, it was as if a weight had dropped from his shoulders. “We’ll see what happens!” he thought.
They sat there for a long time, not knowing what to say to each other. It’s not clear who would have broken the silence if the two of them had been left alone. But the sound of hurried footsteps was heard in the next room, and Alexander appeared.
How he had changed! He had filled out and lost hair, but how ruddy he had become! With what dignity he sported his paunch and the decoration around his neck! His eyes shone with pleasure. He kissed his aunt’s hand with particular warmth and shook his uncle’s hand.
“Where have you just come from?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“Guess!” he replied suggestively.
“You’re looking very lively today?” said Pyotr Ivanych enquiringly.
“I’ll bet you can’t guess!” said Alexander.
“Once, ten or twelve years ago, I seem to remember, you rushed in here just like this,” said Pyotr Ivanych, “and broke something of mine… and I guessed right away that you were in love, but now – surely not that again? No, it can’t be, you’re too sensible to…”
He glanced at his wife and held his tongue.
“Are you still trying to guess?”
His uncle looked at him, thinking hard.
“Surely not… you’re getting married?” he offered tentatively.
“You’ve got it!” Alexander exclaimed jubilantly. “Congratulate me!”
“Really! Who to?” his uncle and aunt asked in unison.
“To Alexander Stepanych’s daughter.”
“Are you serious? I mean, that’s a wealthy bride!” said Pyotr Ivanych. “And her father – no problem there?”
“I’ve just come from there. Why wouldn’t her father give his consent? Quite the contrary. He had tears in his eyes when I asked for her hand, hugged me and said that now he could die in peace – and that he knew he was entrusting his daughter’s happiness to the right person. ‘Only,’ he said, ‘be sure to follow in your uncle’s footsteps!’”
“He said that? You see, your uncle still counts for something here!”
“And what did the daughter say?” asked Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
“Well… you know how it is with these young women,” replied Alexander. “She didn’t say anything, and just blushed; and when I took her hand, her fingers were waggling in my hand as if she were playing the piano – they were trembling.”
“And she didn’t say anything?” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. “And you really didn’t take the trouble of asking her what she felt before formally proposing? It didn’t matter to you? Why are you getting married?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’? Can’t hang around for ever! I’m fed up with being alone. The time has come to put down roots and settle down, get a home of my own, and do my duty… My bride to be is pretty and rich… and Uncle is here to tell you the reasons to get married – he’s got it all worked out…”
Pyotr Ivanych, without letting his wife see him, signalled to Alexander with a wave of the hand to leave him out of it and keep quiet, but Alexander didn’t notice.
“But perhaps she doesn’t care for you?” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. “Maybe she can’t love you – what do you say to that?”
“Uncle, why don’t you explain? You would do it better than I can. Look, let me use your own words,” he went on, failing to notice that his uncle was squirming where he stood, and was coughing in an attempt to stifle what was coming next. But Alexander continued: “If you marry for love, love passes, and you just continue out of habit, and if you don’t marry for love, the result is just the same: you get used to your wife. Love is one thing, and marriage is another, and the two things don’t always coincide, and it’s better when they don’t. That’
s right – isn’t it, Uncle? I mean, that’s what you taught me…”
He looked at his uncle and came to a sudden halt, seeing the baleful look he was getting from him. His mouth wide open in consternation, he looked at his aunt, and then back again at his uncle, and closed it. Lizaveta Alexandrovna shook her head dolefully.
“So, you’re getting married then?” said Pyotr Ivanych. “Well, it’s the right time. Good luck to you! And there you were on the point of doing that when you were twenty-three.”
“Well, I was young then, young!”
“Precisely – it was your youth.”
Alexander thought for a moment, and then smiled.
“What is it?” asked Pyotr Ivanych.
“Nothing, a weird thought just occurred to me…”
“What?”
“When I was in love,” said Alexander, trying to arrange his thoughts, “marriage eluded me…”
“And now you’re getting married, love is eluding you,” his uncle added, and they both burst out laughing.
“So it follows that you are right, Uncle, in thinking that it’s habit which is the main thing…”
Pyotr Ivanych gave him another ugly look, and Alexander shut his mouth, not knowing what to think.
“Getting married when you’re thirty-five is the right thing,” said Pyotr Ivanych. “You remember how you went into convulsions here, kicking and screaming that uneven marriages outrage you, that the bride is dragged in like a sacrificial victim decked out in flowers and diamonds, shoved into the arms of an older man – most likely, ugly and bald. Let’s have a look at your head!”
“It was youth, youth, Uncle! I didn’t understand what it was all about,” said Alexander, smoothing his hair with his hand.
“Yes, what it’s all about,” Pyotr Ivanych continued, “and do you remember back then when you were in love with that, what was her name, Natasha, was it? You were in a frenzy of jealousy, outbursts, heavenly bliss… What became of all that?”
“Come, come, Uncle, that’s enough of that!” said Alexander, blushing.
“What about all those tears, that tremendous passion?”
“Uncle!”
“What? So you’ve given up those ‘heartfelt outpourings’ and are no longer picking those yellow flowers! You’re ‘fed up with being alone’…”
“Oh, if that’s the way it is, then I can prove that I am not the only one to have been in love, ranting, raving, jealous rages, all those tears… allow me – I have here a written document…”
He took a wallet out of his pocket, and after some time spent sorting through the papers it contained, pulled out a tattered, dilapidated and yellowing sheet of paper.
“Here, ma tante, is evidence that my uncle wasn’t always such a prudent, derisive and pragmatic man. He was quite at home with ‘heartfelt outpourings’, and it wasn’t on crested writing paper in special ink that he gave vent to them. I’ve been carrying this scrap of paper around with me for four years now, waiting for the chance to expose my uncle. I had almost forgotten about it, but you yourself just reminded me.”
“What’s all this nonsense? I don’t understand,” said Pyotr Ivanych, looking at the piece of paper.
“Well, take a look.”
Alexander put the sheet of paper right in front of his uncle’s eyes. Pyotr Ivanych’s face suddenly darkened.
“Give it to me! Let me have it! Alexander!” he barked, and tried to snatch it from him. But Alexander was too quick for him, and whisked it away.
Lizaveta Alexandrovna was watching them with curiosity.
“No, Uncle, I’m not giving it to you – until you confess, right here in my aunt’s presence, that you were once in love, just as I was, just as everyone was… otherwise I’m handing it over to my aunt as a constant rebuke to you.”
“That’s vicious!” Pyotr Ivanych shouted. “What are you doing to me?”
“So you won’t?”
“All right, all right; I was in love. Now give it to me!”
“Not yet! You first have to confess to jealous tantrums, ranting and raving.”
“All right, I ranted and raved, there were jealous tantrums…” he said, frowning.
“And the tears?”
“No, there were no tears.”
“Wrong! My aunt told me – admit it.”
“I can’t get the words out, Alexander – maybe now I will cry.”
“Ma tante, here is the document for you.”
“Let me see what it is,” she said, reaching for it.
“Yes, I cried, I cried! Now give it!” Pyotr Ivanych howled in desperation.
“By the lake?”
“Yes, by the lake.”
“And did you pick yellow flowers?”
“Yes, I did. Isn’t that enough for you? Give it to me!”
“No, not quite. Give me your word of honour that you will consign my youthful follies to eternal oblivion and stop casting them in my teeth.”
“My word of honour.”
Alexander gave him the sheet of paper. Pyotr Ivanych seized it, lit a match and burned it.
“At least tell me what it says,” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna.
“No, my dear, I’ll never tell, even on the Day of Judgement,” replied Pyotr Ivanych. “I can’t believe I ever wrote it – impossible!”
“It was you, Uncle!” Alexander retorted. “I suppose I could say what is in it – I’ve learnt it by heart: ‘My angel, I adore you…’”
“Alexander! This will make us sworn enemies!” Pyotr Ivanych roared in anger.
“There he goes, blushing guiltily, as if he’s committed a crime – and for what! For his first tender love,” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna, shrugging her shoulders, and turned away from them.
“It’s when you’re in love for the first time that you do so many foolish things,” said Pyotr Ivanych softly, almost furtively. “With the two of us, there were never any ‘heartfelt outpourings’, flowers, walks by moonlight… but you love me just the same…”
“Yes, I have… got very used to you,” Lizaveta Alexandrovna responded distractedly.
Pyotr Ivanych started stroking his whiskers pensively.
“Well, Uncle, isn’t that the way you wanted it?”
Pyotr Ivanych winked at him as if to say, “Shut up!”
“Pyotr Ivanych can be forgiven for thinking and acting like that,” said Lizaveta Alexandrovna. “He’s always been that way, and I don’t think anyone knew him any different, and it wasn’t from you, Alexander, that I ever expected such a revelation…”
She gave a sigh.
“What are you sighing for, ma tante?” asked Alexander.
“For the old Alexander,” she replied.
“You mean you would really have preferred me to remain the way I was ten years ago?” Alexander countered. “Uncle was right when he described all that as foolish dreaming…”
Lizaveta Alexandrovna’s expression began to turn grim, and Alexander fell silent.
“No, not the way you were,” replied Lizaveta Alexandrovna, “ten years ago, but four years ago. Do you remember the letter you wrote me when you were back home in the country? That is the way I like to remember you!”
“I think I must have been a dreamer then too,” said Alexander.
“No, you weren’t dreaming. It was then that you began to understand what life was about. Then you were at your best – noble, perspicacious… Why didn’t you stay like that? Why were you only like that on paper, but not in practice? That was something of beauty, which shone like the sun appearing from behind a cloud – but only for a moment…”
“So what you mean, ma tante, is that now, I’m not… perspicacious, not… noble…”
“God forbid! Not at all! No, now you are perspicacious and noble… but in your own way, not in mine…”
&n
bsp; “What can I do, ma tante?” said Alexander with a loud sigh. “That’s just the way it is. I’m moving with the times – mustn’t fall behind! I agree with Uncle; I’ll quote him—”
“Alexander!” his uncle interrupted him, sounding furious. “Let’s go to my study for a moment; there’s something I need to say to you.”
They went to the study.
“What on earth possessed you to talk like that about me?” said Pyotr Ivanych. “Can’t you see what a state my wife is in?”
“What do you mean?” said Alexander in alarm.
“Don’t you notice anything? The fact is that I’m leaving my work at the ministry, giving up my business, everything, and taking her to Italy.”
“What do you mean, Uncle?” Alexander exclaimed in astonishment. “This is the year of your promotion to privy councillor…”
“But you see, the privy councillor’s wife is in a bad way…”
He paced back and forth in the room sunk in thought.
“No, this is the end of my career!” he said. “It’s all settled. I’m not destined to go any further… so what?” He waved his hand. “Why don’t we talk about you instead?” he said. “It seems you’re following in my footsteps…”
“That should please you!” Alexander interjected.
“Yes, indeed!” Pyotr Ivanych continued. “In a little over thirty years’ time – collegiate councillor,* a substantial salary from your work at the ministry, you’ll be making a lot of money from your outside activities, and you’re marrying into money at just the right time… Yes, we Aduyevs know what we’re doing all right! You take after me, although so far without the backache…”
“Well, I do get twinges here from time to time,” said Alexander, touching his back.
“All of that is splendid – except, of course, for the backache,” Pyotr Ivanych continued. “I must confess I didn’t expect you to turn out well when you first arrived: your head was in the clouds, full of other-worldly speculation… Now that’s all past – thank God! My advice to you is to continue to follow in my footsteps, except…”
“Except what, Uncle?”
“Well, I wanted to give you some advice… about your future wife…”
The Same Old Story Page 41
