She looked at him with horror. His eyes flashed, his lips had gone white.
“Ooh! How angry you are!” she said timidly. “Why are you angry? I did not refuse you. You had not yet spoken to Mama… How do you know?…”
“Speak to her after what you’ve done?…”
“What have I done? I don’t know…”
“What? I’ll tell you. What do these meetings with the Count mean, these horseback rides?”
“I can’t run away from him when Mama leaves the room! And the horseback riding means… that I love to ride… It’s so pleasant: you gallop… Oh, that horse Lucy is such a darling! Did you see her?… She already knows me…”
“But the change in your treatment of me?” he continued. “Why is the Count at your house every day from morning till evening?”
“Oh! Heavens! How do I know! How ridiculous you are! It’s Mama’s wish!”
“That’s not so! Your mama wants what you want. For whom all these presents, music scores, the album, the flowers?–all for Mama?”
“Yes, Mama is very fond of flowers. Yesterday she bought some from the gardener.”
“But what do you talk to him about in a low voice?” Alexander continued, not paying attention to what she said. “See, you’re turning pale. You feel your guilt yourself. To destroy a person’s happiness, forget, ruin everything so quickly, easily–it’s hypocrisy, ingratitude, a lie, betrayal!…–yes, a betrayal! How could you stoop to that? A rich count, a society lion, condescended to cast a kindly glance on you–and you melted, fell on your knees before this tinsel sun. Where’s your sense of shame!!! Don’t let me find the Count here!” he said in a choking voice, “do you hear? Give him up, cease all relations with him, let him forget the way to your house!… I don’t want him around…”
He seized her hand in a fury.
“Mama, Mama! Come here!” Nadenka cried in a shrill voice, tearing herself away from Alexander, and once free, dashing off headlong to the house.
He sat down slowly on the bench and seized his head with his hands.
She ran into the house, pale, frightened, and fell upon a chair.
“What has happened to you? What is the matter? Why did you cry out?” asked her mother, alarmed as she went to meet her.
“Alexander Fyodorych… isn’t well!” her daughter barely managed to say.
“But what is there to be so frightened about?”
“He’s so terrifying… Mama, don’t let him come near me, for Heaven’s sake.”
“What a fright you gave me, you crazy girl! Being sick is not so bad. I know his chest hurts. What’s so terrible about that? It’s not consumption! Let him rub it with liniment–it will all go away. Clearly he didn’t listen, he didn’t rub it in.”
Alexander came to himself. His delirium passed, but his torment doubled. He hadn’t cleared up any doubts, and he’d terrified Nadenka, and now, of course, would get no answer from her. He’d gone about it all the wrong way. Suddenly it occurred to him, as it might to any man in love, “Suppose she’s not to blame? Perhaps she doesn’t really care for the Count. Her silly mother invites him every day; what is she to do? As a man of the world, he is charming; Nadenka is a pretty girl; perhaps he does want her to like him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she already does. Maybe she likes the flowers, the horseback riding, their innocent amusements, but not the Count himself. Let’s even suppose there is a bit of flirtation in this. Isn’t that forgivable? Other girls, even older ones, do Heaven knows what.”
He sighed; a ray of joy flashed in his soul. People in love are all this way, first quite blind, then too clairvoyant. Besides it’s so pleasant to justify the object of our affections!
“But why the change in her treatment of me?” he suddenly asked himself, and went pale again. “Why does she avoid me, fall silent, seem to be ashamed? Why did she dress up so yesterday on an ordinary day! There were no guests beside him. Why did she ask whether the ballets will begin soon?” A simple question, but it recalled the Count’s casual promise always to put a box at their disposal, no matter what the difficulties; therefore he would be with them. “Why did she leave the garden yesterday? Why didn’t she come into the garden? Why did she ask one thing, why not another?…”
And again he was overcome by serious doubts and again he cruelly tortured himself and even concluded that Nadenka had never loved him at all.
“God! Oh, God!” he said in despair. “How hard, how bitter it is to live! Give me that dead calm, that sleep of the soul…”
A quarter hour later he walked into the house, dejected and fearful.
“Farewell, Nadezhda Alexandrovna,” he said timidly.
“Farewell,” she answered abruptly without raising her eyes.
“When will you let me come to see you?”
“When it suits you. By the way… we’re moving to the city this week. We’ll let you know then…”
He went away. More than two weeks passed. Everyone had moved back from their summer places. The salons of the nobility began to shine again. Even a civil servant would light two wall lamps in the living room, buy half a pound of tallow candles and put out two card tables in expectation of Stepan Ivanych and Ivan Stepanych, declaring to his wife that Tuesdays would be their day at home.
But Aduyev had still not received an invitation from the Lyubetskys. He came across both their cook and their maid. The maid, catching a glimpse of him, precipitately dashed away. Obviously she was acting in the spirit of her young mistress. The cook stopped.
“What’s happened with you, sir; have you forgotten us?” he said. “Why, we’ve been moved back a week and a half.”
“Yes, but perhaps you… haven’t gotten settled, perhaps you aren’t receiving visitors?”
“What’s this, sir, not receiving–everybody’s already been to see us–except you; the mistress is surprised. His Excellency now deigns to come by every day… such a kind gentleman. I recently went to his house with some notebook, a reddish one, from the young mistress.”
“What a fool you are!” said Aduyev and rushed away from this chatterbox. In the evening he walked past the Lyubetskys’ apartment. A light was burning. There was a carriage at the entry.
“Whose carriage?” he asked.
“Count Novinsky’s.”
The next day and the day after that–the same thing. At last one day he went in. The mother received him warmly with reproaches for his absence and scolded him for not rubbing his chest with liniment; Nadenka was calm, the Count polite. The conversation failed to get started.
He called a couple of times with the same result. In vain he looked meaningfully at Nadenka. She acted as if she didn’t notice his glances, yet how she had noticed them before! When he had talked with her mother then, she used to stand behind Marya Mikhailovna and make faces at him, play jokes, and make him laugh.
An unbearable sadness came over him. He thought only about how to cast down this cross he’d voluntarily taken up. He wanted to get an explanation. “Whatever the answer,” he thought, “it doesn’t matter if only I turn doubt into certainty.”
For a long while he pondered how to go about it; finally he thought up something and went to see the Lyubetskys.
Everything was in his favor. There was no carriage at the entry. He went quietly through the reception room and stopped for a moment in front of the living room door to catch his breath. Inside Nadenka was playing the piano. Further across the room Mrs. Lyubetsky herself was sitting on the sofa and knitting a scarf. Nadenka, hearing steps in the outer room, went on playing more quietly and stretched her head forward. She awaited the appearance of a guest with a smile. The guest appeared and her smile at once disappeared; fright took its place. She changed her expression a little and rose from her chair. This was not the guest she had expected.
Alexander bowed in silence and like a shadow walked past her to her mother. He walked quietly without his former assurance with bowed head. Nadenka sat down and went on playing, looking round behi
nd her nervously from time to time.
Half an hour later for some reason the mother was called out of the room. Alexander came in to Nadenka. She got up and wanted to go.
“Nadezhda Alexandrovna!” he said dejectedly, “wait, allow me five minutes, no more.”
“I can’t listen to you!” she said and was about to go away; “the last time you were…”
“I was to blame then. I shall speak differently now, I give you my word. You won’t hear a single reproach. Don’t refuse me perhaps for the last time. An explanation is unavoidable. You did, after all, give me permission to ask your mama for your hand. Since then a lot has happened… that… in a word–I must repeat the question. Sit down and go on playing; better your mother doesn’t hear; this isn’t, after all, the first time.”
She obeyed mechanically; blushing slightly she began picking out chords and in agitated expectation fixed her gaze on him.
“Where have you gone, Alexander Fyodorych?” asked her mother as she returned to her place.
“I wanted to talk a while with Nadezhda Alexandrovna about… literature,” he answered.
“Well, have your talk, do; in truth you haven’t talked for a long time.”
“Answer only one question for me briefly and sincerely,” Alexander began half aloud, “and our explanation will be over right away!… Don’t you love me any more?”
“Quelle idée!” she answered, taken aback. “You know how Mama and I have always valued your friendship… have always been glad to see you…”
Aduyev looked at her and thought, “Is this you, the capricious, but sincere child? The mischievous prankster? How quickly she learned to dissemble! How quickly female instincts developed in her! Were the lovable caprices but hypocrisy and cunning in germ?… And even without Uncle’s method! But how swiftly the girl was transformed into a woman! And all under the Count’s tutelage, and in some two or three months! Oh Uncle, Uncle! you are relentlessly right about this too!”
“Listen,” he said in such a tone that the dissembler suddenly dropped her mask. “Leave Mama out of this. For a minute be that old Nadenka when you loved me a little bit… and answer directly. I need to know this, for Heaven’s sake I do.”
She was silent, only changed the sheet music, and began reading closely and playing through some difficult passage.
“Well, good, I’ll change the question,” Aduyev went on. “Tell me, didn’t someone–I won’t say who–just say, didn’t someone replace me in your heart?”
She corrected the lamp for a long time, but said nothing.
“Answer, Nadezhda Alexandrovna. A single word will free me from torment and you from this unpleasant explanation.”
“Oh, Heavens, stop! What shall I say to you! I have nothing to say!” she answered, turning away from him.
Another man would have been content with such an answer and realized there was no need to insist further. He would have understood everything from the wordless, tormented sorrow painted on her face, showing through even her movements. But it wasn’t enough for Aduyev. Like an executioner, he tormented his victim and was impelled by a wild desperate desire to empty the cup at one draught and to the bottom.
“No!” he said, “finish this torture today; doubts, one blacker than the other, agitate my mind, and tear my heart to pieces. I have worn myself out. I think my chest will burst from the tension… There’s nothing for me to be sure of in my suspicions. You yourself must resolve them; otherwise I’ll never find peace.”
He looked at her and waited for an answer. She was silent.
“Take pity on me!” he began again. “Look at me; do I look like myself? Everyone is afraid of me, doesn’t recognize me… Everyone pities me, except you.”
It was quite true; his eyes burned with a wild gleam. He was thin and pale; large beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.
She threw him a furtive glance, and something like pity flashed in her look. She even took him by the hand, but immediately let it go with a sigh and still was silent.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Oh, leave me alone!” she said sadly. “You torment me with questions…”
“I implore you, for God’s sake!” he said. “Finish it all with a word… What use is concealment to you? A stupid hope will remain for me, I won’t give up, I’ll come every day to see you, pale, distraught… I’ll make you sad. Refuse to see me–I’ll begin walking under your windows, meeting you at the theater, on the street, everywhere like an apparition, a memento mori. All this is stupid, perhaps laughable, if you feel like laughing–but I feel pain! You don’t know what passion is, where it leads! God spare you from ever knowing!… What’s the use? Isn’t it better to say at once?”
“What are you asking me about?” said Nadenka, flinging herself against the back of her chair. “I’m quite lost… my head is truly in a fog…”
With a shiver she pressed her hand against her forehead and immediately took it away again.
“I’m asking: Has someone replaced me in your heart? One word– yes or no –decides everything. Does it take long to say!”
She wanted to say something, but couldn’t, and lowering her eyes, began tapping one piano key with her finger. It was obvious that she was powerfully struggling with herself. “Oh dear!” she finally brought out with sadness. Aduyev wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
“Yes or no?” he repeated, holding his breath.
Several seconds passed.
“Yes!” Nadenka got out in a barely audible whisper and began to strike big chords as if unaware of what she was doing.
This yes, though hardly audible like a sigh, deafened Aduyev. His heart had been all but torn out, his legs gave way under him. He sank upon a chair beside the piano and was silent.
Nadenka looked at him fearfully. He looked at her inanely.
“Alexander Fyodorych!” called her mother suddenly. “In which ear do you hear a ringing?”
He did not answer.
“Mama is asking you a question,” said Nadenka.
“What?”
“In which ear do you hear a ringing?” cried her mother. “Come quickly!”
“In both!” Aduyev managed to say gloomily.
“Why, which–in the left! I’ve been guessing whether the Count would come today.”
“The Count!” said Aduyev.
“Forgive me!” said Nadenka in an imploring voice, rushing toward him. “I don’t understand it myself… It all happened unexpectedly, against my will… I don’t know how… I could not deceive you…”
“I shall keep my word, Nadezhda Alexandrovna,” he answered. “I shall not speak a word of reproach. I thank you for your sincerity. You have helped a lot, a lot… today… it was hard for me to hear that yes… but it was harder for you to say it… Farewell; you won’t see me any more, a reward for your sincerity… But the Count, the Count!”
He clenched his teeth and started toward the door.
“Yes,” he said, turning. “What will it lead to? The Count will not marry you. What are his intentions?…”
“I don’t know!” answered Nadenka, sadly shaking her head.
“Heavens! How blind you are!” exclaimed Alexander, taken aback.
“He can’t have bad intentions…” she answered in a weak voice.
“Be careful, Nadezhda Alexandrovna!”
He took her hand, kissed it and left the room with uneven steps. It was frightening to look at him. Nadenka remained motionless in her seat.
“Why aren’t you playing, Nadenka?” asked her mother some moments later.
Nadenka awoke as if from a deep sleep and sighed.
“Right away, Mama!” she answered and thoughtfully inclining her head a little to one side, shyly began to pick out notes. Her fingers shook. Apparently she was suffering from pangs of conscience and the doubt which the words “Be careful!” had bred in her mind. When the Count arrived, she was uncommunicative, boring; there was something forced in her manner. Under pretense of a he
adache she went to her room early, and that evening it seemed bitter to her to live in this world.
Aduyev had just reached the bottom of the stairs when his strength abandoned him. He sat down on the last step, covered his eyes with a handkerchief and began to sob loudly, but without tears. At that moment the doorman was passing the entrance. He stopped and listened.
“Marfa, oh Marfa!” he cried as he came up to his dirty entryway. “Come here, listen there’s somebody howling just like a beast. I wonder, isn’t it perhaps the black dog–who’s gotten loose from its chain, but no that’s not it.”
“No, it’s not our black dog!” Marfa repeated after listening. “What strange thing is it?”
“Come, bring the lantern; it’s hanging there behind the stove.”
Marfa brought the lantern.
“Is it still howling?” she asked.
“It still is. Perhaps some rascal’s broken in?”
“Who’s there?” asked the doorman.
No answer.
“Who’s there?” repeated Marfa.
Still the same howling. They both entered suddenly. Aduyev rushed away.
“Oh, it was some gentleman,” Marfa said, looking after him. “And you thought it was a rascal. Now, see what a crazy idea! Would a rascal be howling in other people’s doorways!”
“Well, then, he must have been drunk!”
“Come on,” Marfa answered. “You think everybody’s like you. Not everybody howls like you when they’re drunk.”
“Then out of hunger, do you think?” remarked the doorman, annoyed.
“What!” said Marfa, looking at him and not knowing what to say. “How should I know; perhaps he lost something–money…”
They both stooped at once and with the help of the lantern began to scrape every corner of the floor.
An Ordinary Story Page 16
