An Italian and another Frenchman completed her education, giving harmonious measure to her voice and movements, that is, they taught her to dance, sing, play or, more precisely, perform on the piano until her marriage, but they didn’t teach her music. And so, at eighteen, she appeared in the salons on show to society, with a constantly thoughtful look, despite her age, an interesting pallor, slight waist, and tiny foot.
Tafayev noticed her, a man with all the attributes of a suitor–an honorable rank, considerable wealth, a medal round his neck, in a word, with a career and a fortune. It couldn’t be said that he was just a simple and kind man. Oh, no! He was able to stick up for himself and made perfectly sensible judgments about the present state of Russia and what was wrong with its finances and production, and in his world he was considered a practical man.
Because of the strange contrast with his own solid nature the pale, thoughtful girl made a strong impression on him. At evening parties he left the card game and plunged into unaccustomed thought, watching this half-ethereal apparition hovering before him. When, by chance, of course, her languid gaze fell upon him he, dashing gladiator that he was in social conversation, lost countenance before the shy young girl; sometimes he wanted to say something to her, and couldn’t. This annoyed him and he resolved to act more positively with the help of various elderly ladies.
Information about the dowry proved satisfactory. “So, it’s a match!” he concluded to himself. “I’m only forty-five, she’s eighteen. On both our fortunes more than two could make out very well. Looks? She’s more than ordinarily pretty, and I am what is called an imposing… man. They say she’s well-educated, but so what? I was once a student. I remember I was taught both Latin and Roman history. Even now I remember that at that time there was a–what was his name?… well, Devil take him! I remember we read about the Reformation too… and those verses: ‘Beatus ille…’ 15 How does it go? puer, pueri, puero? No, that’s not right, the Devil knows–I’ve clean forgotten everything. But, then, that’s why they teach you, so that you’ll forget. Well, you can shoot me dead, but I say that you can take that one there and this one here, all of them high-ranking intelligent people, but no one will say what consul was in power… or in what year the Olympic games took place, that’s the way we’re taught… because that’s the system–it’s just so that you can see from his eyes that a person has studied. And how can you keep from forgetting; after all, nothing is ever said about it later in society, and if anyone started talking that way, he’d simply be shown the door. No, we’re a match.”
Thus, when Yuliya left childhood, at her first step she was met by the sorriest reality, an ordinary husband. How far he was from those heroes conjured up by her imagination and the poets!
She spent five years in a boring stupor, her word for marriage without love, then suddenly freedom and love appeared. She smiled, extended her ardent embraces to them and surrendered to her passion, like a person who yields to a horse’s fast gallop. You rush off with the powerful animal and forget space. Your breath is taken away, objects speed past, fresh air blows on your face, your heart can hardly bear the sensation of bliss… Or like a person in a boat who yields to the flow of the current: the sun warms you, green banks flash before your eyes, a playful wave caresses the stern and whispers so sweetly, running ahead and beckoning on, on, pointing the way in an unending stream… And you’re lured on. There’s no time to look and think of how the course will end, whether your steed is speeding toward the abyss or the wave toward a cliff… The wind carries away all thoughts, your eyes close, the fascination is insurmountable… And, indeed, she did not surmount it, but was lured on, on… At last the poetic moments of her life had set in; she fell in love with this now sweet, now disturbing agitation of the soul, she sought excitement, invented both torment and happiness for herself. She gave herself up to her love as people surrender to opium and greedily drank love’s poison.
Yuliya was already aroused by expectation. She stood at the window and her impatience grew with each minute. She was fingering a Chinese rose and throwing the petals on the floor with vexation, and her heart was standing still; this was a moment of torture. She was playing a mental game of question and answer: will he come or won’t he? All of her mind’s energy was focused on the resolution of this simple problem. If the result was positive, she smiled, if not–she turned pale.
When Alexander drove up, she sank into a chair, pale from exhaustion–so powerfully had her nerves been at work. When he entered… it’s impossible to describe the look with which she met him, the joy which instantly poured over all her features, as if they had not seen each other for a year, whereas they had met the evening before. In silence she pointed to the clock on the wall, but he had hardly cleared his throat to explain when, without hearing him out, she believed him, forgave him, forgot all the pain of her impatience, gave him her hand to kiss, and they both sat down on the sofa and talked at length, sat silent at length and at length looked at each other. If a servant hadn’t reminded them, they would surely have forgotten to have dinner.
How many pleasures! Alexander would never have dreamed of such an abundance of sincere heartfelt outpourings. In the summer there were excursions for two outside the city; if music or fireworks drew a crowd, they were glimpsed in the distance between the trees, walking arm in arm. In the winter Alexander came to dinner, and afterward they sat side by side before the fire till night time. Sometimes they had the horse sleigh harnessed and they rushed through the dark streets, then hastened to continue their unending conversation at the samovar. Everything in the world around them, every momentary shift of thought and feeling–everything was remarked on and shared by both.
Alexander feared meetings with his uncle like a fire. He sometimes came to see Lizaveta Alexandrovna, but she was never successful in encouraging any candid revelations on his part. He was always worried his uncle would find him there and act out another scene, and therefore he always cut short his visits.
Was he happy? About others one can say in such a case both yes and no, but about him no; in his case love began with suffering. For moments, when he succeeded in forgetting the past, he believed in the possibility of happiness, in Yuliya and her love. At other times he would suddenly grow distressed in the heat of the most sincere outpourings, listen with fear to Yuliya’s passionate, exalted ravings. It seemed to him that she could change in the turn of a hand or that some other unexpected blow of fate would in a flash destroy their marvelous world of bliss. Savoring the moment of joy, he knew that it must be bought with sufferings, and melancholy would again overtake him.
Still, the winter passed, summer came, and love did not cease. Yuliya became more and more attached to him. There was no change and no blow of fate. Something quite different happened. The outlook brightened. He made his peace with the notion of a possible lasting attachment. “This love is not so fiery now,” he thought once, looking at Yuliya, “but on the other hand, it’s solid, perhaps eternal! Yes, there’s no doubt. Ah! At last I understand you, Fate! You want to reward me for past sufferings and after long wanderings bring me to a peaceful haven. This is the shelter of happiness… Yuliya!” he exclaimed aloud.
She started. “What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing!…”
“No, tell me, you had some thought?”
Alexander resisted. She insisted.
“I thought that for the completion of our happiness we lack…”
“What?” she asked, worried.
“Oh, nothing! I had a strange idea.”
Yuliya became agitated. “Oh dear! don’t torment me, tell me right away!” she said.
Alexander thought and said under his breath, as if to himself, “To acquire the right not to be apart from her for a minute, not to leave for home. To be the lawful master… She would call me out loud without blushing or turning pale, her… and so for life! and be proud of it eternally…”
Speaking in this high style, word for word, he arrived at the word ma
rriage. Yuliya was shaken, then began to cry. She gave him her hand to kiss with a feeling of inexpressible tenderness and gratitude, and both became animated; both began to speak at once. It was agreed that Alexander would talk with his aunt and ask her help in this complicated business.
In their joy they didn’t know what to do. It was a beautiful evening. They set out for somewhere in the country, in the woods, and having with great trouble discovered a hill somewhere, they purposely passed the whole evening there, looking at the setting sun, dreaming about their future way of life. They decided to limit themselves to a narrow circle of friends, not to have “at homes” and not to make empty “calls.”
Then they returned home and began to discuss the future order in their house, the arrangement of the rooms, and so on. Alexander proposed turning her dressing room into his study so that it would be alongside their bedroom.
“What kind of furniture do you want in your study?” she asked.
“I’d like walnut with dark-blue velvet upholstery.”
“That’s very nice and not easily soiled. For a man’s study you have to choose dark colors without fail because the light ones are soon ruined by the smoke. And right here in the little passageway from your future study into the bedroom I’ll arrange an ‘environment’ of plants–don’t you think it will be beautiful? I’ll put an armchair there so that I can sit, reading or working, and see you in your study.”
“I won’t have to say goodbye to you this way much longer,” said Alexander, taking his leave.
She closed his mouth with her hand.
The next day Alexander set out to see Lizaveta Alexandrovna to make known what she had known for a long time, and to ask her advice and help. Pyotr Ivanych was not at home.
“Well good!” she said after hearing his confession. “You’re no longer a boy. You can be the judge of your feelings and do as you wish with yourself. Only don’t be in a hurry: get to know her well.”
“Oh, dear Aunt, if you knew her! How many virtues!”
“For example?”
“She loves me so much…”
“That is, of course, an important virtue, but it’s not the only thing you need in a marriage.”
Then she told him several general truths about the married state, about what a wife and what a husband should be.
“But wait a bit. Autumn is coming now,” she added. “Everyone will be going back to the city. There I’ll call on your fiancée, we’ll become acquainted, and I’ll take up your cause in earnest. Don’t let her go; I’m convinced you’ll be a very happy husband.”
She rejoiced.
Women adore marrying off men; sometimes they even see that for some reason the marriage will not and should not bond, yet they further it in every way. They care only about arranging the wedding, then they leave the newlyweds to their own devices. Heaven knows why they bother.
Alexander asked his aunt not to talk to Pyotr Ivanych until the matter was settled.
The summer had gone by in a flash; even the boring autumn dragged past. Another winter set in. Aduyev’s meetings with Yuliya were just as frequent.
She had apparently made a strict count of the days, hours, and minutes they could spend together.
“Will you leave for work early tomorrow?” she sometimes asked.
“Around eleven.”
“Then come to see me at ten, we’ll have breakfast together. Couldn’t you skip it altogether! It’s as if I were alone then, without you…”
“But how? my country… my duty…” Alexander would say.
“That’s all very fine! But tell them you love and are loved. Do you imagine your department head never loved? If he has a heart, he’ll understand. Or bring your work here; who prevents your working here?”
Another time she did not let him go to the theater and practically never let him visit friends. When Lizaveta Alexandrovna came to call, for a long time Yuliya couldn’t come to her senses when she saw how young and pretty Alexander’s aunt was. She had imagined an aunt like most aunts, along in years, and not pretty, and here, if you please, was a woman around twenty-six or twenty-seven and a beauty! She made a scene in front of Alexander and began to let him go less frequently to see his uncle.
But what was her jealousy and tyranny compared to Alexander’s? He had convinced himself of her attachment to him, he saw that it was not in her nature to betray him or grow cold, and–still he was jealous, and how jealous! It was not the jealousy of an excessive love, where the tormenting pains in one’s heart cause weeping, groaning, and whining, and there is trembling for fear of losing one’s happiness–it was, rather, an indifferent, cold, mean jealousy. He tyrannized the poor woman out of love more than others tyrannize from hate. It would seem to him, for example, of an evening with guests that she didn’t look at him long and tenderly and often enough; he would look around like a beast–and woe if at that time there was a young man near Yuliya, or even a man no longer young, but simply a man, or sometimes a woman–a thing. Insults, cutting remarks, black suspicions and reproaches hailed down. She had to justify herself then and do penance through various sacrifices and unconditional obedience: not talk with this one, not sit there, not go over there, endure sly smiles and the whispering of sly observers, blush, turn pale, compromise herself.
If she received an invitation somewhere, before answering she, first of all, cast a questioning glance at him, and he no sooner frowned than, pale and trembling, that very moment she refused. Sometimes he would give permission–she would get ready, dress and prepare to get in the carriage–when suddenly in a caprice of the moment he would pronounce a threatening veto–and she would take off her clothes. Afterwards he might begin to ask her pardon, suggest going, but when was there time to dress again and harness the carriage? It would be left at that. He was not only jealous of good looks, great intelligence and talent, but even of monsters, and, finally, of anyone whose face he simply didn’t like.
Once some guest arrived from that part of the country where her relatives lived. The guest was an older, plain man, who talked the whole time about the harvest and his case before the Senate, until Alexander, bored with listening, went to the next room. There was nothing to be jealous about. Finally the guest began to say goodbye.
“I’ve heard,” he said, “that you’re at home Wednesdays; wouldn’t you let me join the company of your friends?”
Yuliya smiled and made ready to say “Please do!”–when suddenly from the next room there sounded a whisper louder than any cry: “I do not wish it! ” Yuliya, shaken, hastily repeated these words aloud to the guest.
But Yuliya endured everything. She locked herself away from guests, never went out and sat in private with Alexander.
They continued to revel in bliss methodically. Having exhausted their whole store of known and ready enjoyments, she began to invent new ones, and to vary the pleasures in which this world was rich even without them. What a talent of inventiveness Yuliya displayed! But even her talent became exhausted. Repetition set in. There was nothing to wish for and experience.
There was not a single place out of town they hadn’t visited, no play they hadn’t seen together, no book they hadn’t read and discussed. They had learned the feelings, ways of thinking, virtues and faults of one another, and nobody hindered them from carrying out their plans.
Sincere outpourings became rare. They sometimes sat for whole hours without saying a word. But Yuliya was happy and silent..
From time to time she would exchange a question with Alexander and get back a “yes” or “no”–and was content. If he didn’t smile and didn’t answer anything, she’d begin to watch every movement, every look and interpret them in her own way, and in that case you couldn’t fend off her reproaches.
They stopped talking about the future because Alexander felt some kind of embarrassment about that, an awkwardness he could not explain to himself, and he tried to change the subject. He began to consider, reflect. The magic circle, in which his life was enclosed by lo
ve, burst out in places, and in the distance sometimes there appeared to him the faces of friends and a series of dissipated pleasures, or splendid balls with a crowd of beauties, or his eternally occupied and busy uncle, or his abandoned work…
One evening he was sitting at Yuliya’s in this state of mind. It was snowing hard outdoors. The snow was beating against the windows and sticking in flakes to the panes. Inside one heard the monotonous ticking of the pendulum on the table clock and, infrequently, Yuliya’s sighs.
For want of something to do Alexander cast his eyes round the room, then looked at the clock–ten. And he had still to sit some two hours more. He yawned; his glance rested on Yuliya.
Leaning with her back to the fireplace, she stood, inclining her pale face to her shoulder and following Alexander with her eyes, with an expression not of distrust and interrogation, but of languor and happiness. Apparently she was struggling with a secret emotion, with a sweet dream, and seemed weary.
Her nerves were so strongly involved that the very palpitation of languor subjected her to pathological weariness. Torment and bliss were indistinguishable in her.
Alexander answered her with a dry, restless look. He went up to the window and began to drum lightly with his fingers on the glass as he looked out at the street.
From the street came a mixed sound of voices and the carriages driving past. In windows everywhere lights shone, shadows flew by. It seemed to him that there where there was more light a merry crowd had gathered. There, perhaps, a lively exchange of thoughts, of fiery, volatile feelings was taking place; there people were living loudly and joyously. And over there in that dimly lighted window probably some worthy worker sat industriously at his labor. And Alexander realized he had been dragging out an empty, stupid existence for almost two years now–and that’s two years off the total of one’s life–and all for love! Then and there he turned against love in resentment.
An Ordinary Story Page 26
