“What kind of love is this!” he thought. “Some kind of sleepy love without energy! This woman surrenders to feeling without a struggle, without exertion, without resistance, like a victim. A weak woman without character, she would have bestowed her love on the first man who came along; if it hadn’t been me, she would have fallen in love even with Surkov, and she even started to love him, yes! However she defends herself–I saw it! Let someone more dashing and skillful than I come along, she’d yield to him! It’s simply immoral! Is that love! Where is the sympathy of souls which sensitive people preach about? And weren’t our souls drawn to each other–to be joined forever, it seemed; who would have thought otherwise! The Devil knows what this is, you can’t make sense of it!” he whispered with vexation.
“What are you doing there? What are you thinking about?” asked Yuliya.
“So…” he said, yawning and sat on the sofa further away from her, seizing the corner of an embroidered pillow with one hand.
“Sit here, closer.”
He didn’t and didn’t answer anything.
“What’s the matter with you?” she went on, coming nearer to him. “You’re insufferable today.”
“I don’t know…” he said wearily, “I feel something… as if I…”
He didn’t know what to answer her or himself. He still hadn’t properly explained to himself what was happening to him.
She sat down beside him, began to talk about the future and gradually brightened. She painted a happy picture of family life, joked at times and concluded very tenderly.
“You are my husband! Look,” she said, pointing all around, “Soon all this will be yours. You will rule in this house as in my heart. I’m independent now, can do what I want, go wherever I want, but then nothing will move from its place without your order. I will be bound by your will, but what a beautiful chain! Forge it quickly, oh when?… All my life I’ve dreamed of such a man, of such a love… and here the dream is fulfilled… and happiness close… I hardly believe it… Do you know, it seems a dream to me. Isn’t this the reward for my past sufferings?…”
It was painful for Alexander to hear these words.
“And if I fell out of love with you?” he asked suddenly, trying to give his voice a joking tone.
“I would box your ears!” she answered, taking him by the ears, then sighed and fell deep in thought because of this single joking remark. He was silent.
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” she suddenly asked with animation. “You’re silent, you hardly listen to me, look to the side…”
Then she moved toward him and putting her hand on his shoulder, began to speak quietly, almost in a whisper, on the same theme, but not so positively. She reminded him of the beginning of their intimacy, the beginning of love, its first signs and first joys. She almost sighed from the languor of her emotions; on her pale cheeks two spots turned pink. They gradually took fire, her eyes sparkled, then grew languid and closed halfway, she was breathing deeply, and her words were hardly audible as she played with Alexander’s soft hair with one hand; then she looked into his eyes. He quietly freed his head from her hand, took a comb from his pocket and carefully combed the hair she had disarranged. She got up and looked at him fixedly.
“What is the matter with you, Alexander?” she asked, worried.
“Why are you bothering me! How do I know?” he thought, but was silent.
“Are you bored?” she suddenly said, and her voice betrayed both question and doubt.
“Boring!” he thought, “that’s the right word! Yes! This is a torturing, murderous boredom! It’s a month since this worm crawled into my heart and started gnawing at it… Oh God! What am I to do? And she’s discussing love and marriage. How am I to bring her to reason?”
She sat down at the piano and played several of his favorite pieces. He didn’t listen and still went on thinking his own thoughts.
Yuliya let her hands fall. She sighed, wrapped herself in her shawl and threw herself into the other corner of the sofa, from where she sadly observed Alexander.
He took his hat.
“Where are you going?” she asked in astonishment.
“Home.”
“It isn’t eleven o’clock yet.”
“I must write to Mama; I haven’t written her in a long while.”
“Long? You wrote her day before yesterday.”
He was silent, there was nothing to say. He had in fact written and somehow in passing had told her at the time, but forgotten. But love doesn’t forget a single detail! In the eyes of love everything that concerns the beloved is an important fact. In the mind of a loving person a multiple fabric is woven out of observations, subtle considerations, recollections, surmises about everything that surrounds the beloved, that takes place in his world, or influences him. In love one word, a hint, suffices… why not even a hint!–a glance, a hardly noticeable movement of the lips is enough to constitute a surmise, and then become a consideration, and from there a decisive conclusion and then one either torments oneself or discovers bliss as a result of one’s own thought. The logic of those in love, sometimes wrong, sometimes amazingly right, quickly throws up a structure of surmises and suspicions, but the force of love, even more quickly, razes it to the foundation; often a single smile, a tear, at most two or three words suffice–and you can say farewell to suspicions. Nothing can undermine or deceive this kind of monitoring. A person in love might suddenly take into his head something another person would not dream of even in sleep, yet he will not see what goes on under his nose; he might see with a penetration equal to clairvoyance, yet be shortsighted to the point of blindness.
Yuliya jumped up from the sofa like a kitten and seized him by the hand.
“What does this mean? Where are you going?” she asked.
“Really nothing, nothing. I’m just sleepy; I didn’t sleep much last night, that’s all.”
“Didn’t sleep much! Then why did you say earlier this morning that you slept nine hours and even that your head had started to ache from it?”
Another mistake.
“But my head does ache,” he said, becoming a little embarrassed, “that’s why I’m going.”
“But after dinner you said the ache had gone.”
“Heavens! What a memory you have! This is unbearable! Well, I simply want to go home.”
“You mean you’re not comfortable here? What do you have there at home?”
Looking straight into his eyes, she shook her head suspiciously. Somehow he calmed her and left.
“What if I don’t go to Yuliya’s today?” was the question Alexander asked himself upon awakening the next morning.
He walked up and down in his room a few times. “Right, I won’t go!” he added, his mind made up. “Evsei! I’m getting dressed.” And he set out to wander about the city.
“What fun, how pleasant to go walking alone!” he thought, “to go where you want, stop, read a sign, look in a store window, set off this way, that way… it’s so wonderful! Freedom is a great gift! Yes! that’s right–freedom in the broad, elevated sense means to go walking alone!”
He tapped with his stick along the sidewalk, merrily bowed to acquaintances. Walking along Morskaya Street, he saw a familiar face in the window of a house. An acquaintance beckoned to him to come in. He looked–oh! why that’s Dumé! and went in, had dinner, stayed till evening, then went to the theater, and afterwards to supper. He tried not to think about home; he knew what awaited him there.
True, upon his return he found up to half a dozen notes on the table and a sleepy lackey in the hall. The servant had been told not to leave until he came. In the notes there were reproaches, questions and traces of tears. The next day he had to explain. He excused himself with work at the office. Somehow they made peace.
Three days later the same thing happened again on his and her side. Then again and again. Yuliya grew thin, didn’t go anywhere or receive any visits but kept quiet because reproaches made Alexander angry.
/> A couple of weeks later Alexander arranged with friends to choose a day and go out on the town doing come what may, but the same morning he received a note from Yuliya with the request that he spend the day with her, and come early. She wrote that she was ill, sad, that her nerves were suffering and so on. He became angry, but went to warn her that he could not stay, that he had a lot of things to do.
“Yes, of course: dinner at Dumé’s, theater, rides in the hills–very important business…,” she said wearily.
“What does this mean?” he asked with vexation. “You’re apparently having me watched? I won’t stand for it.” He got up and wanted to leave.
“Stop, listen!” she said, “let us talk.”
“I have no time.”
“One minute; sit down.”
He sat down, unwillingly, on the edge of a chair.
Folding her arms, she scrutinized him, as if trying to read on his face in advance the answer to what she wanted to say.
He fidgeted in his place from impatience.
“Quickly! I have no time!” he said dryly.
She sighed. “You don’t love me then?” she asked, slightly shaking her head.
“The same old song!” he said, smoothing his hat with his sleeve.
“How she has bored you!” she answered.
He got up and began walking around the room in rapid paces. A moment later sobbing was heard.
“This is the last straw!” he said almost with rage, stopping in front of her. “Haven’t you tormented me enough!…”
“I’ve tormented you!” she exclaimed and started to sob more violently.
“This is insufferable!” said Alexander, getting ready to leave.
“All right, I won’t, I won’t!” she hastily began, wiping her tears. “You see, I’m not crying; but don’t go, sit down.”
She tried to smile, but even so the tears trickled down her cheeks. Alexander felt pity. He sat down and began to jiggle his foot. He started to pose question after question to himself and came to the conclusion that he had cooled to Yuliya, he did not love her. And why? God knows! She loved him more and more every day; and wasn’t that the reason? Heavens! What a contradiction! All the conditions for happiness were there. Nothing prevented it, no other feeling had distracted him, but he had cooled. Oh, life! But how to calm Yuliya! Sacrifice himsel f? Drag out boring, long days with her; pretend–he couldn’t. But not to pretend meant to face tears every minute, listen to reproaches, torment her and himself… If he began talking to her all of a sudden about his uncle’s theory of betrayals and cooling off… now I ask you: she wouldn’t understand anything; she’d cry and then what could be done?
Seeing that he was silent, Yuliya took his hand and looked him in the eyes. He slowly turned away and quietly freed his hand. He not only did not feel attracted to her, but felt a cold and unpleasant shudder run through his body from her touch. She doubled her caresses. He did not respond to them and became still colder, gloomier. She suddenly snatched her hand away from him and flared up. Feminine pride, offended self-love, shame awakened in her. She straightened up her head and posture and blushed in chagrin.
“Leave me!” she said abruptly.
He left promptly without any objection. But when the sound of his steps began to die down, she rushed after him.
“Alexander Fyodorych! Alexander Fyodorych!” she cried.
He turned.
“Where are you going?”
“Why you told me to leave!”
“And you’re even glad to run away. Stay!”
“I have no time!”
She took him by the hand–and again tender, passionate speeches, prayers and tears poured out. He betrayed no sympathy either by glance, word, or movement–he stood as if made of wood, shifting from one foot to the other. His coldness drove her mad. He was showered with threats and reproaches. Who would have recognized in her the gentle woman with weak nerves? Her curls came loose, her eyes burned with a feverish gleam, her cheeks flamed, the features on her face seemed almost to dissolve. “How ugly she is!” thought Alexander, looking at her with a grimace.
“I’ll have my revenge!” she said. “You think it’s so easy to play with a woman’s fate? You crept into my heart with flattery and hypocrisy, gained complete possession of me and then left me when I was no longer able to throw you out of my thoughts… No! I shall not let you go, I’ll follow you everywhere and always. You won’t get away from me no matter where you go. If you go to the country, I’ll go after you; if you go abroad, I’ll go there too, everywhere and forever. I won’t part easily with my happiness. I don’t care what kind of life I lead… I have nothing more to lose, but I’ll poison your life. I’ll get even, I’ll have my revenge; I undoubtedly have a rival! It can’t be that you’ve left me just like that… I’ll find her–and you’ll see what I’ll do: you’ll wish you’d never been born! With what pleasure I’d hear of your death… I could kill you mysel f!”
“How stupid! How absurd this is!” thought Alexander, shrugging his shoulders.
Seeing that Alexander was indifferent to threats too, she suddenly changed to a quiet, sad tone, then looked at him in silence.
“Have pity on me!” she said, “don’t leave me. What shall I do now without you? I won’t survive the separation. I shall die! Think about it: women love differently–more tenderly, more strongly than men. Love is everything for them, especially for me. Others flirt, love society, noise, and fuss. I’ve never grown accustomed to that: I’m different. I love quiet, solitude, books, music, but you more than everything in the world…”
Alexander showed impatience.
“Well, all right, you don’t love me,” she continued in a lively manner, “but keep your promise. Marry me, only be with me… You’ll be free. Do what you want, even love whomever you want, if only I see you sometimes, even rarely… Oh, in God’s name take pity, take pity!”
She began to cry and could not go on speaking. Agitation had exhausted her; she fell on the sofa, closed her eyes, her teeth were clenched, her mouth contorted convulsively. She had an attack of hysterics. An hour later she regained control, came to. Her maid was fussing about her. She looked around. “And where is…?” she asked.
“The gentleman has gone!”
“He’s left!” she repeated despondently and sat for a long while in silence without moving.
The next day she wrote note after note to Alexander. He didn’t come and didn’t answer. The third, the fourth day, the same thing. Yuliya wrote to Pyotr Ivanych, inviting him to come see her about an important matter. She disliked his wife because she was young, pretty, and, as his aunt, related to Alexander.
Pyotr Ivanych found her seriously ill, almost dying. He spent some two hours with her, then set off to see Alexander.
“What a hypocrite, really!” he said.
“What’s this about?” asked Alexander.
“Look at him, as if this weren’t his doing. Says he doesn’t know how to make a woman fall in love with him and then actually drives her crazy.”
“I don’t understand, Uncle…”
“What’s so hard to understand about it? You understand! I was at Tafayeva’s; she’s told me the whole thing!”
“What!” muttered Alexander in great embarrassment. “Told everything!”
“Everything. How she loves you! You lucky man! So, here you were weeping that you didn’t find passion. Here’s passion for you; be comforted. She’s going crazy, she’s jealous, she weeps and rages… But why are you both involving me in your affairs? Now you’ve begun shunting your women off on me. That’s the last straw; I’ve wasted the whole morning with her. I thought she wanted me on some business, maybe to mortgage her estate with the Estate Trust Council… she made it sound like that, but, see what she wanted me for–really, a fine business!”
“Why did you go to see her?”
“She asked me, complained about you. Indeed, aren’t you ashamed of neglecting her so? Four days without showing up–is that
a joke? Poor woman, she’s dying. Get up and go quickly.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The usual, that you also love her insanely, that you’d looked for a tender heart for a long time, that you were terribly fond of sincere outpourings and you too couldn’t live without love. I said she was worked up about nothing–you would return; I advised her not to push you hard, to allow you to have fun sometimes… otherwise, I said, you’d bore each other… well, what’s usually said in such cases. She became very cheerful, let out the secret that you both planned to marry, that my wife was intervening in this. And you didn’t say a word to me–what kind of people are you! Well, then, so be it! This woman has something; you two will get along. I told her you’d carry out your promise without fail… I did my best for you just now, Alexander, out of gratitude for the service you did me… assured her you loved her so passionately, so tenderly.”
“What have you done, Uncle!” hastily began Alexander, changing color. “I… I don’t love her any more!… I don’t want to get married! I feel as cold as ice toward her!… I’d sooner drown myself… than…”
“Come, come, come!” said Pyotr Ivanych with pretended surprise. “Am I hearing you right? Wasn’t it you who said–do you remember?–that you scorned human nature and especially women’s, that there wasn’t a heart in the world worthy of you? What else did you say? God help me remember…”
“For Heaven’s sake, Uncle, not another word. Your reproach is enough, why give me a moral lesson too? Do you think I don’t understand… Oh, people, people!”
Suddenly he began to chuckle and his uncle with him.
An Ordinary Story Page 27
