On reaching rue Boileau, he paused for a second outside number forty-four, went up to the first floor and opened the door with his key. The shutters were lowered and the apartment was in semi-darkness. Liza’s voice said:
“Seryozha?”
Sergey Sergeyevich paused momentarily. Liza had called his name, but there could be no mistaking the tone of voice: she had never spoken to him like this. An improbable thought flashed through his mind. On the floor in the hallway he noticed a little leather suitcase.
“It’s me,” he said, walking in.
Liza was lying on the bed; her hair was dishevelled, her face in the half-light seemed even darker than usual. In the doorway she saw the familiar broad figure. Raising herself on her elbows, she said in a strangled whisper:
“Go, go at once, do you hear me? I beg you, please, go!”
“I don’t know that I must,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. His heart ached; he felt cold and unwell, and with surprise he thought that this was the first time in his life that he had experienced such feelings.
“Go, you’ll be the ruin of me!”
He could hear tears in Liza’s voice.
“Seryozha,” she repeated, “darling, please, go!”
Sergey Sergeyevich thought he heard the click of a key at the door in the hallway, but perhaps it was just his imagination. In a measured voice he said:
“Liza, you’ve been my mistress for many years…”
Liza sobbed, burying her face in the pillow. Sergey Sergeyevich heard movement in the hallway, turned and saw Seryozha, who was standing with a parcel in his hands and had heard what he had just said.
“I thought you were in England,” said Sergey Sergeyevich as though in a dream. But Seryozha was no longer there; he had thrown down the parcel and run out of the apartment.
“My God, this is horrible!” said Sergey Sergeyevich.
He sat in the armchair and said nothing for a long time. All the while Liza’s shoulders jolted and trembled. Sergey Sergeyevich looked at her with unseeing eyes. Finally he said:
“Liza, how could you?”
The room was getting dark; dusk was quickly falling on the other side of the window. It was quiet, and only the sound of Liza’s rapid breathing could be heard. The despair that had seized her from the moment Sergey Sergeyevich appeared in the doorway had not left her; she was unable to speak. Finally it struck her that her only chance of salvation was to tell Sergey Sergeyevich everything and then to find Seryozha and explain to him that nothing mattered apart from her love for him, that however irreparable some things might seem…
She told Sergey Sergeyevich—the room was now completely dark, neither of them thought to turn on the light—everything that had gone on in the Midi, in every detail, and added that nothing in her world existed apart from her love for Seryozha. She said she knew all the impediments to this—the terrible relationship, the difference in age, the fact that it seemed wholly impossible and monstrous—yet, despite it all, were it not for this, her life would surely lose all meaning.
“Very well, Liza,” came Sergey Sergeyevich’s voice out of the darkness, “but all this has to do with you. I understand you’re in a very difficult position. But you must think of Seryozha first and foremost.”
“He feels just the same as I do; he cannot imagine life without me.”
“I understand. But he’s seventeen years old; you’re the first woman in his life. Remember your first affair—what is left of that? No, to sacrifice Seryozha, even for you, is impossible.”
Sergey Sergeyevich expressed the opinion that it was necessary to explain everything to Seryozha, to convince him that it was impossible to build a life on an unwitting crime and that he must forget about it.
“So you want me to give him up?”
“I demand it,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “You aren’t accustomed to my making demands, but here, for the first time in my life, I’m demanding this of you.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
However, Sergey Sergeyevich insisted. He said that any real man, and particularly one in love, ought to find the strength within himself to make a personal sacrifice, to renounce his own needs in order not to ruin the person whose existence seems most precious to him.
“You’re saying this, you’re able to say this only because you don’t understand what love is. Love means that you’re unable to live without this man, that you don’t want to live, that you want to die, do you understand?”
“I do. You must give him up.”
“It’s easy for you to say!”
“No, Liza, it isn’t. I’ve loved you for many years, and, you see, I’m giving you up. I’m granting you full freedom—whatever you want, whomever you want—only not Seryozha.”
Liza realized that the moment she always feared had finally arrived, the moment when this rational machine was set in motion. She sensed that any entreaty to Sergey Sergeyevich would have no effect. But still she said:
“No, you cannot forbid me from doing this. It’s my life; I have the right to be in control of it.”
“Yes, of your life, but not of Seryozha’s.”
“The two are one and the same.”
Suddenly Sergey Sergeyevich said with genuine amazement and ire in his voice:
“How so exactly? Are you really so incapable of this? What then is the value of your love?”
“Don’t speak of love, you don’t understand it.”
“So you and your sister have been saying for many years. I don’t know what it is—probably because to love in your definition of the word is to sacrifice everything in the name of sensuality. Nothing exists: not true love, not care for the person you love, not his interests, not your obligations, not shame—nothing! Not even the possibility of ridding yourself of this physical languor for a while, to comprehend in the slightest measure what is just. Yes, in this sense I do not know what love is, truly I don’t. I would not leave my house, wife and son to the mercy of fate—simply because I find it pleasant to spend time in the company of a lover. Yet true love I do know: you do not. Lyolya is better than you; she would understand me. She’s sensitive and frivolous, but she has a beautiful heart and would sacrifice herself ten times over if it were necessary. You can’t even do that.”
“I will not listen to this!” cried Liza. “You have no right to say this to me; you have no right to say anything at all. I’ve hated you for so long,” she thundered, “because you’re a machine, an automaton, because you’re incapable of understanding a single human emotion. Can’t you see how everyone is deserting you? Lyolya has gone, I’ve gone, Seryozha has gone. You demand this sacrifice of me—it means my life! Yes, of course such a sacrifice would be easy for you.”
“Everything you say is unfair, Liza,” replied his measured voice amid the darkness. “Don’t you know what suffering, sacrifice and unhappiness are? You haven’t the faintest idea of these things, and you consider everyone who isn’t like you unworthy of attention and compassion; you’ve never made a single effort to understand—just like poor Yegorkin, who, however, for all his naivety and absurdity, is of more human worth than you. I know you very well.”
“You’re a fine one to talk.”
“Look, Liza, what comes first for you? Avarice and egotism. What is it to you if an unhappy and trusting boy ruins his life because of you? You don’t think about this. Instead, you’ll have a pleasant time—until you meet someone you like more than Seryozha—and then you’ll forsake him with uncommon ease and offer up this sacrifice.”
He was silent. Liza said nothing as she collected her thoughts. Suddenly he said (and in his voice she could detect an involuntary and unexpected smile):
“And still I love you.”
“I know,” Liza said with hatred. “You’re a machine, but a perfectly made one, just like a human being.”
“Another gross error, Liza. Understand that I’m not at all a machine. You and Lyolya always think so, because you can’t fathom what it is that fo
rces me to be this way. Haven’t you ever thought about it? I pity people, you see. I’ve always pitied Lyolya—why should I have made her suffer, harassing her on account of those never-ending affairs? I let her live as she pleased—and all the more unselfishly, because I knew that I’d receive no thanks for it, that she would continue to think I had no heart. I pitied you—you must know that. I pity everyone, Liza, and for that reason I do not oppose others, I do not prevent them thinking what they like and living as they please, although they almost always act wrongly. So here’s another proof that I’m no machine—this pity has its limit. You and I reached that today.”
Liza heard him get up from the chair.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “I need to find Seryozha. Matters between you and him are finished. I’ll do all I can to make sure you never see him again.”
“I’ll kill you,” said Liza with total equanimity.
“You won’t, because then Seryozha will be lost to you. Moreover, you know it doesn’t frighten me; I do not fear death. And if you think that I value my life greatly…”
He flicked the switch. Liza, squinting because of the harsh light, saw his tall, broad frame and motionless face with a strange, angry, melancholic expression. He took his hat and gloves, and, without adding a single word, without saying goodbye to Liza, he left. A second later the door in the hallway clicked. Without even burying her tear-stained face in her hands, Liza began to wail.
* Come now!
† That would take the cake.
‡ Exaggeration of private sentiment?
§ It’s straight out of the Comédie-Française, on season-ticket holders’ day.
¶ A smile in the face of adversity!
|| Now there’s a thought.
SERYOZHA RAN OUT of the building in a complete frenzy, almost unconscious of what he was doing, or, rather, his comprehension of the action came some time after the event itself. The street was empty. He walked quickly, reaching avenue de Versailles unawares, and, spotting a bench, sat down on it. Tears smothered and stifled his thoughts. His father’s words still rang in his ears: “Liza, you’ve been my mistress for many years…” What did this mean? Of course it must be true, for his father had known about her apartment. But how could this have happened? How could Liza not have told him about this? “My God, what happens now?” he said aloud. So now Sergey Sergeyevich knew about his relationship. Seryozha no longer had a home. Liza had also lost him for ever. Liza, remarkable Liza! So this is how it really was. Everything—his childhood, her dark hands, everything that was warm, splendid and his own, all his sixteen years and their astonishing, dazzling culmination—all this had been a monstrous and cruel deception. Why had he been in such a hurry? He had been unable to go on living in London, and that morning, without any forewarning, he left for Paris, to see Liza—as it transpired, to step out for a quarter of an hour (after having savoured her impassioned embraces) to buy something for tea, then to return only to hear this merciless phrase uttered by the typically calm voice of his father, which left absolutely no doubt. Everything was at an end.
Then he recalled his mother. She was all he had left—but he could never tell her about this. He thought about it all over again. Everything had come crashing down. No father, no Liza—his love was impossible. What would he do now—and to what end?
The family of a factory worker passed by—a father, a mother and a little boy of around six. Then a pair of lovers walked past in a snug embrace. Unconsciously, without seeing, he followed them with his eyes. It was getting cold. He pulled his coat more tightly around him, and felt something firm in the side pocket: it was his passport. Then he got up and set out for the station.
By evening he was in London, in his father’s cold, empty apartment. He went into the study, opened several drawers, and in the last one, at the bottom on the right, he found a revolver lying cornerwise. Everything was still. He sat at the desk and wrote on a slip of paper which he tore out of a notebook:
Dear Mama, forgive me for the pain I am causing you. I love you more than anyone in the world. I cannot live any longer. I am sorry that I cannot see you now. Forgive me for everything. Your Seryozha.
He took the revolver and placed it to his temple. He felt faintly nauseous; he was terribly afraid. He thought that it would be awful if they were to find his body with a mutilated head, and so he placed the revolver to his chest, at the spot just below the dull, desperate beat of his heart. Then he closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.
It was a cool, quiet evening; stars hung high above in the dark sky; the dark Thames plashed faintly in its stone banks.
JUST AS IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE to imagine Sergey Sergeyevich’s villa in the south of France without Nil, so too could one not imagine his house in London without Johnson, who was around sixty years of age and had been in Sergey Sergeyevich’s employ for a very long time, since the year that he first came to England in the wake of the Russian Revolution. Just like Nil, Johnson knew all Sergey Sergeyevich’s family, and he had known Seryozha since he was a little boy. He was an honest and exceedingly decent man, who valued his position greatly, executed his duties with exceptional punctiliousness, but was possessed of a single fault: in spite of his venerable age, he was a very heavy sleeper—a condition that he vehemently denied and invariably served as the basis of Sergey Sergeyevich’s jokes, which was all the more gratifying because Johnson, despite appearances, was truly convinced that he slept lightly. On this occasion, however, there could be no denying it: that night he heard no shot.
By force of long-held habit, he rose exceptionally early—in autumn and winter it would still be dark at the time. On this day he got up earlier than usual. When he stepped out of his room, he was surprised to notice a light behind the door to Sergey Sergeyevich’s study, which was ajar; that instant, he heard a faint wheezing. He rushed in and, throwing the door open, saw Seryozha’s body lying on the floor next to the revolver he had dropped, specks of blood on the carpet and pink foam on the youth’s lips. He immediately went to the telephone and summoned the doctor on call. Then he noticed atop the table a slip of paper with some writing on it in Russian, and he hid this in his pocket. With a certain difficulty he then lifted up Seryozha’s heavy body and laid it on the divan. These events had so affected him that he forgot about everything and, the moment after he called the doctor, despair gently took hold of him. With tears in his eyes, he silently watched a choking Seryozha, who continued to wheeze heavily, while bloody foam bubbled at his lips as before. Only then, after the doctor’s arrival, did he recall that Sergey Sergeyevich had telephoned the previous evening to ask whether Seryozha had returned, and ordered Johnson to let him know the moment he arrived. The doctor, with Johnson’s help, quickly undressed Seryozha, placed his stethoscope to his chest, blood caked around the wound, and said that he had to be taken to the clinic immediately.
“Will he live, Doctor?” asked Johnson.
The doctor shrugged, sighed and replied that he hoped so: the bullet had missed his heart.
Only after Seryozha had been taken away—it was already around eight o’clock in the morning—did Johnson, returning to his senses, remember that he had still to call Sergey Sergeyevich. He ran once again to the telephone. It took a long time to connect the call; then finally, when he heard Sergey Sergeyevich’s voice, he was in a state of such agitation that in the first seconds he was unable to explain anything. Then he somehow managed to relate, not without getting in a muddle, everything that had happened.
“Is he alive?” asked the unfamiliar voice from Paris, which Johnson would never have recognized, had he not been so absolutely certain that he was speaking with Sergey Sergeyevich.
“Yes, and the doctor says he hopes… He says the bullet missed his heart.”
“I’ll be on the first aeroplane to London,” said Sergey Sergeyevich. “Send the car to Croydon immediately.”
After leaving Liza the previous evening, Sergey Sergeyevich had telephoned Olga Alexandrovna, asking her whether she
had seen Seryozha; then he had called London. Seryozha was nowhere to be found. He had lain on the divan all night without bothering to undress, slept soundly for three hours and awoken not long before Johnson’s call. He learnt from the aerodrome that take-off was scheduled for half-past nine.
At that moment, Liza came into his study; she was dressed for travelling. She had come to Sergey Sergeyevich because he had her passport—with the firm intention of going to England. However, when she saw Sergey Sergeyevich, the words she had prepared suddenly caught in her throat. Despite the fact that he was just as cleanly shaven and well dressed as ever, his face was so changed that for a second she thought she was looking at another man.
“What’s the matter, Seryozha?” she said with a tremble in her voice that a moment ago would have been entirely unthinkable.
“He’s shot himself,” said Sergey Sergeyevich.
“What?” asked Liza, failing to comprehend. She felt unwell; her vision dimmed; in the grey light of the October morning Sergey Sergeyevich’s study melted and pitched. “What?”
“The bullet missed his heart, there’s hope that he’ll live,” said Sergey Sergeyevich.
The melting objects momentarily took solid form. Liza began to breathe rapidly.
“I need to go there, I will go, you can’t tell me now that I can’t go.”
“The main thing is that he pulls through,” said Sergey Sergeyevich, “come what may—even you, Liza. Just let him pull through.”
The Flight Page 21
