Now I do gaze more boldly in your eyes
My lips approach, to list I no more rise,
I want to kiss, I want to kiss and kiss,
I want to kiss, to kiss and kiss and kiss!
—Nadya almost started in fright, and even recoiled a little; a blush poured over her cheeks, and at the same moment Velchaninov saw something as if responsive flash in her embarrassed and almost abashed little face. Fascination, and at the same time perplexity, showed on the faces of all the listening girls as well; to everyone it seemed as if impossible and shameful to sing like that, and at the same time all these little faces and eyes burned and shone as if waiting for something more. Among these faces there especially flashed before Velchaninov the face of Katerina Fedoseevna, which had become almost beautiful.
“Some romance!” muttered old Zakhlebinin, slightly taken aback. “But… isn’t it too strong? Pleasant, but strong…”
“Strong…” Mme. Zakhlebinin echoed, but Pavel Pavlovich did not let her finish: he suddenly popped forward and, as if mad, forgetting himself so much that with his own hand he seized Nadya by the hand and drew her away from Velchaninov, he then leaped up to him and stared at him like a lost man, moving his trembling lips.
“For one moment, sir,” he finally managed to utter.
Velchaninov saw clearly that in another moment this gentleman might venture on something ten times more absurd; he quickly took him by the arm and, ignoring the general perplexity, led him out to the balcony and even took several steps with him down to the garden, where it was already almost completely dark.
“Do you understand that you must leave with me right now, this very minute!” Pavel Pavlovich said.
“No, I don’t…”
“Do you remember,” Pavel Pavlovich went on in his frenetic whisper, “do you remember how you demanded once that I tell you everything, everything, openly, sir, ‘the very last word …’—do you remember, sir? Well, the time has come for saying that word… let’s go, sir!”
Velchaninov reflected, glanced once more at Pavel Pavlovich, and agreed to leave.
Their suddenly announced departure upset the parents and made all the girls terribly indignant.
“At least another cup of tea,” Mme. Zakhlebinin moaned plaintively.
“Why did you get so upset?” the old man, in a stern and displeased tone, addressed the grinning and stubbornly silent Pavel Pavlovich.
“Pavel Pavlovich, why are you taking Alexei Ivanovich away?” the girls cooed plaintively, at the same time glancing at him with bitterness. And Nadya looked at him so angrily that he cringed all over, yet—he did not yield.
“But in fact, Pavel Pavlovich—and I thank him for it—has reminded me of an extremely important matter, which I might have let slip,” Velchaninov laughed, shaking hands with the host, bowing to the hostess and to the girls, and, as if especially among them, to Katerina Fedoseevna, which again was noticed by everyone.
“We thank you for coming and will always be glad to see you, all of us,” Zakhlebinin concluded weightily.
“Ah, we’re so glad…” the mother of the family picked up with feeling.
“Come again, Alexei Ivanovich, come again!” many voices were heard from the balcony when he was already sitting in the carriage with Pavel Pavlovich; barely heard was one little voice, softer than all the others, that said: “Come again, dear, dear Alexei Ivanovich!”
“It’s the little redhead!” thought Velchaninov.
XIII
WHOSE SIDE HAS MORE ON IT
He was able to think about the little redhead, and yet vexation and repentance had long been wearying his soul. And during this whole day—spent so amusingly, one would have thought—sorrow had almost never left him. Before singing the romance, he had already not known where to escape from it; maybe that was why he had sung with such feeling.
“And I could stoop so low… break away from everything!” he began to reproach himself, but hastened to interrupt his thoughts. And it seemed so low to lament; it would have been much more pleasant to quickly get angry with someone.
“Mor-ron!” he whispered spitefully, glancing sideways at Pavel Pavlovich, who was silently sitting next to him in the carriage.
Pavel Pavlovich remained obstinately silent, perhaps concentrating and preparing himself. With an impatient gesture he occasionally took off his hat and wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.
“He’s sweating!” Velchaninov kept up his spite.
Only once did Pavel Pavlovich advert to the coachman with a question: “Will there be a thunderstorm, or not?”
“Aye, and a good one! There’s bound to be, it was such a sultry day.” Indeed, the sky was darkening, and distant lightning flashed. They entered the city at half past ten.
“I’m going to your place, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich obligingly addressed Velchaninov, not far from his house.
“I understand; but I must warn you that I feel seriously unwell…”
“I won’t stay long, I won’t stay long!”
As they came through the gateway, Pavel Pavlovich ran over for a moment to Mavra at the caretaker’s.
“Why did you go there?” Velchaninov asked sternly when the man caught up with him and they went into his rooms.
“Never mind, sir, just so… the coachman, sir…”
“I won’t let you drink!”
No answer came. Velchaninov lit the candles, and Pavel Pavlovich settled at once into an armchair. Velchaninov frowningly stopped before him.
“I also promised to tell you my ‘last’ word,” he began with an inward, still suppressed, irritation. “Here it is, this word: I consider in good conscience that all matters between us have been mutually ended, so that we even have nothing to talk about; do you hear—nothing; and therefore it might be better if you left now and I locked the door behind you.”
“Let’s square accounts, Alexei Ivanovich!” Pavel Pavlovich said, but with a somehow especially meek look in his eyes.
“Square ac-counts?” Velchaninov was terribly surprised. “That’s a strange phrase to utter! What ‘accounts’ have we got to ‘square’? Hah! Is it that ‘last word’ of yours, which you promised earlier to… reveal to me?”
“The very same, sir.”
“We have no more accounts to square, they were squared long ago!” Velchaninov said proudly.
“Do you really think so, sir?” Pavel Pavlovich said in a soulful voice, somehow strangely joining his hands in front of him, finger to finger, and holding them in front of his chest. Velchaninov did not answer him and started pacing the room. “Liza? Liza?” moaned in his heart.
“But, anyhow, what is it you wanted to square?” he addressed him frowningly, after a rather prolonged silence. The man had followed him around the room with his eyes all the while, holding his joined hands in front of him in the same way.
“Don’t go there anymore, sir,” he almost whispered in a pleading voice, and suddenly got up from the chair.
“What? So it’s only about that?” Velchaninov laughed spitefully. “Though you’ve made me marvel all day today!” he began venomously, but suddenly his whole face changed: “Listen to me,” he said sadly and with profoundly sincere feeling, “I consider that I’ve never stooped so low in anything as I did today—first by agreeing to go with you, and then—by what happened there… It was so pretty, so pathetic… I befouled and demeaned myself by getting involved… and forgetting… Well, never mind!” he suddenly recollected himself. “Listen: you happened to fall on me today when I was irritated and sick… well, no point in justifying myself! I won’t go there anymore, and I assure you that I have absolutely no interest there,” he concluded resolutely.
“Really? Really?” Pavel Pavlovich cried out, not concealing his joyful excitement. Velchaninov glanced at him with scorn and again started pacing the room.
“It seems you’ve decided to be happy at all costs?” he finally could not refrain from observing.
“Yes, sir,” Pavel Pav
lovich softly and naively confirmed.
“What is it to me,” thought Velchaninov, “that he’s a buffoon and his malice comes only from stupidity? All the same I can’t help hating him—though he may not deserve it!”
“I’m an ‘eternal husband,’ sir!” Pavel Pavlovich said with a humbly submissive smile at himself. “I’ve long known this little phrase of yours, Alexei Ivanovich, ever since you lived there with us, sir. I memorized many of your words from that year. When you said ‘eternal husband’ here the last time, I realized it, sir.”
Mavra came in with a bottle of champagne and two glasses.
“Forgive me, Alexei Ivanovich, you know I can’t do without it, sir. Don’t regard it as boldness; consider me a stranger and not worthy of you, sir.”
“Yes…” Velchaninov allowed with disgust, “but I assure you that I’m feeling unwell…”
“Quickly, quickly, just one moment now!” Pavel Pavlovich hurried, “only one little glass, because my throat…”
He greedily drank the glass in one gulp and sat down—casting an all but tender glance at Velchaninov. Mavra went out.
“How loathsome!” Velchaninov whispered.
“It’s only the girlfriends, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich suddenly said cheerfully, thoroughly revived.
“How? What? Ah, yes, you’re still at it…”
“Only the girlfriends, sir! And still so young; we’re showing off out of gracefulness, that’s what, sir! It’s even charming. And then—then, you know, I’ll become her slave; she’ll know esteem, society… she’ll get completely reeducated, sir.”
“By the way, I must give him the bracelet!” Velchaninov thought, frowning and feeling for the case in his coat pocket.
“Now you say, sir, that I’ve decided to be happy? I must get married, Alexei Ivanovich,” Pavel Pavlovich went on confidentially and almost touchingly, “otherwise what will become of me? You can see for yourself, sir!” he pointed to the bottle.
“And this is only a hundredth part—of my qualities, sir. I’m quite unable to do without being married and—without new faith, sir. I’ll believe and resurrect.”
“But why are you telling all this to me?” Velchaninov almost snorted with laughter. Anyhow, it all seemed wild to him.
“But tell me, finally,” he cried out, “why did you drag me there? What did you need me there for?”
“As a test, sir…” Pavel Pavlovich somehow suddenly became embarrassed.
“A test of what?”
“Of the effect, sir… You see, Alexei Ivanovich, it’s only a week that I… that I’ve been seeking there, sir” (he was growing more and more abashed). “Yesterday I met you and thought: ‘I’ve never seen her in, so to speak, a stranger’s, that is, a man’s company, sir, apart from my own …’ A foolish thought, sir, I feel it myself now, an unnecessary one, sir, I just wanted it so much, sir, on account of my nasty character…” He suddenly raised his head and blushed.
“Can he be telling the whole truth?” Velchaninov thought, amazed to the point of stupefaction.
“Well, and what then?”
Pavel Pavlovich smiled sweetly and somehow slyly.
“Nothing but lovely childishness, sir! It’s all the girlfriends, sir! Only forgive me for my stupid behavior toward you today, Alexei Ivanovich; I’ll never do it again, sir; and this thing won’t ever happen again.”
“And I won’t be there anyway,” Velchaninov smirked.
“That’s partly what I’m referring to, sir.”
Velchaninov winced slightly.
“However, I’m not the only one in the world,” he observed vexedly.
Pavel Pavlovich blushed again.
“It makes me sad to hear that, Alexei Ivanovich, and, believe me, I respect Nadezhda Fedoseevna so much…”
“Excuse me, excuse me, I didn’t mean anything—it’s only a bit strange to me that you overestimated my means so much… and… were relying on me so sincerely…”
“I relied on you, sir, precisely because it was after everything… that had already been, sir.”
“Meaning that you still regard me, in that case, as a most noble man?” Velchaninov suddenly stopped. At another moment he himself would have been horrified at the naivete of his sudden question.
“And I always did, sir.” Pavel Pavlovich lowered his eyes.
“Well, yes, naturally… I don’t mean that—that is, not in that sense—I only wanted to say that despite any… prejudice…”
“Yes, sir, and despite any prejudice.”
“And when you were coming to Petersburg?” Velchaninov could no longer restrain himself, feeling all the monstrousness of his curiosity.
“And when I was coming to Petersburg, I considered you the most noble of men, sir. I’ve always respected you, Alexei Ivanovich.” Pavel Pavlovich raised his eyes and clearly, now without any embarrassment, looked at his adversary. Velchaninov suddenly turned coward: he decidedly did not want anything to happen or anything to go over the line, the more so as he himself had provoked it.
“I loved you, Alexei Ivanovich,” Pavel Pavlovich said as if suddenly making up his mind, “And I loved you, sir, all that year in T———. You didn’t notice it, sir,” he went on in a slightly quavering voice, to Velchaninov’s decided horror, “I stood too small compared with you in order for you to notice. And perhaps it wasn’t necessary, sir. And for all these nine years I’ve remembered you, sir, because never in my life have I known such a year as that.” (Pavel Pavlovich’s eyes glistened somehow peculiarly.) “I remembered many of your words and utterances, sir, of your thoughts, sir. I always remembered you as an educated man, sir, ardent for good feelings, highly educated, and with thoughts. ‘Great thoughts come not so much from great intelligence as from great feeling, sir’—you yourself said that, and perhaps forgot it, but I remembered it, sir. I always counted on you, that is, as on a man of great feeling… that is, I believed, sir—despite all, sir…” His chin suddenly trembled. Velchaninov was completely frightened; this unexpected tone had to be stopped at all costs.
“Enough, please, Pavel Pavlovich,” he muttered, blushing and in irritated impatience. “And why, why,” he suddenly cried out, “why do you fasten yourself on to a sick, irritated, all but delirious man, and drag him into this darkness… when—it’s all a phantom and a mirage, and a lie, and shame, and unnaturalness, and—excessive—and that’s the main, the most shameful thing, that it’s excessive! And it’s all rubbish: we’re two depraved, underground, vile people… And if you like, if you like, I’ll prove to you right now that you not only do not love me, but that you hate me with all your strength and are lying without knowing it yourself: you took me and drove me there not at all for the ridiculous purpose of testing your fiancée (what a thing to come up with!)—you simply saw me yesterday and got angry and took me there to show her to me and say: ‘See her! She’s going to be mine; go on and try something now!’ You challenged me! Maybe you didn’t know it yourself, but it was so, because you did feel all that… And without hatred one can’t make such a challenge; and that means you hated me!” He was rushing up and down the room as he shouted this out, and most of all he was tormented and offended by the humiliating awareness that he was condescending so much to Pavel Pavlovich.
“I wished to make peace with you, Alexei Ivanovich!” the other suddenly pronounced resolutely, in a quick whisper, and his chin began to twitch again. Fierce rage took possession of Velchaninov, as if no one had ever given him such offense before!
“I tell you once again,” he screamed, “that you are… clinging to a sick and irritated man in order to tear from him, in his delirium, some phantasmal word! We… but we’re people from different worlds, understand that, and… and… a grave lies between us!” he whispered frenziedly—and suddenly recovered himself.
“And how do you know,” Pavel Pavlovich’s face suddenly became distorted and pale, “how do you know what that little grave means here… inside me, sir!” he cried out, stepping up to Velchaninov a
nd, with a ridiculous but terrible gesture, striking himself on the heart with his fist. “I know that little grave here, sir, and we two stand on the sides of that grave, only my side has more on it than yours, more, sir…” he was whispering as if in delirium, while continuing to hit himself on the heart, “more, sir—more, sir…” Suddenly an extraordinary stroke of the doorbell brought them both to their senses. The ring was so strong that it seemed as if someone had vowed to tear the bell off with the first stroke.
The Eternal Husband and Other Stories Page 21
