‘Have you spoken to him?’ he asked Samoylenko.
‘Not yet.’
‘Now be careful, don’t stand on ceremony with him. The cheek of these people really defeats me! Surely they know very well what the Bityugovs think of their liaison, yet still they sneak their way in.’
‘If you let yourself be ruled by every little prejudice, then you shouldn’t go anywhere,’ Samoylenko said.
‘Is the mass’s revulsion for extra-marital love and dissipation a prejudice then?’
‘Of course. Prejudice and the readiness to hate. When soldiers spot a girl of easy virtue they guffaw and whistle. But just ask them how they carry on.’
‘They don’t whistle for nothing. Young girls strangle their illegitimate babies and go off to hard labour, Anna Karenina threw herself under a train, in villages gates are smeared with tar. Both of us – I don’t know why – admire Katya’s purity, everyone has a vague need for pure love, although he knows that such love doesn’t exist. Surely all of that can’t be prejudice? My dear fellow, all that’s survived from natural selection. And if it weren’t for that mysterious force that regulates sexual relationships, people like Layevsky would have shown you what’s what and humanity would have gone to the dogs within two years.’
Layevsky came into the drawing-room. He greeted everyone and smiled an oily smile as he shook von Koren’s hand. He waited for the right moment and told Samoylenko, ‘Excuse me, Alexander, I have something to say to you.’
Samoylenko stood up, put his arm around his waist and they both went into Nikodim Aleksandrych’s study.
‘It’s Friday tomorrow,’ Layevsky said, biting his nails. ‘Did you get me what you promised?’
‘Only two hundred and ten. I’ll have the rest today or tomorrow. Don’t worry.’
‘Thank God!’ Layevsky sighed and his hands shook with joy. ‘You’re my salvation, Alexander, and I swear by God, by my own happiness and by anything else you care to name that I’ll send you the money the moment I arrive. And I’ll settle my old debt as well.’
‘Look here, Ivan,’ Samoylenko said, turning red in the face as he took hold of one of his buttons. ‘Forgive me for meddling in your private affairs but… why don’t you take Nadezhda with you?’
‘You’re so silly, how could I! One of us has to stay behind, or the creditors will start kicking up a fuss. After all, I owe the shops seven hundred roubles, perhaps more. You wait, I’ll send them the money and keep them quiet, then she can leave as well.’
‘Oh… But why can’t you send her on ahead?’
‘Good Lord, how could I do that?’ Layevsky asked, horrified. ‘After all, she’s a woman, what could she do there on her own? What does she understand? It would only hold things up and be a waste of money.’
‘That makes sense,’ Samoylenko thought, but he remembered his conversation with von Koren, looked down and said gloomily, ‘I can’t agree with you. Either travel with her or send her on ahead… or… or… I shan’t lend you the money. That’s my last word on the subject.’
As he retreated he banged his back on the door and went into the drawing-room red-faced and dreadfully embarrassed.
‘Friday… Friday,’ Layevsky thought as he went back to the drawing-room. ‘Friday…’
He was served a cup of chocolate; the hot liquid burnt his lips and tongue as he kept thinking, ’Friday… Friday…’ For some reason he could not get the word Friday out of his mind; he could think of nothing else and all he knew (his heart, not his head, told him) was that he would not be leaving on Saturday.
Looking very neat and tidy, his hair brushed down over his temples, Nikodim Aleksandrych stood before him and asked, ‘Please have something to eat… Please.’
Marya Konstantinova was showing her guests Katya’s school marks, remarking in her drawling voice, ‘They make things so terribly, terribly hard for students these days! They ask so much of them!’
‘Mama!’ groaned Katya, not knowing where to put herself for embarrassment.
Layevsky also looked at the marks and complimented her. Scripture, Russian Language, Conduct – ‘excellents’ and ‘very goods’ danced before his eyes: all this and the perpetually nagging thought of that Friday, Nikodim’s hair brushed down over his temples and Katya’s red cheeks, struck him as such an immense, crushing bore that he was ready to cry out loud in despair. ‘Will it, will it really be impossible for me to escape from this place?’ he asked himself.
Two card-tables were placed side by side and they sat down to play Post Office.
‘Friday… Friday…’ he thought, smiling as he took a pencil from his pocket. ‘Friday…’
He wanted to weigh his position up carefully, but he was too frightened to think. The realization that the doctor had found him out in that deception he had so long and so carefully concealed from himself, terrified him. Whenever he contemplated the future he did not let his thoughts run away with him. He would just enter a railway carriage and leave – in that way he would solve the problem of his life, and he would not allow his thoughts to wander any further. Like a dim light in distant fields, now and then the thought flashed through his mind that somewhere (in a St Petersburg back street, in the remote future) he would have to resort to some little lie in order to get rid of Nadezhda and settle his debts. Only once would he have to lie and then he would experience a completely new lease of life. That would be a good thing: at the price of some trivial little lie he would be able to purchase absolute respectability.
But now that the doctor had, in his refusal, crudely brought his duplicity to light, he realized that he would need to lie not only in the remote future, but today, in a month’s time, and until the day he died perhaps. In fact, in order to make his escape, he would have to lie to Nadezhda, his creditors and his superiors at the office, and afterwards, to obtain money in St Petersburg, he would have to lie to his mother and tell her that he’d already broken with Nadezhda. His mother wouldn’t let him have more than five hundred roubles, which meant he had already cheated the doctor, as he wouldn’t be able to send him any money in the near future. And then, when Nadezhda arrived in St Petersburg, he would have to resort to a whole series of petty and major lies to get rid of her. Once again there would be more tears, boredom, that wretched existence again, remorse and consequently no new lease of life. It was all a great sham, nothing more. An enormous mountain of lies loomed up in Layevsky’s mind, and he would have to take drastic measures to leap over it in one bound without lying in instalments. For example, he would have to get up from his seat, put his cap on and leave straight away without the money and without a word to anyone. But Layevsky felt he was not equal to that. ‘Friday, Friday,’ he thought. ‘Friday.’
The guests wrote little notes, folded them in two and dropped them into Nikodim Aleksandrych’s old top hat. When it was full Kostya pretended to be a postman and walked round the table handing them out. The deacon, Katya and Kostya were in raptures as they received comical messages and tried to reply with even funnier ones.
‘We must have a talk,’ Nadezhda read in her note. She exchanged glances with Marya Konstantinova, who produced one of her sugary smiles and nodded.
‘What is there to talk about?’ Nadezhda thought. ‘If the whole thing can’t be discussed then there’s no point in saying anything.’
Before coming to the party she had knotted Layevsky’s tie and this insignificant act had filled her heart with tenderness and sorrow. His anxious expression, his distraught glances, his pale face and the incomprehensible change that had recently come over him, the fact that she was harbouring a terrible, loathsome secret from him, the way her hands had trembled when she tried to tie the knot – all this told her that their days together were numbered. She looked at him fearfully and penitently, as if he were an icon. ‘Forgive me, forgive me…’ she thought. Achmianov could not keep his black, amorous eyes off her from across the table. Desires troubled her, she was ashamed of herself, afraid that one day even her anguish and sorrow would not prevent her
from yielding to lust, afraid that, like a confirmed drunkard, she was powerless to control herself.
Unwilling to carry on an existence which was shameful for her and insulting to Layevsky, she decided that she would leave. Tearfully she would beg him to let her go, and if he offered opposition, she would leave secretly. She would not tell him what had happened: at least let him have pure memories of her to cherish.
‘I’m in love, I’m in love, I’m in love,’ she read. ‘That’s from Achmianov.’
She would go and live in some backwater, work, and send Layevsky money, embroidered shirts and tobacco anonymously, and only when he was old – or if he were dangerously ill and needed a nurse – would she return to him. In his old age he would find out the reason why she had refused to be his wife, why she had left him – then he would appreciate the sacrifice she had made and he would forgive her.
‘You’ve got a long nose.’ That must be the deacon or Kostya.
Nadezhda imagined firmly embracing Layevsky as she said goodbye, kissing his hand and vowing to love him forever. And later, among strangers in her backwater, she would think every single day that she had a friend somewhere, a man she loved, pure, noble, highly idealistic, who held unsullied memories of her.
‘If you won’t meet me today, then I shall take steps, I swear it. Please understand, one doesn’t behave like this with respectable people.’ That was from Kirilin.
XIII
Layevsky received two notes. He unfolded one of them and read, ‘Don’t leave, my dear chap.’ ‘Who could have written that?’ he wondered. ‘Not Samoylenko of course… And it’s not the deacon, he doesn’t know I want to go away. Von Koren perhaps?’
The zoologist bent over the table and drew a pyramid. Layevsky thought he could detect a smile in his eyes.
‘Samoylenko’s let the cat out of the bag, most likely,’ Layevsky thought.
The next note was in the same rough handwriting, with long tails and flourishes: ‘Someone won’t be leaving on Saturday.’
‘What stupid insults,’ Layevsky thought. ‘Friday, Friday…’
Something stuck in his throat. He touched his collar and tried to cough, but broke into loud laughter instead.
‘Ha, ha, ha!’ he guffawed. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ ‘What am I laughing at?’ he asked himself. ‘Ha, ha, ha!’
He tried to control himself by covering his face with one hand, but his chest and neck were choking with laughter and he did not succeed. ‘How stupid, though!’ he thought, roaring with laughter. ‘Have I gone out of my mind?’
His guffaws became shriller and shriller until they sounded like a small spaniel yapping. He tried to get up from the table, but his legs would not obey him and strangely, as though it were pleasing itself, his right arm started jumping about on the table, convulsively trying to grab hold of the notes and crumple them up. The astonished glances, Samoylenko’s serious, frightened face, the zoologist’s coldly contemptuous sneers, told him he was having hysterics. ‘How scandalous, how disgraceful,’ he thought, feeling warm tears on his face. ‘Oh, oh, what a disgrace! Nothing like this has ever happened to me.’
They supported him under the arms and led him off somewhere, holding his head from behind; a glass sparkled before his eyes and knocked against his teeth. Water spilled onto his chest; then he saw a small room with two beds standing in the middle, covered with clean, snow-white bedspreads. He slumped onto one of them and burst out sobbing.
‘It’s nothing, nothing…’ Samoylenko was saying. ‘It’s quite common, quite common.’
At the bedside stood Nadezhda, frightened out of her wits, trembling all over and expecting something terrible.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong? For God’s sake, tell me.’ ‘Did Kirilin write to him?’ she wondered.
‘It’s nothing,’ Layevsky said, laughing and crying. ‘Leave me, dear…’
His face expressed neither hatred nor disgust – this meant he knew nothing. Nadezhda calmed down a little and went back to the drawing-room.
‘Don’t upset yourself, my dear!’ Marya Konstantinova said, sitting down beside her and taking her hand. ‘It will pass. Men are just as weak as we sinful women. You’re both going through a crisis at the moment, it’s so understandable! Well, my dear, I’m waiting for an answer. Let’s have a talk.’
‘No, let’s not,’ Nadezhda said, listening to Layevsky’s sobs. ‘I’m so depressed… Please let me leave now.’
‘What are you saying my dear!’ Marya said, taking fright. ‘Surely you don’t think I would let you go without any supper? Let’s have something to eat, then you can go.’
‘I feel so depressed,’ Nadezhda whispered, clutching the back of her chair to stop herself falling.
‘He’s had a fit!’ von Koren said gaily as he came into the drawing-room, but the sight of Nadezhda embarrassed him and he left.
When the fit was over Layevsky sat on the strange bed thinking: ‘What a disgrace, howling like a silly schoolgirl! I must look so stupid and disgusting. I’ll leave by the back door. No, that would mean I’m taking the fit seriously. I should try and make a joke of it.’
He had a look in the mirror, sat for a little while and then went into the drawing-room.
‘Here I am!’ he said, smiling. He suffered torments of shame and felt that his presence made the others feel ashamed too. ‘Things like that happen,’ he said, taking a seat. ‘I was just sitting there when suddenly I had a terrible stabbing pain in my side… absolutely unbearable, my nerves couldn’t take it and… what happened was so stupid! Ours is a neurotic age, can’t be helped!’
He drank wine at supper, chatted and now and then – to the accompaniment of convulsive sighs – kept stroking his side as if to show he still had pain. And no one – except Nadezhda – believed him and he saw it. After nine o’clock everyone went walking along the boulevard. Fearing that Kirilin might attempt to talk to her, Nadezhda tried to stay close by Marya Konstantinova and her children. Fear and dejection weakened her and she felt a fever was coming on; she was very weary and could hardly move her legs. But she did not go home, since she was convinced she would be followed by Kirilin or Achmianov, or both of them. Kirilin was walking behind, with Nikodim Aleksandrych, softly chanting, ‘I wo-on’t allow myself to be tri-fled with! I wo-n’t allow it!’
They turned off the boulevard towards the Pavilion and walked along the beach. For a long time they watched the phosphorescent glow of the sea. Von Koren started explaining the reason for the phosphorescence.
XIV
‘But it’s time I was off to whist… They’re waiting,’ Layevsky said. ‘Goodbye, everyone.’
‘Wait, I’m coming with you,’ Nadezhda said, taking his arm. They said goodbye to the others and left. Kirilin also made his farewell, saying he was going the same way and walked along with them.
‘Whatever will be, will be,’ Nadezhda thought. ‘Let it be…’ She felt that all the nasty memories had left her mind and were walking by her side, breathing heavily in the dark, while she was like a fly that has fallen into an ink-pot, crawling along the road and staining Layevsky’s side and arm black. If Kirilin does something horrible, she thought, then she would be to blame, not he. After all, there was a time when no man would talk to her like Kirilin and it was she who had severed this period like a thread, destroying it for ever. But who was to blame? Stupefied by her desires, she had begun to smile at a complete stranger, most probably because he was tall and well-built. After two meetings he bored her, and she dropped him – surely that entitled him to behave as he liked to her, she thought.
‘I must say goodbye here, my dear,’ Layevsky said, stopping. ‘Ilya Mikhaylich will see you home.’ He bowed to Kirilin, quickly crossed the boulevard, went across the street to Sheshkovsky’s house, where the lights were burning in the windows. Then he could be heard banging the gate.
‘I want to have a little talk with you,’ Kirilin began. ‘I’m not a street urchin, not a mere nobody… I demand serious at
tention!’
Nadezhda’s heart pounded away. She did not answer.
‘At first I ascribed the sharp change in your attitude to flirtatiousness,’ Kirilin continued, ‘but now I see that you simply don’t know how to behave towards respectable people. You simply wanted a little game with me, like that Armenian boy, but I’m a respectable man and demand to be treated as such. And so, I’m at your service.’
‘I feel so depressed,’ Nadezhda said, and burst into tears. To hide them she turned away.
‘I’m depressed as well, what of it?’ Kirilin paused for a moment and then said distinctly and deliberately, ‘I repeat, my dear lady. If you don’t grant me a rendezvous today, I shall make a scene this evening.’
‘Just let me off for today,’ Nadezhda said in such a plaintive, thin voice, she did not recognize it.
‘I must teach you a lesson. Excuse my bad manners, but I have to teach you a lesson. Yes, Madam, you must be taught a lesson. I demand two meetings – tonight and tomorrow. The day after you’ll be quite free to go where the hell you like, with whoever you like. Tonight and tomorrow.’
Nadezhda went over to her gate and stopped. ‘Let me go!’ she whispered, trembling all over and unable to see anything in front of her in the dark except a white tunic. ‘You’re right, I’m a dreadful woman… I’m to blame, but let me go, I beg you.’ She touched his cold hand and shuddered. ‘I beg you.’
‘Unfortunately, no!’ Kirilin sighed. ‘No! It’s not my intention to let you go. I only want to teach you a lesson, to make you understand. Besides, Madam, I really don’t trust women.’
‘I feel so depressed.’
Nadezhda listened hard to the steady roar of the sea, glanced up at the star-strewn sky and felt she wanted to finish with everything there and then, to rid herself of the wretched sensation of a life of sea, stars, men, fevers.
‘But not in my house,’ she said coldly. ‘Take me somewhere else.’
‘Let’s go to Myuridov’s, that’s the best place.’
The Steppe and Other Stories, 1887-91 Page 39
