When Ariadna and I were fishing for gudgeon, Lubkov would lie nearby on the sand, make fun of me and instruct me in the art of living.
“I’m amazed, my dear sir, how you can possibly exist without having an affair,” he said. “You’re young, handsome, interesting – in short, a terrific chap, yet you live like a monk. Oh, I’ve no time for these old fogeys at twenty-eight! I’m almost ten years older than you, but who’s the younger? Ariadna Grigoryevna – who?”
“Well, you are of course,” Ariadna replied.
And when he grew bored with our silence and the close attention we were giving our fishing floats he returned to the house.
“In actual fact you’re not a man at all,” she told me with a furious look, “but a real ditherer, God forgive me! A man should get carried away, do mad things, make mistakes, suffer! Women will forgive you if you’re rude and insolent, but they’ll never forgive you for being so stodgy!”
She was really very angry.
“To be successful you must be decisive and bold,” she continued. “Lubkov’s not as good-looking as you, but he’s more interesting and he’ll always be more successful with women because – unlike you – he’s a man.”
And there was even a note of bitterness in her voice. Once over supper – ignoring me – she declared that if she were a man she wouldn’t be vegetating in the country but would have gone travelling, spending the winter somewhere abroad – Italy, for example. Oh, Italy! Here my father unwittingly added fuel to the fire. He gave us a long lecture on the wonders of Italy, how marvellous the weather, how remarkable the museums. Suddenly Ariadna was simply dying to go to Italy. She even struck the table with her fist and her eyes sparkled as if they were saying: “Let’s go!”
And this started everyone talking about how nice it would be in Italy – oooh, Italy! – and so it went on every day, and when Ariadna glanced over her shoulder at me I could tell from her cold, stubborn expression that in her dreams she already had Italy at her feet, with all its salons, famous foreigners, tourists, and that there was no stopping her now. I advised her to wait a little, to postpone the trip for a year or two, but she frowned disdainfully.
“You’re such a stick-in-the-mud – just like an old woman!” she said.
But Lubkov was in favour of the trip. He said that it would work out very cheaply and that he would be delighted to go to Italy as well and have a rest from family life. I must admit I behaved with the naïvety of a schoolboy. Whenever possible I tried not to leave the two of them alone – not from jealousy, but because I had the feeling that something awful would happen. And they would play jokes on me. For instance, when I came into the room they would pretend they’d just been kissing, and so on.
But then, one fine morning, her plump white spiritualist brother appeared and said he wished to have a few words in private with me. That man was completely lacking in all willpower. For all his education and sense of tact he couldn’t resist reading other people’s letters if they happened to be lying on a table. And now, as we were talking, he admitted that he had “accidentally” read Lubkov’s letter to Ariadna.
“I found out from this letter that she’s going abroad very soon. My dear chap, I’m terribly upset. For God’s sake explain it to me! I can’t make head or tail of it.”
As he spoke he was breathing heavily, right into my face – and his breath smelt of boiled beef.
“I do apologize for initiating you into the secrets of that letter,” he continued, “but you’re a friend of Ariadna, she has great respect for you. Perhaps you know something. She wants to go – but with whom? Lubkov intends going with her. I’m sorry to have to say this, but it’s most peculiar behaviour on his part. He’s a married man, with children, yet he declares his love to Ariadna and calls her sweetheart in his letter. It’s really most odd, I must say!”
I went cold all over, my arms and legs grew numb and I felt an extremely sharp pain in my chest. Kotlovich slumped into the armchair, utterly exhausted, his arms dangling limply at his sides.
“But what can I do?” I asked.
“Bring her to her senses, talk her round… Just judge for yourself: what does she want with Lubkov? Is he any sort of match for her? God, it’s terrible, simply terrible!” he continued, clutching his head. “She has such wonderful prospects – Prince Maktuyev and… all the others. The prince adores her and only last Wednesday his late grandfather Ilarion categorically affirmed – as plain as could be – that Ariadna would be his wife. Categorically! Grandfather Ilarion may be dead, but he’s an exceptionally brilliant man. We summon his spirit every day.”
After this conversation I didn’t sleep all night and I wanted to shoot myself. In the morning I wrote five letters and tore them all to shreds. Then I went to have a cry in the threshing barn, after which I borrowed some money from my father and left for the Caucasus without saying goodbye.
Of course, women are women and men are men, but can it really be as simple these days as it was before the Flood? Must I, a man of culture, with a complex spiritual make-up, explain my overwhelming attraction towards a woman by the sole fact that her body is a different shape from mine? Oh, what a dreadful thought! I would like to think that the genius of man, in his struggle against nature, has also done battle with physical love as if it were an enemy, and that if he hasn’t succeeded in defeating it he has at least managed to enmesh it in illusions of brotherhood and love. And for me at least all this wasn’t merely a function of my animal organism, as if I were a dog or a frog, but true love. And every embrace is inspired by a pure impulse of the heart and by respect for women. In fact, revulsion for the animal instinct has been nurtured for hundreds of centuries in hundreds of generations. It has been inherited by me, it is in my blood and is a part of my very being. And if I happen to be romanticizing love now, isn’t that as natural and necessary as the fact that I can’t wiggle my ears or that I’m not covered with fur? I think that most educated people think this way, since the absence of anything moral and romantic about love is nowadays considered an atavistic phenomenon. It’s said to be a symptom of degeneracy, of many forms of insanity. True, in romanticizing love we ascribe virtues to those whom we love that very often they don’t possess at all, and this is a source of repeated mistakes and constant suffering. But if you ask me, it’s better like this – I mean, it’s better to suffer than to try and console yourself with the thought that women are women and men are men.
In Tiflis8 I received a letter from my father. He wrote that on such-and-such date Ariadna had gone abroad with the intention of staying away all winter. A month later I went home. It was autumn. Every week Ariadna sent my father some very interesting letters written in excellent literary style, on scented paper. I really do think that every woman is a potential author. Ariadna described in great detail how difficult it was for her to make peace with her aunt and to borrow a thousand roubles for the journey, how long she’d spent in Moscow trying to track down a distant relative, an old lady, to persuade her to make the trip with her. This excessive detail struck me as pure invention and of course I realized that no such chaperone existed. Soon afterwards I too received a letter from her, also scented and most elegantly written. She wrote that she missed me and my clever, lovelorn eyes, and in friendly terms she reproached me for ruining my youth, for vegetating in the country when I could be living like her, under the palm trees, inhaling the fragrance of orange trees. And she signed herself “Your forsaken Ariadna”. Two days later another letter in the same style arrived, with the signature: “Your forgotten one.” My head went round. I loved her passionately, dreamt of her every night and now there were all these “forsakens”, “forgottens”. Why? What for? But then there was the boredom of living in the country, interminable evenings, nagging thoughts about Lubkov… The uncertainty tormented me, poisoned my days and nights, became insufferable. So I gave in and went abroad.
Ariadna asked me to come to Abbazia.9 I arrived there one fine warm day after a shower, when raindrops were still
hanging on the trees, and I took a room in the same huge barrack-like hotel annexe where Ariadna and Lubkov were staying. They happened to be out, so I went to the local park, wandered along the paths for a while and then sat down. An Austrian general came by with his hands behind his back and with those same red stripes on his trousers as our generals wore. A baby was pushed past in a pram and the wheels squeaked on the damp sand. A decrepit old man with jaundice went by, followed by a group of Englishwomen, a Polish priest, then the same general again. Some military bandsmen who had just arrived from Fiume10 marched to the bandstand, their brass instruments gleaming in the sun, and struck up a tune. Were you ever in Abbazia? It’s a filthy little Slav town with only one street that stinks and which you can only get down in galoshes after it’s been raining. I’d read so much about this earthly paradise – and always with deep emotion – that later, when I was gingerly crossing the street with my trousers hitched up and out of sheer boredom bought some hard pears from an old woman who, seeing I was Russian, deliberately garbled her words; when I was at a loss where to go or what to do; when I was bound to meet other Russians as disenchanted as myself, I felt amazed and ashamed.
There’s a calm bay crossed by steamers and small boats with sails of every colour. From here you can see Fiume and some distant islands veiled in a lilac haze. All this would have been highly picturesque if the view hadn’t been obscured by hotels and their annexes, all constructed in that absurd suburban style used by greedy speculators developing the whole of this verdant coast, so that for the most part all you can see of the paradise is windows, terraces and little squares with small white tables and waiters’ black tailcoats. Here there’s a park, the kind you’ll find in any foreign resort. The dark, motionless, silent foliage of the palm trees, the bright yellow sand on the paths, the bright green benches, the gleam of the soldiers’ blaring trumpets and the general’s red stripes – all this bores you stiff within ten minutes. Meanwhile you’re stuck here for ten days, ten weeks! Having reluctantly dragged myself from one resort to another, I became even more convinced of the uncomfortable, mean lives led by the rich and overfed, of how dull and sluggish their imagination was, how narrow their tastes and desires. How infinitely happier are those tourists, young and old, who are unable to afford a hotel and live where they can, who admire the sea view as they lie on the green grass up in the hills, go everywhere on foot, see forests, villages close up, observe a country’s customs, listen to its songs, fall in love with its women…
While I was sitting in the park darkness began to fall and then my Ariadna appeared in the dusk – elegant and chic, as beautifully dressed as a princess. She was followed by Lubkov, wearing a loose-fitting suit, most likely bought in Vienna.
“Why are you so angwy?” he was saying. “What have I done?”
When she saw me she gave a joyful cry and if we hadn’t been in a park she would certainly have thrown her arms around my neck. She firmly squeezed my hands and laughed. I laughed too and almost wept from emotion. The cross-examination began: How were things in the country? How was my father? Had I seen her brother? And so on. She insisted that I look her in the eye and asked if I remembered the gudgeon, our little quarrels, the picnics… “Oh yes! How wonderful it all was,” she sighed. “But we’re not bored here either – we’ve loads of friends. My darling! My sweet! Tomorrow I’m going to introduce you to a Russian family. Only for heaven’s sake buy yourself another hat.” She looked me up and down and frowned. “Abbazia’s not a little village,” she said. “Here you must be comme il faut.”
Later we went to a restaurant. Ariadna laughed the whole time, was full of fun and kept calling me “darling”, “dear”, “clever”, as if she just couldn’t believe I was there. We stayed until eleven o’clock and departed highly satisfied with the supper and each other. Next day Ariadna introduced me to the Russian family as the “son of a distinguished professor who lives on the neighbouring estate”. All she could talk about with these people was estates and harvests, with constant reference to me. She wanted to create the impression that she came from a rich landowning family – and to be honest she succeeded. She bore herself superbly, like a true-born aristocrat – which in fact she was.
“Isn’t Auntie a scream!” she said suddenly, smiling at me. “We had a little tiff and she’s gone off to Merano.11 What do you think of that?”
Later, when I was strolling in the park with her I asked:
“Whose aunt were you talking about yesterday? I didn’t know anything about an aunt.”
“That was a lie, for the sake of my reputation,” Ariadna laughed. “They mustn’t know I’m here without a chaperone.” After a minute’s silence she snuggled up to me and said:
“Darling, please be friends with Lubkov! He’s so unhappy. His mother and wife are simply awful.”
She was rather offhand towards Lubkov and when she went to bed she wished him goodnight with a “see you in the morning” – just as she did me. And their rooms were on different floors – this led me to hope that it was all nonsense about them having an affair – so I felt very relaxed with him. And once, when he asked for a loan of three hundred roubles, I was delighted to give him the money.
Every day we did nothing but enjoy ourselves. We’d wander around the park, eat and drink. Every day we had a conversation with the Russian family. Gradually I became used to the fact that if I went to the park I’d be bound to meet the old man with jaundice, the Polish priest and the Austrian general, who always carried a small pack of cards – wherever possible he would sit down and lay out patience, nervously twitching his shoulders. And the bandsmen would play the same tunes over and over. Back home in the country I would normally feel ashamed in front of the peasants whenever I drove out with friends for a picnic on a weekday, or went fishing. Similarly I felt ashamed here with all the servants, coachmen or workmen I happened to meet. I had the impression that they were looking at me and wondering why I did nothing. And I had this feeling of shame from morning to night, every single day. It was a strange, unpleasant, tedious time, relieved only when Lubkov borrowed one hundred, then fifty, francs – and like morphine for an addict the money would suddenly cheer him up and he would roar with laughter – at his wife, himself or his creditors.
But then the rains and cold weather set in. We travelled to Italy and I telegraphed my father, begging him – for God’s sake – to cable me a money order for eight hundred roubles, in Rome. We stopped in Venice, Bologna, Florence, and in each city we invariably stayed at an expensive hotel, where they fleeced us, charging extra for lighting, service and heating, for bread with lunch and for the privilege of dining in a private room. We ate a tremendous amount. In the morning we had a full breakfast. At one o’clock we lunched on meat, fish, some kind of omelette, cheese, fruit and wine. At six we had an eight-course dinner, with long pauses, when we drank beer and wine. After eight o’clock we had some tea. Towards midnight Ariadna would announce that she was starving and ordered ham and boiled eggs. We would eat too, to keep her company. In the intervals between meals we would dash around museums and exhibitions with the thought that we mustn’t be late for dinner or lunch uppermost in our minds. Pictures bored me, I just wanted to go back to the hotel and lie down. I would become exhausted, look for a chair with my eyes and hypocritically repeat with the others: “How magnificent! What a feeling for space!” Like bloated boa constrictors we took notice only of objects that glittered. Shop windows mesmerized us and we went into raptures over cheap brooches – and we bought a great deal of worthless, useless junk.
It was the same in Rome. There a cold wind blew and it rained. After a greasy breakfast we went off to look at St Peter’s and because we had been gorging ourselves – or perhaps because of the bad weather – it did not impress us at all and we almost started quarrelling, accusing one another of indifference to art.
The money arrived from Father. I remember going off in the morning to collect it. Lubkov came with me.
“When one has a past on
e can’t have a full and happy life in the present,” he said. “My past is like a millstone around my neck. However, it wouldn’t be so bad if I had some money… but I’m broke… Believe me, I’ve only eight francs left,” he continued, lowering his voice, “and yet I have to send my wife a hundred and my mother the same amount. And then I have to live here. Ariadna’s just like a child, she turns a blind eye to everything and throws money around like a duchess. Why did she have to go and buy a watch yesterday? And why do we have to go around acting as if we were little children? You tell me! With me staying in a separate room it’s costing me an extra ten to fifteen francs a day to hide our relationship from servants and friends. What’s the point?”
I felt that same sharp pain in my chest. The uncertainty was gone, everything was quite clear to me now. I felt cold all over and I decided immediately not to see either of them, to escape and return home without delay…
“Having sex is easy,” he continued. “All you need do is undress the woman. But it’s what comes afterwards that’s such a drag, such a load of nonsense!”
As I was counting the money he said:
“I’m finished if you don’t lend me a thousand francs. That money’s my very last hope.”
I gave him the money and he immediately cheered up and started laughing at his uncle, that silly old fool who hadn’t managed to keep his address a secret from his wife. Back in the hotel I packed and paid the bill. It only remained to say goodbye to Ariadna. I knocked at her door.
“Entrez!”
Her room was in the usual morning chaos – tea things on the table, a half-eaten roll, an eggshell. There was a strong, stifling smell of scent. The bed hadn’t been made and it was obvious that two people had slept in it. Ariadna had only just got up and she was wearing a flannel bed jacket; her hair was uncombed.
I said good morning, then I sat for a minute in silence while she tried to tidy her hair. Then, trembling all over, I asked:
Ward No. 6 and Other Stories, 1892-1895 Page 14
