TO LONDON RESTAURANT GIPSY CHOIR OWNER KARPOV DROP EVERYTHING COME IMMEDIATELY TWO O’CLOCK TRAIN THE COUNT
‘It’s a quarter to eleven now,’ the Count said. ‘My man can ride to the station in three quarters of an hour – one hour maximum. Karpov will get the telegram before one. So he’ll have time to catch the express. Should he miss it he can take the goods train. Yes?’
VI
One-eyed Kuzma was dispatched with the telegram, Ilya was instructed to send carriages to the station one hour later. To kill time I slowly started lighting the lamps and candles in every room. Then I opened the grand piano and tried a few notes.
And then I remember lying on the same ottoman, thinking of nothing and silently waving away the Count, who was pestering me with his incessant chatter. I was in a kind of semi-conscious state, half-asleep, aware only of the bright light from the lamps and my serene and cheerful state of mind. A vision of the girl in red, her little head inclined towards her shoulder, her eyes filled with horror at the prospect of that dramatic death, appeared before me and gently shook its tiny finger at me. A vision of another girl, in black dress and with a pale, proud face, drifted past and looked at me half-imploringly, half-reproachfully.
Then I heard noise, laughter, people running about. Deep black eyes came between me and the light. I could see their sparkle, their laughter. A joyful smile flickered on luscious lips… it was my gipsy girl Tina smiling at me.
‘Is it you?’ she asked. ‘Are you asleep? Get up, my darling… I haven’t seen you for ages.’
Without a word I pressed her hand and drew her to me.
‘Let’s go into the other room… we’ve all arrived.’
‘Let’s stay here… I like it here, Tina…’
‘But there’s too much light… you’re crazy… someone might come in.’
‘If anyone does I’ll wring their neck. I like it here, Tina. It’s two years since I last saw you.’
Someone was playing the piano in the ballroom.
‘Ah, Moscow, Moscow,
Moscow with your white stone walls…’24
several voices bawled at once.
‘Can you hear? They’re all in there singing… no one will come in.’
My encounter with Tina roused me from my half-conscious state. Ten minutes later she led me into the ballroom, where the choir was standing in a semicircle. The Count was straddling a chair and beating time with his hands. Pshekhotsky stood behind his chair, watching those songbirds with astonished eyes. I grabbed Karpov’s balalaika from his hands, performed a wild flourish and started singing:
‘Down Mo-other Vo-olga
Do-own the Riv-er Vo-olga…’25
And the choir responded:
‘Oh burn, oh speak… speak!’26
I waved my arm and in an instant, as quick as lightning, there followed another rapid transition:
‘Nights of madness, nights of gladness…’27
Nothing stimulates and titillates my nerves so much as abrupt transitions like these. I trembled with delight. With one arm around Tina and waving the balalaika in the other, I sang Nights of Madness to the end. The balalaika crashed to the floor and broke into small splinters…
‘More wine!’
After that my memories verge on the chaotic. Everything becomes muddled, confused, everything grows vague and blurred… I remember the grey sky of early morning… We are in rowing-boats. The lake is slightly ruffled and seems to be grumbling at the sight of our debauchery. I stand reeling in the middle of the boat. Tina tries to convince me that I’ll fall into the water and she begs me to sit down. But I complain out loud that there are no waves on the lake as high as Stone Grave and my shouts frighten the martins that dart like white spots over the blue surface.
Then follows a long, hot day with its interminable lunch, ten-year-old liqueurs, bowls of punch, drunken brawls. I remember but a few moments of that day, I remember rocking on the garden swing with Tina. I’m standing at one end of the seat, she at the other. I work with my whole body, in a wild frenzy, with my last ounce of strength and I cannot really say whether I want Tina to fall off the swing and be killed, or to fly right up to the clouds. Tina stands there as pale as death, but she is proud and vain, and has clenched her teeth in order not to betray her fear with the least sound. Higher and higher we fly and I cannot remember how it all ended. Then came a stroll with Tina down that distant avenue with the green vault screening it from the sun. Poetic half-light, black locks, luscious lips, whispers… And then at my side there walks a small contralto singer, a fair-haired girl with a sharp little nose, the eyes of a child and a very slender waist. I stroll with her until Tina, who has been following us, comes along and makes a scene. The gipsy girl is pale and furious. She damns me and is so offended that she prepares to return to town. Pale-faced and with trembling hands, the Count runs around us and as usual cannot find the words to persuade Tina to stay. Finally Tina slaps my face. It’s strange: the most innocuous, barely offensive words spoken by a man send me into a frenzy, but I’m quite indifferent to the slaps women give me… And then again those long hours after dinner, again that snake on the steps, again sleeping Franz with flies around his mouth, again that garden gate. The girl in red stands on the top of Stone Grave but disappears like a lizard as soon as she sees us.
By evening Tina and I are once again friends. There follows the same wild night, music, rollicking songs with titillating, nerve-tingling transitions… and not one moment’s sleep!
‘This is self-destruction!’ whispers Urbenin, who has dropped in for a moment to listen to our singing.
Of course, he was right. I later recalled the Count and myself standing in the garden, face to face, arguing. Nearby strolls that black-browed Kaetan, who had taken no part in our jollification but who nevertheless had not slept and who kept following us like a shadow. The sky is pale now and the rays of the rising sun are already beginning to shed their golden light over the highest tree top. All around I can hear the chatter of busy sparrows, the singing of starlings, rustling, the flapping of wings that had grown heavy during the night. I can hear the lowing herd and shepherds’ cries. Close by is a small, marble-topped table. A Shandor candle28 stands on it, burning with a pale light… there are cigarette ends, sweet wrappers, broken glasses, orange peel…
‘You must take this!’ I say, handing the Count a bundle of banknotes. ‘I shall force you to take them!’
‘But it was I who invited the gipsies, not you!’ cries the Count, trying to grab one of my buttons. ‘I’m master here, I treated you… so why on earth should you pay? Please understand that I even take this as an insult!’
‘But I engaged them too, so I’ll pay half. You refuse to accept it? Well, I don’t understand the reason for these favours! Surely you don’t think that because you’re stinking rich you have the right to offer me such favours? Damn it – I engaged Karpov, so I’ll pay him! I don’t need your “half”. And I wrote the telegram!’
‘In a restaurant, Seryozha, you can pay as much as you like, but my house isn’t a restaurant. And then, I really don’t understand why you’re making all this fuss, I don’t understand why you’re so eager to pay. You don’t have much money, but I’m rolling in it. Justice itself is on my side!’
‘So you won’t take it? No? Well, don’t!’
I hold the banknotes up to the faint candlelight, set fire to them and throw them on the ground. A groan suddenly bursts from Kaetan’s chest. He becomes wide-eyed, turns pale and falls heavily to the floor, trying to put out the flames with the palms of his hands… in this he succeeds.
‘I don’t understand!’ he says, stuffing the singed banknotes into his pocket. ‘Burning money! Just as if it were last year’s chaff or love letters! Better give it all away to some beggar than consign it to the flames.’
I enter the house… there, in every room, sprawled over sofas and carpets, sleep the gipsies – exhausted, completely worn out. My Tina is sleeping on the ottoman in the ‘mosaic’ dr
awing-room.
She lies stretched out and she’s breathing heavily. Her teeth are clenched, her face pale. She’s probably dreaming of swings. Owlet wanders through all the rooms, looking malignantly with her sharp eyes at those who had so rudely disturbed the deathly silence of that forgotten estate. Not for nothing does she go around tiring her old bones.
That’s all that remains in my memory after two wild nights – the rest either hasn’t been preserved by my inebriated brain cells or cannot be described here with any decency. But enough of that!
Never before had Zorka borne me so zealously as on that morning after the burning of the banknotes. She too wanted to go home. The lake gently rolled its foamy waves: reflecting the rising sun, it was preparing for its daytime slumber. The woods and willows along the banks were motionless, as if at morning prayer. It is difficult to describe my state of mind at the time. Without going into too much detail I shall merely say that I was delighted beyond words – and at the same time I was almost consumed with shame when, as I turned out of the Count’s estate, I saw by the lakeside old Mikhey’s saintly face, emaciated by honest toil and illness. Mikhey resembles a biblical fisherman. His hair is as white as snow, he has a large beard and he gazes contemplatively at the sky. When he stands motionless on the bank, following the racing clouds with his eyes, you might fancy he sees angels in the sky… I’m very fond of such faces!
When I saw him I reined in Zorka and gave him my hand, as if wishing to cleanse myself through contact with his honest, calloused hand. He looked up at me with his small, sagacious eyes and smiled.
‘Good morning, sir!’ he said, awkwardly offering me his hand. ‘Why’ve you come galloping over here again? Is that old layabout back?’
‘He is.’
‘I thought so, I can see it from your face. ’Ere I be standing and looking. What a world! Vanity of vanities, says I! Just look! That German deserves to die – all ’e bothers ’isself with is worthless things. Can you see ’im?’
The old man pointed his stick at the Count’s bathing-place. A rowing-boat was swiftly moving away from it and a man in a jockey cap and blue jacket was sitting in it. It was Franz the gardener.
‘Every morning ’e takes something out to the island and hides it. That fool can’t get it into ’is head that sand and money are worth the same as far as ’e’s concerned – can’t take ’em with ’im when ’e dies. Please give me a cigarette, sir!’
I offered him my cigarette case. He took three out and stuffed them into his breast pocket.
‘They’re for me nephew…’e can smoke ’em.’
My impatient Zorka gave a start and flew off. I bowed to the old man, thankful that he’d let my eyes rest upon his face. For a long time he stood there watching me go.
VII
At home I was greeted by Polikarp. With a contemptuous, crushing look, he inspected my noble body, as if trying to find out whether on this occasion I’d been bathing fully dressed in my suit or not.
‘Congratulations!’ he growled. ‘I can see you had a good time!’
‘Shut up, you fool!’ I replied.
I was incensed by his stupid face. After quickly undressing I covered myself with a blanket and closed my eyes.
My head was in a spin and the world became enveloped in mist. In that mist familiar shapes flashed by… the Count, the snake, Franz, those flame-coloured dogs, the girl in red, crazy Nikolay Yefimych…
‘A husband murdered his wife! Oh, how stupid you are!’ The girl in red wagged her finger at me, Tina blotted out the light with her black eyes and I… I fell asleep.
‘How sweetly, how peacefully he sleeps! When you look at that innocent child’s smile and listen closely to that regular breathing you might think that this is no investigating magistrate lying there on the bed but the living embodiment of a pure conscience! You might even think that Count Karneyev hadn’t returned, that there had been neither drunkenness nor gipsy girls, nor scandals on the lake. Get up, you most spiteful of men! You are not worthy of enjoying such bliss as peaceful slumber. Arise!’
I opened my eyes and stretched myself voluptuously. From the window to my bed streamed a broad ray of sunlight in which minute white specks of dust were chasing each other in great agitation, so that the ray itself seemed tinted dull white. The sunbeam kept disappearing from sight, then reappearing, depending on whether our charming district doctor, Pavel Ivanovich Voznesensky – who was walking around my bedroom – entered or left the field of light. In his long, unbuttoned frock-coat that hung loosely, as if from a clothes peg, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his unusually long trousers, the doctor paced from corner to corner, from chair to chair, from portrait to portrait, screwing up his short-sighted eyes at everything they happened to fall upon. True to his habit of poking his nose and snooping into everything wherever he could, he would bend down and then stand bolt upright again, peering at the wash basin, at the folds of the lowered curtains, at chinks in the door, at the lamp, just as if he were looking for something or wanting to satisfy himself that all was in order. As he stared through his spectacles at some chink, or some stain on the wallpaper, he would frown, assume a worried expression, sniff with his long nose and studiously scratch away with his fingernail. All this he performed mechanically, involuntarily, from sheer habit. Nevertheless, he gave the impression of a surveyor carrying out some inspection as his eyes swiftly passed from one object to the other.
‘Get up! You’re being spoken to!’ he said, waking me up with his melodious tenor voice, peering into the soap dish and removing a hair from the soap with his fingernail.
‘A… a… a… good morning, Dr Screwy!’ I yawned when I spotted him bending over the washstand. ‘It’s been ages since Hast saw you!’
The whole district teased the doctor by calling him ‘Screwy’ on account of his habit of constantly screwing up his eyes. And I too teased him with that nickname. When he saw that I was awake, Voznesensky came over to me, sat on the edge of the bed and immediately raised a matchbox to his screwed-up eyes.
‘Only idlers or those with a clear conscience sleep like you do,’ he said. ‘And as you’re neither one nor the other, it might be more becoming if you got up a bit earlier, dear chap.’
‘What’s the time?’
‘Just gone eleven.’
‘To hell with you, silly old Screwy! No one asked you to wake me so early! Do you know, it was after five when I got to bed and if it hadn’t been for you I’d have slept until this evening.’
‘That’s right!’ came Polikarp’s deep voice from the next room. ‘As if he hasn’t slept enough! It’s the second day he’s been sleeping, but it’s still not enough! Do you know what day it is?’ Polikarp asked, entering the bedroom and looking at me the way clever people look at fools.
‘It’s Wednesday,’ I said.
‘Oh yes, of course it is! They’ve arranged for a week to have two Wednesdays, specially for you!’
‘Today’s Thursday!’ said the doctor. ‘So, my dear chap, you managed to sleep through the whole of Wednesday! Very nice! Very nice! And how much did you have to drink, may I ask?’
‘I hadn’t slept for two days and I drank – I just can’t remember how much I drank.’
After I had dismissed Polikarp I started dressing and describing to the doctor those recently experienced ‘nights of madness, wild words’ that are so fine, so touching in songs but so ugly in reality. In my description I tried not to overstep the limits of the ‘light genre’, to keep to the facts and not to lapse into moralizing, although all this was alien to the nature of one with a passion for summarizing and making deductions. As I spoke I pretended to be talking about trifles that didn’t worry me in the least. Respecting Pavel Ivanovich’s chaste ears and conscious of his revulsion for the Count, I concealed a great deal, touched on many things only superficially – but for all that, despite my playful tone and grotesque turn of phrase, the doctor looked me gravely in the eye throughout my narrative, constantly shaking his head a
nd impatiently jerking his shoulders. Not once did he smile. Evidently my ‘light genre’ made a far from light impression on him.
‘Why aren’t you laughing, Screwy?’ I asked after I’d finished my description.
‘If it weren’t you who was telling me all this, and if it hadn’t been for a certain incident, I’d never have believed a word of it. But it’s absolutely shocking, old man!’
‘What incident are you talking about?’
‘The peasant whom you so indelicately treated to a taste of the oar called on me yesterday evening… Ivan Osipov…’
‘Ivan Osipov?’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of him.’
‘He’s tall, red-haired, with freckles. Try to remember! You hit him on the head with an oar.’
‘I’m really at a complete loss… I don’t know any Osipov. I never hit anyone with an oar. You must have been dreaming, old boy!’
‘If only it were a dream! He came to me with an official letter from the Karneyev district authorities and asked for a medical certificate. In the letter it states – and he’s not telling any lies – that it was you who inflicted the wound. Still don’t remember? You bruised him above the forehead, just at the hairline – went right down to the bone, dear chap!’
‘I can’t remember,’ I whispered. ‘Who is he? What does he do?’
‘He’s just an ordinary peasant from the Karneyev estate. He was one of the oarsmen when you were making merry on the lake.’
‘Hm… it’s possible… I can’t remember. I was probably drunk… and then, somehow, by accident…’
‘No sir, it wasn’t by accident. He says that you lost your temper with him for some reason, kept swearing at him – and then you became really furious, leapt over and struck him in front of witnesses. What’s more, you shouted: “I’ll kill you, you rotten bastard!” ’
I went red and paced from corner to corner.
‘For the life of me I can’t remember,’ I said, making a great effort of memory. ‘I can’t remember! You say I lost my temper – when I’m drunk I’m usually unforgivably loathsome!’
The Shooting Party Page 9
